can't sleep

Trying to take after Dale Carnegie when he said to do something instead of worrying & not sleeping....

I hate not being in control of my own body. I should be able to make myself sleep. I should be able to push myself into tears or ecstatic joy. I should be able to hone my attentions into any given task.

i'm turning this into a diary blog, but whatever. I'm trying to be more open with myself and everyone.

It's funny how something so simple can turn your whole day around. It's been one of those sobering days after one of those nights where you cry yourself to sleep because nothing in life is working out, when all of your fears and insecurities suddenly become dictators of your thoughts. Perhaps it is a necessary human thing, catharsis, like an intentional biological function.

Intense moments are something to treasure whether they be bad or good. All I know is that everything is less dazzling today, but more real. I walked into this coffee shop - hood on, gripping my laptop, sporting my old-woman slippers & jeans - and stumbled around a bit, trying to get my bearings on the room. Pushing back my hood I realized that I was on the receiving end of "the looks" from various points of the room. I can't describe it. However, the sensation was marvelously warm - and more satisfactorily, my surface emotions weren't perturbed in the slightest. I'm not sure why I chose this occasion to write in an anonymous corner of the internet, except that I wouldn't record the moment otherwise. And sometimes moments are important to remember.

This was an extraordinary day after an extraordinary set of weeks. But like I said, today was dazzle-less. I sat at work for 4 hours this morning; I accomplished intellectually taxing tasks - consultants in the industry could charge thousands for what I did today. I was unusually focused. Perhaps the rain helps. I went to bed last night thinking that my situation is hopeless. That I'm going to die alone. That I'm never going to gain any professional recognition. That my hands will never produce the music that I desperately want to make. That I am doomed to live steps behind everyone else for no reason. That I will never understand intimacy with Jesus. That I will be fat forever. And now this is sounding ridiculous.

But when you have high hopes and you pursue them honestly and consistently, you only learn more; & you learn what it takes to get to where you want to be. You learn faster than you accomplish.. which means it becomes more and more difficult to keep faith. Analogy: "the more you learn the less you know" (or something to that effect... who said that? Socrates?)... the more you do the less you've done. fuck.its.hard.

toolbox

I feel like I've got a giant woodshop with more tools and resources and materials than I could ever use - and yet I have no clear direction of WHAT I am meant to be building.

Its frustrating.

TRUTH

FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER - frank herbert

the way it might be

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"It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man. A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused.

"At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

"Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man."

- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

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reclaimation

Taking perspective from a day almost lost.

Today was gorgeous and I spent most of it in anger. I was coerced into a time consuming & unnecessary favor. I don't know that ditching it would've been the right thing. I was actually gratified afterwards. But still the feelings of aggravation hadn't subsided. I almost ran over a sassy pedestrian.

looking back. I've made no progress on my life choices struggle. Map my progress: I'm at the same y-coordinate I've been for the past year... despite the accumulated episodes of struggling with it. But I suppose that counts for something. A greater x-value; or rather, let's make that a 3-d vector map & quantify the quality use of the time. haha. Time is a constant and I'd like to demonstrate that I did more than exist.

Regardless.

It's difficult to fight when your obstacles are abstract.

Napoleon didn't sleep

make your life what you want.

television is a drain.