Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Within and Without
A little tangent that happened while writing 'On Tour' stuff about Millennials and with Clerks 2 on in the background. Doesn't fit anywhere, just thinking out load.
Generation Xer’s seem to have this… contentedness about life not going splendidly. I love movies like Clerks, how they so succinctly capture the giant shrug that is a typical life. It makes me feel less alone. But it is not comforting, agitating more than anything. There are so many people like me, thinking like me… who are able to be content and still with the typical shitty life. They can find the beauty in it, the humor in it. I suppose On Tour is my attempt to do the same. It is frustrating trying to find the words. As frustrating as trying to find my place in life. As frustrating as trying to find contentment. I am the typical whatever living the typical whatever life… and feels so wrong, so indescribably out of place for me. On one side, my ego wants to say this is because I am more ‘special’, my life should have more meaning. My… well, I don’t know what side it is. Cynical? Practical? I struggle to differentiate the two… Anyways, this other side says I am the same as everyone else, no less special. I need to keep my ego in check. I am proof to myself that I am just another loser failure, through no fault but my own. I am where I deserve to be, an architect of my own failure. Thinking that does nothing to improve my outlook. I can beat my ego down, but it still simmers in the back of my head. It asks ‘Why’. It doesn’t let my pragmatic cynic be content with the life it has. It asks ‘Why’. And that question agitates me. It itches under the surface, and I cannot find anything to scratch. Nothing relieves it. I dream of all the plethora of things I haven’t done, the people I am not, thinking that one of them is the skin I am meant to be in. I try on all the cheap ones I can find, and none fit. The itch only gets worse. There are so many I want to try, some too expensive, so many not my size, and the vast majority out of reach. I can see them through a window. I am within and without, simultaneously enchanted and exhausted by the variety of life. Please forgive the intentional misquote. It is the most succinct way I can describe my feelings, by using the genius of another who felt the exact same way but from a different context. Ce la vie. How I always feel, so connected yet so off. Within and without, lying horizontally across parallel universes...
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Floating...
I suppose I should blog more now that I have a brief window with a bit extra time. I had thought about this beforehand, and told myself I would. Yet I find myself, once again, making the same blog post, after I make the same resolutions, and I react the same way. My mind is aswim (not even a word... fuck it, it is appropriate...) as usual. My brain flooded and buzzing, distracted by everything, unable to focus. I really, really have tried many things to gain focus in something, anything, yet I still find myself drowning in my own sea. My mind skips from left to right, trying to analyze itself and why it is doing what it does. It finds something, ricocheting off into space, bounces off another piece of space junk, then starts pinging it's way back and forth until earth comes back into view, and it is violently yanked back down. Hours have passed by then. Bad habits take over when I am on earth. They ground me so my anxiety doesn't cause the yoyos to be so violent and constant. They are cruel in holding me back, yet they also stop the uncontrollable spinning. My mind wants to vomit from spinning so fast, purging the pent up anxiety fueling it. My body wants to run, slam itself down a cliff, punch itself in the gut, anything to regain control of it's control center. I respond by indulging until the spinning stops, snapping into reality as the discomfort of my actions set in. Sometimes, the mind is satiated. Other times, I feel so ill I am forced to stay grounded. As it passes, my brain floats up slowly again, until it is touching into space, eschewing earthly and practical needs, up, up... anxiety hits hard and fast. What am I doing? Again? Lost control, you need to find a job. You need to clean the house. You need to run errands. You need to at least harness this, take some classes, teach yourself something to anchor yourself.... you need... you need... to come back to earth, and there is one consistent fucked-up cluster of brain cells that knows what works, and responds in a fucked-up cruel manner that takes more than it gives. I sacrifice everything else to keep my mind intact enough to not ascend far enough to be snapped violently back onto my face. If my anxiety doesn't yank my string, those who placed it there do. It is an early warning system, I suppose. It knows when I am too high, been floating too long, and people will be coming for me. Why do they care? Let me fly in the stars, I am so happy there... it is too late for that, the anxiety so deeply embedded so long ago, buried so deep I didn't even consciously unearth it until recently. As I float, sometimes I will watch it writhing down there, screaming at me, thrashing. I disconnect from it, but someone else always comes along to pull me back down anyways.
I always told M-monster I hated drugs. Him and others are stuck on earth, and like to float for a moment. But they are creatures of the earth. I am a creature of the stars, born of the earth, like something out of a children's book. But there is no lesson here, no morality play. Just me floating between the two, trying to keep my wings on the ground. I have no control over them. I hate anything that makes me float more, because it causes me to lose what little control I do have over it. With focus, I can calm the spinning normally, but if something else is causing it, nothing stops it until it is out of my system, leaving me out of breath, exhausted, and scared. There are scary places in my universe I sometimes bump into on my own. I have learned over time how to nudge myself away from those places, most of the time needing to use my bad habits to assist. If something launches me there, I am stuck in the scary parts of my brain until the force pushing me there has left. We had a conversation once, him floating around, asking why I wasn't joining him. I flew around him, and told him I am with him. This is where I always am, regardless if I want to be. I just wish people joined me more often, because it is hard to float on my own. But floaters tend to wander away, and that was the last time we saw each other.
