No real idea what to write about tonight, so this blog is going to be freestyle.

I believe I have officially had too much caffeine now. I have had a lot of Diet Coke in the last two days and it is catching up to me. I had some with yesterday’s lunch, yesterday’s dinner, today’s lunch, and today’s dinner, and now I feel all twitchy and trembling and I believe I have started to very gently and subtly vibrate.

So no caff for me for at least 24 hours. My slacked metabolism just can’t take it. Prudence dictates a cooling off period before I end up with heart palpitations or something.

Still wrestling my demons, and kicking their asses. Today I had a fruitful revelation. Turns out that with the rock of hating myself for “doing nothing” removed, I could finally see what was slithering around underneath : I am just plain bored.

That is the real issue with my restless afternoons. Playing video games and listening to podcasts is great for a while, but the truth is, it is just not enough, and I can see that clearly now.

I also can see that I have been, in a sense, holding my own head down for a long time. So deep was my emotional conviction that life held nothing for me that I put very severe blinkers on myself so that I would not look out of my cage and be tormented by visions of things I could never have.

It was like some kind of perverse and inverted form of Buddhism, where I decided it was easier to just cut off all desires rather than to actually have to pursue them. It seems downright inhuman (and inhumane) now. Everybody has desires. Having a desire one cannot immediately fulfill is not the worst thing in the world. Not when the alternative is the kind of soul-deadening, self-destroying ligation of all my heart’s desires.

That is how deep the anti-action bias has sunk its roots into my living soul. Even now, just talking (typing) about this subject, I can hear a little voice inside me saying “But if I want things, that will mean I’ll have to DO things. ”

First of all, not necessarily. You could just enjoy wanting it and dreaming about it. That’s a lot healthier than smothering the desire in its cradle.

But secondly and more importantly, so you end up doing things. So what? The anti-action bias, that malfunction of one’s hide response, says that only when we are hidden and immobile are we safe, and therefore all action means danger. It is the drive that makes the deer freeze in the headlights of a car.

And we all know how well that works out for the deer.

I just have to repeat to myself the heretical thought that I want to do things. I want to be more active. I want to move and act and do and seek and explore and do all the other things that my stunned deer response has denied me.

Now the anti-action bias in me is really screaming. I have been chipping away at its defenses for a long time, getting halfway closer, then halfway again, and so on in a Xeno’s Paradox way.

And all the time, it has remained fairly quiet, because no matter how thin the wall protecting it got, I never actually quite got around to actually, you know, doing active things. Its empire was secure. All the therapy in the world would do is make me realize a bunch of things I should be doing, and when that word is in the equation, the depression always wins.

Should equals pressure equals anxiety equals aversion attachment equals victory for the bad guys.

But unlike in Xeno’s paradox or one of those equations where X approached a number but can never reach it, in this case when I get close enough, I can leap the gap. Like a synapse firing when enough charge accumulates, I can complete the circuit and free myself from this cycle.

Of course, I have to keep reminding myself to take things slow. My natural proclivities always makes me want to rush into things on a big wave of enthusiasm and reach for the stars, and that is a wonderful thing and something I am learning to really value in myself, but lasting progress comes a little at a time.

One day, I will harness those waves of enthusiasm and run a whole empire on its hydroelectric power. But for now, I have to pour my energies into making slow, steady progress in opening myself up inside and letting all the bad air out so clean, fresh air can replace it.

I will emerge from the wreckage of the old machine in my own due time. Trying to rush it would just set off that whole pressure chain again. For now, I am content to simply let the process happen, and I will do my best to not go crazy and want to do everything right now at the same time.

That kind of thing is what has kept me in. I will not go down that road any more.

Spending an afternoon “doing nothing” is fine. It’s not nothing, I am doing many things. There is no such thing as ‘doing nothing’ unless you are in a very deep coma. Even in sleep, we dream.

But if the real issue is being unhappy (and it is), the question becomes what to do to be less bored. Like I have said before, I need more stations. There’s the bed, and the big computer, and that’s it.

Even getting back into playing games on the Wii would be an improvement, because at least I would be out of bed, out of my bedroom, and doing something a little more active than just lounging around.

So it doesn’t have to be me charging out into the world and never looking back. That is just not going to happen. It will be a slow and easy, no-pressure, natural expansion of my comfort zone.

One must walk before they can run, and crawl before they can walk.

But I’m in this for the long haul, so… no rush. I will get there when I get there, and the there I get to might well look nothing like the one I set out to find.

And that’s fine.

Seeya tomorrow, folks!