Specifically, in maintaining it.

I really need to get my sleep organized. Right now it’s highly fragmented. As a result, I never know when I will get very sleepy and hence have to fight the velvet fog of Dreamland just to get anything done.

And that is both depressing and stressful.

So it’s depressful.

That means I have to start getting dressed for the day. Yeah, I am still lounging around naked when I am alone, even though I know it is bad for me.

It’s so easy and low commitment that it is hard for me to resist. Especially in this heat. Normally, what gets me to put on clothes is that some part of me is cold.

But not in this kind of weather. God dammit.

Anyhow, today is confession day, because I have realized something about my life and how I am living it right now that fills me with shame but that I feel like I absolutely must express to the world in order to keep it from disappearing into the primordial haze of my brain as an unwanted truth and thus not helping me grow.

I trust that will eventually make sense to most people.

My confession is this : progress in video games is my substitute for progress in life.

I figured this out when I was trying to puzzle out why sometimes playing my games felt like a job and why I felt like I was falling behind when I didn’t play them and why a lack of progress in one could make me far more depressed than you would think.

I feel so lame admitting all this. It’s downright pathetic. It’s a humiliating thing to realize about myself because it makes me feel like such a loser. A grown man who uses video games as a substitute for actually gettings things done in life.

But the evidence is clear, as is my introspective sense of what is going on in this voluminous cabeza of mine. Video games are where I get my sense of progress and accomplishment even though playing them doesn’t accomplish jack shit.

And Jack left town.

The “great” thing about progress in video games is that I can do it completely alone. That means that there is nobody watching to judge me if I screw up. Nobody is there getting impatient with me when I don’t get it right the first time. There is nobody to make me feel like I don’t belong there and should just go.

And the best thing is, I don’t have to deal with reality in the slightest!

It’s the perfect drug.

And the fact that playing a video game doesn’t accomplish anything real is not a bug in the process, it’s a feature. Real world progress creates the expectation of more progress to come, and hence creates pressure.

And I cannot handle pressure.

At least, not that kind of pressure. I thrive on other kinds of pressure, like deadlines or a heavy workload or writing a million words in a year.

So what’s the difference? Hmmm. Hard to say. Perhaps the kind of pressure I love is the kind that I am confident I can handle and that I can see coming.

And the kind that freaks me out is open-ended and unpredictable and makes me feel like I am trapped.

Maybe it’s a mood thing. I dunno.

Anyhow, that’s today big confession. I use the false progress in video games as a substitute for real progress in my life.

It’s also a substitute for having a job, which is even sadder. Video games give me a sense of purpose and direction and someplace to focus all that mental energy that I generate with my big bad brain.

I wonder if it’s that energy that gives me my strange aura. The one that makes people say “You’re obviously really intelligent… ”

I think that, at some early age, I must have tuned in to the “brightness” channel and learned to radiate my energies in that direction in order to get adults to be impressed by me and to make my mother happy with me.

But there is more to life than making people see how fucking brilliant I am.

Repeat until believed.

I really do feel a strong urge to prove myself. That’s normal for a teenager but a little odd in a 45 year old who is only now experiencing emotional puberty.

And I have so much to prove. I know that I am a brilliant guy who could make amazing television if given the chance.

It’s getting the chance that confounds me. And that’s always been the case. There’s a zillion jobs I could do splendidly but I will never get those jobs because employers are going to look at the 20 year gap in my employment record and shitcan my resume without even asking me a question.

And if I did, by accident, get a job interview, that same thing will come up.

And the only answer I have to explain all that time is “I’ve been very sick”.

But I feel MUCH better now.

And sure, if the world was fair, that would be enough. But the world isn’t fair and they have a lot of applicants who don’t have all that time in the penalty box hanging over their heads and why the hell did I even bother trying to have hope.

But I do have hope. Because I think it is possible that I could dazzle a potential employer with my charisma and personality to the point where they forget all about odd things about my resume.

I am only now coming to understand my power of personaity. I have always feared and suppressed it before. I suppose I didn’t want the responsibility.

But now I am totally down with turning my bright and shiny personality up to 11 in order to get what I want.

Now if only I could get that interview. And not just in the literal sense. I am sure I could get SOMEone to give me some kind of chance eventually.

But that woukd involved a lot of faith in myself, persistance, and a constant input of energy, and I am not so good at those yet,.

But I am learning more every day.

WIsh me luck.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.