Everything is always one layer more complicated than I think it will be. Even when I try to compensate for that fact.

It’s like peeling an infinite onion.

Here’s the scoop : vanilla.

Here’s the real scoop : So I did nothing ro further my career goals today. Instead I played Fallout 4 all afternoon.

And played WITH Fallout 4 all afternoon.

See, at one point, when the game was only semi-old, I played the hell out of it. I must have beaten the game at least eight times, each time with a different character build ino order to keep things interesting.

But I did not know modding was even a thing back then. So the one thing I did not do with it was mod it.

Well after being frustrated with some new releases I have tried recently, I decided to finally get around to re-installing the game and now I have discovered a simply massive mod scene almost as big as Skyrim’s.

Uh oh, part of me says.

Anyhow, the point of all that was that I did not pursue my ambitions today, and I am beginning to worry that my current relaxed approached (no pressure, it’s not what I am supposed to do, etc) means I have essentially given myself infinite permission to fuck around and never get around to doing anything that isn’t 100 percent fun, and the hyper controlling part of me is freaking the fuck out about it.

I keep reminding myself that the secret is to ask myself if I want to do it. And I mean, genuinely want, not just “That would be nice, I guess”.

But that overactive superego of mine had an awful lot of trouble with the idea that something will get done in its own time and wants schedules, goals, deadlines, and all that other stuff that sounds great on paper but just makes me depressed.

I can’t operate like that. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can work like hell when someone else generates the impetus and goals, but on my own, it’s a no-go.

I just can’t generate my own structure. Not one that will actually work for me, anyhow.

I can come up with all kinds of practices, habits, and systems (oh the systems!) that would totally move me towards my goals in a smooth and predictable manner.

If I actually did them. Which I would not. The part of my mind that is so good at making systems that sound really smart and efficient and creative has not yet learned to take into account the fact that my motivational machinery is all clogged up with thick, cold, sticky wads of depression and so anything complicated is absolutely beyond me.

I really don’t want to believe that. I would like to go on thinking that some day I will invent the system that changes everything for me. It’s a very lovely delusion and I will miss it terribly.

But I have to face the facts. (Literally. I can’t help myself. ) I am never, ever, ever going to solve my problems via thinking. Mentation, in this situation, is nothing more than mental masturbation, or maybe a hamster wheel for my overpowered mind.

It amounts to the same thing.

So right now I am conflicted. Struggling with myself, even. Like everything that has to do with the roid monkey that is my superego, it’s like defusing a bomb. One false move and the whole thing explodes.

Maybe that’s the wrong approach, though. Maybe that’s giving that crazy motherfucker exactly what it wants. Maybe I should be setting it off on purpose in order to desensitize myself to it and burn it out.

I hope not. That sounds hard.

I am stuck trying to figure out how I motivate myself to do the things I want to do without it turning into another self-prosecutorail arena where that fucking monkey beats me over the head with the fact that I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing because I am a pathetic loser and a horrible, broken, diseased person and the world would be better off if I just…

I think you get the drift. I can only avoid the downward spiral if I don’t trigger it.

There has to be a better way.

What i want most is to find and firmly connect with my own, genuine, intrinsic motivations for doing the things I want to do. That way, there is no conflict between what I want to be doing and what I am doing when I do those fruitful things.

Doing things based on your intrinsic motivations turns what can be a very complicated issue into something as pure and simple as masturbation.

Nobody needs an extrinsic motivation to masturbate.

To put it mildly. it’s its own reward.

But my psychological scar tissue gets in the way. And my general fearfulness about unpredictable things with no clear end point.

That whole, ‘I will not set foot on a road till I know where it goes’ thing.

It’s very, very limiting.

It’s insane (then again, so am I) that there is a part of me that refuses to hook up those intrinsic motivations because that could change everything and it assumes that all change is a descent into chaotic madness unless it can verify that it is not.

Change is scary, even when it’s good.

I have so many conflict layers of fear and aversion that it’s no wonder I am so confused most of the time.

There is a lot going on between my ears, most of it violent. I wish I could just tear down all the walls and let all the waters of my mind mingle and combine until it is all quiet and calm and serene because all the conflicts have been resolved.

Sure, I’d be a vegetable. But a happy vegetable.

There are times when being a happy vegetable seems infinitely preferable to being a miserable genius. It’s not like having all these brains has ever done me much good.

I never attracted a competent mentor.

The ease with which I aced my academics never brought me to the notice of anyone looking for young talent.

Nobody ever viewed me as something valuable that should be nurtured and protected so that I would reach my full potential.

Everyone just left me all alone, in the doldrums, forever.

And I am still thre.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.