Heavy combinations of face ingredients

I talk a lot on my blog about my struggles with life. In fact, it’s almost exclusively what I talk about. I know it may come across as self-centered (which it probably is) and whiney (which it definitely is), but it helps me sort through my thoughts, come to conclusions, and establish theories and opinions. Furthermore, it connects me with others who are similarly minded, and (hopefully) offers a unique perspective for those who aren’t so plagued by existential confusion in day-to-day life. 

With having my struggles and occasional disparity being blatantly displayed for public consumption, I want to qualify my bemoaning by explaining myself a little more throughly. I’ve often felt the urge to explain (and occasionally apologize for) myself. I don’t know where it comes from. However, that’s not the purpose of this blog, so I’ll back burner it... for now. 

I am a straight, white, American man. These are my identifiable traits. Not that I necessarily strongly identify with any of them, but if you need to assign identifiable characteristics to the boil-down of who I am, there ya go. 

Admitting those are my identifiable bullet points is the first step. Admitting they result in privilege is the next step. Having a mind attuned (be it to a varying degree of awareness) to the experience of people with who don’t share those traits is the third step. Acknowledging the massive disparity between different groups with different traits is the step that follows. 

These steps lead me down the path of understanding how good I have it. 

I have never been insulted, threatened, or attacked because of my sexual orientation. 

I have never been profiled, systemically oppressed, victimized, or brutalized because of my skin color. 

I have never been subject to unchecked totalitarianism, violent dictatorship, or denied access to basic human rights due my nationality. 

(I understand some people will argue with me on that third point, but this can be measured against truly evil governing bodies using the weight of comparison.)

Now while I understand and readily admit this; I don’t want to make this a soap-box lecture. I just want to illustrate where my perspective lies. 

Look, here is my point. This blog is about my experience. It’s a documentation of a (possibly futile) search for understanding and hopefully a metric with which to measure personal growth. It’s a means to connect and stay connected. It’s the appeasement of intellectual curiosity and the itch to write both personally and creatively. 

I submit these traits and what they bring because I want you to know I understand. When I emphatically relay my anxieties, when I pose questions pertaining to the abstract qualities of living, when I express fear, elation, disappoint, and confusion, when I straight up whine and complain; I remain aware. 

Aware of how good I got it. 

Aware that that comes from the fact that I happened to be born into a dominating group that’s coalesced around key identifiable traits.  

Aware that that’s fucking bullshit. 

Aware that measures needed to be taken to change things. To fix that protracted, pervasive, and perverted disparity. 

This right here is an admission. Of who I am. Of what’s wrong with the world. Of being born into a place of privilege. 

However, It’s also a declaration of no longer wanting to have to explain myself. 

I’m going to continue writing and searching and scratching that intellectual itch. I’m going to keep walking the path that feels right, and keep living the life that makes sense with regard to creativity and moral stances. All of this is done with the acknowledgement that I’m in a position of privilege in this world. 

Like I said, this is a blog about me. 

How I feel and who I am.

Does that make me a narcissist? 

I don’t think so. I usually have pretty negative things to say about myself. 

Does it make me self-absorbed.

Without a doubt. 

But that’s where I need to be to get my head right. After that, I’ll move on to things bigger than myself.

I know something much bigger is out there. I’m preparing myself to meet it.

I hope you keep reading. Because I’m sure as hell going to keep writing. 

With all the love and honesty I have. 

“I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.”

My last post was bullshit. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read this thing anymore. How many different ways can I say “I don’t get it. Life is hard. Fill my need for approval and attention by feeling bad for me.” I even try to trick you into thinking I’ve gleaned significant insight by using big words and making allusions to obscure or revered materials. Or maybe no one has ever thought I’ve gleaned any such insight, and I’m just fooling myself into thinking you perceive me in a particular manner when really you don’t view me as such at all. You probably don’t spend all that much goddamn time thinking about me at all. BEHOLD! MY NEUROSES!

Ahem. Sorry bout that. 

 I have, if you’ll grant it to me, gleaned a few certain insights in this last trying year (moving to Asia, quitting drinking and pills, changing jobs) that I can utilize to determine certain conclusions. Now these conclusions aren't earth shattering. Few conclusions are. They’re just some realizations that took a little time to come to and required the clearing of much headspace and the analyzation of past behavior, current anxieties, and future dread. 

