Here’s another battle in the war to unlock my cage.

I’ve about trying to live a natural life. Not in the sense of eating only organic produce and such^[1], but in the sense of being able to relax in my own skin and not constantly second-guess myself and try to control things with my conscious rational mind that would be far better handled by a lower down process that evolved specifically to do that kind of thing.

It’s a tricky thing to explain. I’ve tried to get my therapist to understand it but had no luck. It’s hard to describe something that operates on such a deep level of my mind – the really fundamental machine code levels of my mind.

LOL. The jackhammer outside sounds hilariously farty from here.

I will try to explain it via a story : In elementary school, I was a super clumsy kid. As in, running into walls and tripping over my own feet clumsy.

And to be honest, I never totally got over that. I just got better at avoiding doing things that required a dexterity level of “total spaz”.

But I did get better. And that’s a good thing. But the way I improved was not a good thing. I improved more or less by sheer act of will. Specifically, I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was to solve it by throwing my mind at the problem and developing an instinct to concentrating really hard on things most people do without a thought.

That means that even when merely getting through life, I am under constant strain. For the most part, it’s not conscious, but it’s always there. It’s as though life is simply twice as hard for me. I am living on a higher level of difficulty than most people. Doing something like going to the grocery store to pick up a few things involves a level of strain that most people only feel during a tough exam.

Not to mention that I am also in constant struggle with my social anxiety the whole time.

Fundamentally, the problem is one of emotions. I don’t trust mine. That goes for all the levels, like instinct, reflex, and empathy, to name a few. On a very deep level, I am terrified to let myself go and act on impulse. To my mind, that can only lead to massive failure and terrible consequences. Every impulse faces a very strict acceptability court and almost all of them get eliminated at that point.

I feel compelled to do the “smart” thing at all times, and operate on a punishing level of background anxiety. When I was a scared little kid, I hid in logic, knowledge, and the power of my mind. . It seemed like a winning solution at the time. I would use my crazy smart brain to look for the most logical answer that increased the greater good. I would avoid what I could and do what I could not avoid via intense concentration and paranoid anxiety that was on constant lookout for the next thing that was going to trip me up and embarrass and humiliate because I could not do some simple thing.

And until I convince that deep down part of myself that sometimes, emotion alone is good enough to get the job done, I will not be able to eliminate that anxiety and be able to relax in my own skin and not worry about stuff so much.

That’s the advice my uncle Sonny gave me on Facebook recently. He told me that I don’t need to analyze everything and that I should learn to just relax and enjoy life.

And he is absolutely right. I have no skill at enjoying life. Between rank poverty and crippling social anxiety, I have not had a lot of chances to go have fun out there in the real world and maybe learn enough about myself so I can fucking relax once in a while.

All I know is books, the Internet, and video games. Virtual experiences. Pale shadows of the real thing, and no good for building a life.

I know that how I live is wrong – very wrong – in terms of my spiritual health and growth. I have been stuffed into this tiny cage for a very long time and it’s led me to have a very cramped, stifled soul that years to breathe free, but is terrified of it too.

It’s all just so… unknown.  And unknowable.

I am extremely alienated from my emotions. We’re not even living under the same roof on a conscious level. I still have emotions, obviously, but I have suppressed them in order to be “rational” and see things with “clarity” for so long, I can’t imagine anything else.

And the thing is, it works. The magic is real. I have deep insight into a lot of things and “see” a lot of things that are invisible to others. This increases my mental power to an nearly un-measurable degree. My substantial intellect has a lot to work with. My power frightens me sometimes.

But none of that makes me happy. None of it enriches my soul or makes me feel good about my life. I end up feeling empty and cold a lot of the time because it’s all ice cold pleasure devoid of nutrition.

I can tell you how to defeat terrorism forever, but I don’t know how to be happy. The fear pins me in and I am locked tight in a cage without bars. I really want to escape the darkness and walk in the sun, but I am terrified of the exposure that would involve.

I wish I had the courage to say “Fuck it!”, escape, and destroy the cage so that I can never ever ever come back. Then deal with whatever consequences may come.

And maybe some day I will.

But for now, all I can do is grow a little stronger every day.

And that will have to do.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.