I’ve been doing it all wrong again.
In that I have gotten back into feeling like I am doing it all wrong again.
Patient readers know the score. That constant feeling like I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing. A feeling I escape by fleeing into video games et al.
Et tu, al?
It’s a habit of thought I can’t seem to break. And it’s one well worth breaking, because it’s extremely self-destructive and maladaptive and, like, bad.
But try as I might to get rid of it, the moment my back is turned, it creeps back in, and stays there until I have this exact same revelation again six months from now.
And it runs deep. I really can’t imagine it not being there. The very idea that there is nothing I am supposed to be doing refuses to compile.
I mean, I can imagine it, and it seems nice. Seems like it would make me feel very free to be completely self-indulgent and lazy and I would finally be able to live to be happy and that is fucking IT.
But I can’t imagine that lasting very long. After all, it hasn’t in the past. Some deep part of me needs that feeling of constant failure. That’s the only way the world makes sense to me and to it.
After all, if there is nothing I am supposed to be doing, why am I here? Perhaps this feeling of mine is where my sense of purpose goes to die, It’s a result of all my intentions and ambitions and desires being locked in perpetual logjam behind the stone wall of my depression and all the makes is through is a vague feeling that I should being doing… something or other.
Dunno what. When I try to figure it out, my mind instantly overloads on options and shuts the fuck down.
Whatever it is that would let me choose an option – something involving the id and being a live person with instincts and passions and everything – I am sorely lacking.
I don’t even know what I want.
In fact, I’m scared of wanting things. In my deep mind, wanting things only leads to intense suffering because I am utterly powerless to get said things. Better off not wanting them in the first place.
It’s like Buddhism only pathetic.
That’s why there’s $2K sitting on my reloadable that I haven’t even touched yet. To spend it would require me to decide what to spend it on and there are just so many goddamned possibilities that I can’t do that, either.
Makes me wonder what would happen if I won the lottery.
I’d probably end up living like Scrooge – as cheaply as possible despite being rich,
And it all links back to indecision and my lack of vitality and all that shit. And I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t know how to fix my deeply broken connection to life and bring myself back from the dead.
Thinking won’t do it. It would have to be something far deeper than the conscious mind could ever hope to reach.
And I don’t know what to do with things like that. I don’t know how to handle them. There’s no point of entry, no handholds to grip them.
And maybe that’s the point.
More after the break,
Never the same river twice
I am positive that I had a truly excellent idea for what this half of today’s blogging would be about. I even remember repeating it to myself in my head a bunch of times so that I would not forget it.
But I still forgot it. It’s gone forever now. The swift and powerful river of my mind carried it away as quickly as it brought it to me. It passed through my mind like a comet.
And it would have done me no good to write it down because once it was written down it would be dead to me. Worse than dead. Garbage. Pollution. Toxic.
My ideas are only good to me when they are still fresh and wriggling and full of life. Itis that life essence that gets translated into words.
Dead fish tell no tales.
This is the truth for me and I am learning to accept it.
I had the amusing thought recently that it was as through I ended up with someone else’s muse. Mine didn’t really fit me at all.
When I was a kid, and I dreamed of being a writer. I naturally assumed that I would be the sort of writer that starts with an outline and fills in the details one layer at a time until it becomes a book.
That struck me as the “right” way to be a writer. The smart way. Neat, orderly, with a clear progression towards the goal while still allowing room for creativity and discovery.
But um, nope. My muse is one of ephemera and fleeting notions. The only way I write is by capturing the idea and putting it directly to work so that the only way I can actually express myself is through the finished work.
This is not the way I want it to work. But I’m not in charge here. Every artist, regardless of medium or form, worships the same god and that is their muse, and the good ones are the ones willing to do what it takes to make their muse happy.
They do what it takes to make the words (or paintings, or performances, or whatevs) come out, period.
And that’s not easy for me, I don’t like being at the whim of a whimsical muse. I want my actions to be the product of my intentions, not the product of an unpredictable and unreliable inner voice.
But I am, above all, a pragmatist, and I know that there is no use pining for the muse I wish I had. I am far better off just learning to live with the one I’ve got.
And I am learning. I’m learning slowly and with imperfect grace, but I am learning.
Hopefully one day I will catch up with myself.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.