Everyone says “Do What You Love.” And that’s great advice. Really. But not everybody can do that all the time. Furthermore, few people can do that to the extent where they are able to make a living off of it. While I’m sure as shit not saying that that’s impossible, it’s just not an actuality for every individual. More constructive advice to the everyday woman or man (and I much consider myself an everyday Jay)  would be Don’t Do What You Hate. 

I’ve spent a lot of the last year reading motivational and life guidance books, watching videos on productivity and career building, and generally studying life planning and how to cultivate positive routines and ideal regiments. I drove myself insane with boring details and restrictive days of banality. I hovered on the edge of asceticism. Through that  I wound up generating more anxiety trying to live up to the ideals of some paragon I had manufactured. And that ideal apparition, as I came to see it, was comprised of other people’s goals, values, and conceptions of adulthood.

I had stopped doing everything I loved for the sake of “getting my life together.” 

I stopped reading comics to read all the latest and best self-help books. I largely stopped watching movies to watch inspirational and insightful lectures and pedagogical youtube videos. This might not seem negative, but it became detrimental due to my level of obsessiveness. 

I even stopped playing music to devote myself to studying language. Now studying language is an awesome pursuit, and I’m not relegating it to the STUFF I HATE category. It’s just that they didn’t need to be exclusive to my time. I didn't have to forsake one for the allowance of the other. I can play drums AND study Chinese, 

I cut out all the things in life that gave me enjoyment and satisfied my imagination’s appetite in favor of solely consuming things I thought would propagate insight for success and productivity. 

I stopped staying out late and spending time with friends to make certain I was home in time to stretch, journal, meditate, and fall asleep at a reasonable hour. Again, those activities in themselves are wonderful and beneficial practices to keep, but when I forsake any semblance of a social life to stick to a military-strict routine it ceases to have the intended function of finding peace by creating a vehicle for isolation and fail-to-adhere-to based guilt. 

I completely failed to realize that I needed the counter balance of the things I love. I need them BECAUSE they aren't pertaining to maintaining forward momentum. They are the things that let me relax and rest. I'd say having the love for those things and people actually give me the desire to move forward in the first place. Friends and interests are what gives my life meaning. I have been neglecting the very foundation of my life in order to reach a new level. I was abandoning A for B, while failing to realize that A was the very reason I was pursuing B. What’s the point of life without love and interest?

Then there is my job. It started out hard as hell. A Galactus sized source of stress that threatened to devour the planet of my sanity. I worked hard trying to understand the material, teaching myself classroom management, and experimenting with what worked and what didn’t (mostly discovering what didn’t). After all of that I realized, “Hey, I don’t even like this job”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it; It’s just not for me. However,  I couldn’t accurately judge if it would be something I enjoyed before I got rid of the stress of being bad at it and experienced it through the eyes of a (somewhat) capable practitioner. After I turned in to that, I was able to come to the definitive conclusion that it's something I don't want to do anymore. 

Don’t settle for things because that’s the way they currently are or because they offer convenience. Convenience shouldn't  be the end unto itself. That’s just a receipt for stagnancy. 

Look, I’m happy as hell I did what I did. I did it the hard way. I survived. I got insight, made friends, gained experience (points) and leveled the fuck up. Now I know it’s not where I’m supposed to be, and I only came to that insight after experimentation. If you're stuck, or unhappy, or uncertain, or bored the only way out is to try new things. Finding out you don’t like something can be a great thing, because it narrows down the field of options so you can focus your mind's lasers on finding what you really want (or generally just dig) and you can blow it up. Because that’s what lasers do. They blow shit up. 

There is not a single part of me that does't believe in hard work. You need to put in effort and you need to do it consistently. I believe you need to find your love and get your hands dirty in the guts of this bizarre existence we all happen to share.

Make life something you enjoy. 

Or at least, don’t ever give up the things you love for the sake of falsely idealistic achievements, materialistic status, or other people’s expectations. 

Because I did that....and it sucked. 

"What's the matter? The CIA got you pushing too many pencils?"

I seem to live in a paradox. They only times I get overwhelmed with the urge to write is when I’m in a state of exaggerated emotional disharmony or existentially distraught.  However, I seem to be of the mindset that if I could manage a way to write for a living, I would somehow find the elusive happiness, or at least contentedness that has done it’s best to evade my grasp for the last 30 years. So the act of what I conjure would bring me joy, is catalyzed by a melancholic state and I can’t seem to make the diametrical ends meet in a fashion that would ostensibly render me peace.

Life seems to be a series of metaphorical stairwells. I’ll begin and the top, find the convenient and modern distractions to help guide my descent by means of procrastination, directionless entertainment, and flat out wasting of time. I become aware of my settings and mindset just in time on the precipice of the last step that leads into the maelstrom, then begin my arduous ascent with the aid of writing, meditation, and generally being productive, only to become bored with the view at the top, and work my way back down again.

Occasionally I’ll stop to cool my heels and consult the map of idealistic endeavor. I have a few dream jobs that quickly dematerialize when brought under the light of realistic scrutiny. Any one of these jobs would take years of commitment, meticulous planning, perseverance in the face of inevitable failure, and attention to detail. None of those are strong suits for me. And on top of that, I don’t know if I actually want these things, or if I just like the idea of them.  After folding the map back up (accompanied with an amplified outward breath and undulating lips resulting in a cartoonish motorboat-like sound) I stretch my arms back, look up at the looming set of stairs, and once again begin my imitation of Sisyphus.

As I become an advanced practitioner in the art of sculpting mountains from less imposing geographical structures, I can’t help become more aware of the passing of time, and the more I become aware of it, the more I take an effort to do more with my time, and, inevitably, the more I fail to make productive use of that time, the more disparaging my frame of mind becomes.  It’s like my inner Princess Leia is showing stalwart boldness in confidently informing my inner Darth Vader that “The more you tighten your grip, the more time and productivity will slip through your fingers.”

I’m in an odd Catch-22 (Hey! That’s my favorite book) of not wanting to waste my time pursuing something I’m not passionate about, but having consternation for not passionately pursuing something with my time.

Maybe I should just do what I always suspected would work out, and employ my pragmatism by finding a decent paying, stable job involving some physical labor and letting that be the means by which I create comfort for myself, while simultaneously finding fulfillment where I can in other avenues.

But that just seems so boring.

Hey mind! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!

"I can't believe we said no to free beer!"

The reality we live in is shaped by the narrative we tell ourselves. We have the power to influence our actions and behavior in the external world through focusing on our internal monologue. For those of us plagued by persistent low spirits and outlooks tending towards doom and gloom, an objective glance at the content of our thoughts can be helpful. Although it’s not an easy feat.

 Cultivating metacognition is a task that takes time. Through the discipline of meditation, analyzation, and introspection, one can perceive their own thoughts as both ethereal and ephemeral.  You can take away the clout and emotional impact your thoughts have on you if you understand that they don’t control you, they just exist, like clouds in the sky. Maybe that’s a lazy or generic metaphor, but it’s true. You can fight the sky if you don’t like the shade of blue it is, but you’ll change nothing and you’ll experience less consternation if you simply acknowledge the color and go about your day.

You can consciously reject the negative and interject your own positivity. Create a new narrative for yourself. Tell yourself a new story about who you are and who you want to be. Tell yourself this new story every day, and with time it will work itself into your subconscious. It will become your new reality. You will become the person you are creating in your mind. A person you love. A person without the negative perceptions and self-imposed limitations. Perhaps a person you always were, but didn't realize.

This isn’t to eschew the reality of depression. I don’t mean to be pedantic or falsely oversimplify things. Depression is real, and not just something you can simply will away with a few minutes of positive thinking. It a process. It's changing yourself by changing not just your thoughts, but the very way you think, or how you perceive those thoughts.  It’s a commitment. And I'm making that commitment.

Every day.

I will imagine and design the person I want to be, and I will put forth the effort, discipline, and hard work it takes to be that person. I want life to be something exciting and rewarding. Not the burden of doubt, insecurity, and self-hatred it once was. I want to look out and see possibilities, not daunting tasks I must grit my way through. I want to simply live life.

And live it well. 

"It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage."

My mind’s creative well seems to have dried out lately. I think it’s running low due to massive amounts of energy being spent on catastrophe-based introspection and a general sense of aimlessness. I’ll try not to make this a half-cocked, self-indulgent public therapy session, but I promise nothing.

My wheels have been spinning all day, everyday. But I never lower them to hit the ground, so I’m just wasting gas. My mind won’t shut off. Every day is a rumination on “what do I want out of life and how do I get it?” I spend more of my time reading blogs with titles like How To Increase Your Productivity and watching (ostensibly) inspirational Youtube videos about how to live your dream life and achieve success than I do applying myself and moving forward towards any designated goal.

I’m chock full of ideas on how to get going but I got no fucking clue on where it is I want to go. I have no endgame to try and materialize, so I’m reaching for a goal that doesn’t yet exist. And even though it doesn’t exist, I keep reaching out. And sooner or later, I’ll overextend and fall.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I’m turning 30 in a few weeks.

I’ll admit something I haven’t admitted out loud for a long time.

I view myself as stupid.

I have no interest in a pity party, nor do I need anyone to denounce that idea. I’m not fishing for any positive reinforcement. It’s just something I’ve always felt. From needing tutors throughout my academic life and being prescribed to mood altering chemicals, to still not being able to navigate simple arithmetic and heavily relying on spell check, I’ve always felt incompetent.

I’ve gained enough objectivity in my life so far as to be able to analyze those feelings and where they come from. I think they were externally instilled at a young age as opposed to intrinsically manufactured and I fight the thoughts when I can. But some days, when the chips are down and I’m dwelling on how much of my life I feel as though I’ve wasted, I just can’t keep them at bay.

“Maybe you really are just stupid. Maybe your brain never fully developed. Most other people don’t struggle and falter in every conceivable way like you do.”

Plus, there’s my life long struggle with mental illness. But I think that’s for a different blog at a different time.

So I’m sitting around feeling aimless, stupid, and entirely too self-absorbed. I’m becoming increasingly isolated and all the research and reading I’m doing seems to be more of a detriment that any sort of remedy. I feel old and uneducated and the world and everyone in it seems to pass me by. I recognize these feelings as symptoms of depression. But as any entry level med student could tell you, the identification of symptoms doesn’t relieve the effects.

But I’m getting too down and off point. Is there a point to this entry? I don’t know, I just felt I needed to write one. Ah yes, productivity as related to purpose.

You know, Ayn Rand (dropping literary references to overcompensate for my feelings of stupidity and under-education….shut up mind!) said in her seminal book Atlas Shrugged that the most depraved type of human being was a man without purpose. And as much as Ayn Rand was a gigantic lady-douche, I think she had a point there. (Also, her prose was astonishing.)

I feel as though I have no purpose right now.

I feel like some goddamn passion would cure these days of idle living.

I mean, I’ve always wanted to write for a living, but where’s the pragmatism in that? I’ve been financially unstable since I entered adulthood, do I really want to extend that in such a untenable industry as creative writing? Maybe I should just find a job that pays alright and live my life like a normal person.

But maybe that’s a cop-out.

Or maybe it’s practical.

It sure feels like a fucking cop-out.

In The Tao of Wu, Rza tells of how, Ol’ Dirty Bastard (shortly before he died)  came to him in a state of perturbation and simply stated, “I don’t get it.”

Well I don’t get it either, ODB.

I don’t get it either.

"What is that, Nietzsche? Shut the fuck up."

I’ve been thinking about a quote from Plato a lot recently.  Well, Plato by way of Socrates, but we’ll just say Plato of the sake of being succinct. 

Perhaps quoting Plato can be seen as pretentious. Perhaps, given my level of education, you think I have no business quoting Plato. 

But it’s my blog and you don’t have to read the damned thing. 

Plato supposed that “An unexamined life is not worth living” and I believe there is a lot of merit in that. He’s shown to be an immutable force in the world of philosophy and an oft studied and idealized historical figure. So there’s our jumping off point. 

Examine your life.    

Good.

Got it.  

When do I stop? 

Is constant examination a good thing? Could too much examination be unhealthy? 

It’s a scientific law that the very act of observation changes that which is being observed. 

What if those changes are to your detriment?

Let’s say you can’t laugh at a joke without wondering if those around you are questioning whether you actually find it funny or if you’re just laughing to prove to the group that you’re intelligent enough to understand the base level of humor being displayed. Then, in an compulsory extrapolation of that train of thought, you extend that curiosity outward and second guess the laughter of the group. 

Who here is not on the level?

You can’t fully immerse yourself in a romantic relationship without wondering what psychic scar tissue you’re currently wading through and how it came to be. 

You stare at the other person and wonder what you represent to there unconscious psyche. And when they get mad, you’re curious what dormant childhood trauma you've evoked. 

Beyond that you find yourself falling into halfcocked and quasi-educated dissections of people as base animals. Walking piles of meat who have unanalyzed emotional reactions to just about everything and cling to bizarre and antiquated superstitions and desperately try to make sense of the imminent nothingness of death as we continue in those constant steps towards it.

You play host to myriad demanding thoughts that are as relentless as the passing of time and you can’t see the irony of your own inability to stop the reactionary thinking because you have allowed yourself to accept the delusional assertion that you (and only you) somehow recognize the worlds maladaptive thought process and have risen above it, and that, that is the reason you’re depressed. 

It’s not you. It’s the world. 

You heard that Plato quote remember? 

Although you didn’t read the book, the know the quote and it’s given you the intellectual upper hand. 

You got it all figured out. That’s why you’re almost 30 and still baffled by yourself and you spend your free time sitting in your boxers, drinking too much coffee, and writing in vain attempts to make sense out of a few thoughts in that overrunning river of questions that makes up your mind. 

And by putting ink to paper (so to speak) you find you can quell a few internal storms and you have the faint glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe some day you could make a living out of writing things down. And maybe that’s more delusional than that aforementioned thought of inferred clarity.  

If an unexamined life in not worth living, perhaps an over examined life is an exercise in neurosis.  

"Behold your Bounderby!"

It’s 10:30 on a Tuesday night and I’m sitting on the roof of my building (right next to my apartment/hut) and I keep letting lose inextricable sighs.

I have, within the confines of my recently and greatly augmented life, a fair amount of time to reflect, speculate, and hypothesize on and about my past, present and hopeful trajectory. I still feel a powerful urge towards an undefined direction that I thought moving abroad would sate. That, on top of the arrival of emotions I had previously sunk with alcohol, and the new feelings that come with living in a foreign land and by myself for the first time ever, has me feeling out of sorts. I feel the overwhelming urge to create.  But music is out of the picture and every time I sit to write, I come up with blank pages or an empty screen. What could I add to the world that would be worthwhile or of substance? What would I enjoy that I could share with others that wouldn’t be some masturbatory practice. I write this blog to share my thoughts and experiences, but I always feel it’s a bit attention starved and occasionally highlighting a false reality I want people to perceive. 

So what is there? What’s that missing puzzle piece? Is that the shared dread that haunts mankind? Is that why we cultivate egos and worship deities and hope and work and pray? Perhaps I’m trying to boil too much down to a single question that when answered, would encapsulate the world. Or at least the world pertaining to the combined thoughts of the confused, delusional, and weary. 

I have ideas about sitting and staring into nothing, in the hopes of obtaining some peace of mind through a chance glimpse of oblivion. But I never get that glimpse. I can’t even seem to conjure a steady notion of what it is that that infinite chimera might look like. If this sounds like depressive ranting, that’s not how it’s meant. I mean, I think the yoke of depression will always bear down on my shoulders in some fashion or another, I’ve always been forthright about that. But I’m not in a bad way right now. Most days are good, and I’m sleeping like people are meant to sleep and I’m meditating in increasing measure and my physical activity is back to where I like it. At insane amounts of industrious and laborious actions.  So day to day, I’m feeling like a new man. But I don’t know who the hell this new guy is, and I don’t take kindly to strangers around these parts. So I have to figure out what the hell he wants and quick. Because the quicker that happens, the quicker I can take steps in a direction I feel confident about. Everyone wants to know where it is they're going. Right?  I mean, they say it’s not the destination, it's the journey. But then they turn around and say you should never leap before you look. Well I’ll tell them that talking in platitudes is for assholes.

 I’ll just keep on searching.