I type this from the clouds, analyzing my own mind in visual terms because it is the only way I can translate. I have considered studying psychology and Neurology to better understand or explain what is happening... but no one ever seems to understand except for me. People speculate, I attempt to translate, and it comes out all wrong. I sound like some crystal-wielding hippy who has had about a thousand too many hits of acid. Unless I was born in a vat of the stuff, this is just how I am. Oddly, as I get older, it seems to become worse. Or, as I am starting to speculate, more time with myself means I am merely more aware of it. Science truly knows so little about the human mind, and I feel like I am so utterly aware of this, it is harshly aching. Sometimes it feels like I can see the signals bounce around, the clusters lighting up as I get stuck somewhere, the entire place lighting up when I am able to find that rare place where I am floating enough to function, but still able to communicate with the ground. I can see the signal bounce around as it searches for a piece of something, pinging paths along back and forth, searching for that bit I left somewhere but my brain doesn't remember where, picking up pieces as it goes, but rarely ever finding all of them. And, oddly, the hemisphere where I conduct my daily business seems to be interchangeable. I have mild control over this. Mostly, it is affected through conditioning, what I am reading or the environment I am in, that can move the activity. It seems as though I have a limited amount of energy that can be expended, though I have a mind that could do EONS more if I had more energy to go around. Like a super computer with only enough RAM to run the OS and one other small task. Haha, maybe if I got rid of this pesky, bloated, Windows, I could use my precious little RAM to do other things? Running other operating systems comes with consequences. Linux does not support nearly as much as Windows. Sure, with a lot of work, you could use it professionally, but good luck convincing someone of that unless you have already proven aptitude with it... which I haven't nor can without tons of practice. OSX requires proprietary hardware, and really doesn't support me, existing outside it's specs. I don't have the looks, the style, the dumbed down hardware, nor the desire to appeal to luddites and have all my decisions made for me.
At this point, one would argue to write my own OS. How can someone who can't ground themselves long enough to even job hunt expect to be able to make their own business? It isn't for lack of effort, it isn;t due to laziness... I just can;t focus so many things into anything tangible. Remember, I am working with a limited amount of RAM with a supercomputer. How does one choose what to focus the computer on? It can do practically anything, but without enough RAM and a lot of time invested writing a specific OS for it, it is impossible to know what it will excel at, what it was made for. By the time so much time and energy has been invested in getting it to do one function, I fear it will be an issue of learning too late if it was the wrong path.
What a waste my mind is on me. So much wasted potential. Spends all it's time pondering the possibilities, yet so painfully, agonizingly aware of it's limitations, it just watches the world. It is a creature of the stars, yet beings of the earth surpass it constantly. Unable to understand, unable to relate to them. All ideas seem pedestrian, of the ground dwellers. I feel like an idiot amongst the greats in the stars, and an alien to the idiots on the ground. I cannot even bring myself to create something for ground dwellers, let alone of the stars. I feel like the biggest fool for even fathoming that I could look at the stars, let alone be someone who constantly floats so aimlessly through them. Why do I float in them if I don't understand them? Why bother coming back down to earth when I am an alien?
Oh, LG. Who are you? What are you? Why are you here? Why do you think you are so special? Doesn't everyone else think these things? Why do you think you are so different from them? If they are the same as you, why are they able to adapt so much better? What is wrong with you? Is it a flaw? Is it an untapped benefit?
This is how my brain chooses to spend it's time. As much as I try to rein things in, it tugs at me, wanting to dance in the stars. It merely wanders aimlessly instead, bumping around, drooling incomprehensibly as it tries to communicate. I try to write, communicate the stars to others. Instead, all that comes out are these trite ramblings, cliches, boring observations of silly things ground dwellers do that no one cares about. I try to focus on a skill, so maybe I can understand the stars or relate to the ground dwellers... but I start floating again, lost in my mind and myself.
I often wonder what it would be like to disconnect. Go live in a monastery. All earthly needs met, so I can focus. Could I focus? Would I just waste my time floating like I do now? Would I just hide there forever, never trying to go back to the stars when I find such a comfortable and quiet anchor? I fear the same with where I am now, yet am equally curious about the benefits of a 'comfortable' life, doing something pedestrian, looking back at youthful wanderlust with a sigh and shake of the head. Does everyone go through this before settling into their cubicle life with 2.5 kids, spouse they tolerate, and mortgage on a balsa wood house they will be paying until they are dead or the banks take it? Am I a fool for seeing it this way? How am I so cynical and so naive at the same time?? That is something that seems to be a constant about me, cynically dismissing the silly ways of the silly monkeys on the ground, yet naively traveling through life with my head in the sky.
I let myself wander, and occasionally type them up too, in hopes some great revelation will come to me. I explore my thoughts looking for answers, and end up with nothing but a hot air balloon tour. I'll go ahead and hit post on this one, because it didn't get too weird/ depressing/ nonsensical like dozens others unpublished on the back end. It is still as pointless and frustrating of an exercise as all the rest, however. My life, I suppose.
I always told M-monster I hated drugs. Him and others are stuck on earth, and like to float for a moment. But they are creatures of the earth. I am a creature of the stars, born of the earth, like something out of a children's book. But there is no lesson here, no morality play. Just me floating between the two, trying to keep my wings on the ground. I have no control over them. I hate anything that makes me float more, because it causes me to lose what little control I do have over it. With focus, I can calm the spinning normally, but if something else is causing it, nothing stops it until it is out of my system, leaving me out of breath, exhausted, and scared. There are scary places in my universe I sometimes bump into on my own. I have learned over time how to nudge myself away from those places, most of the time needing to use my bad habits to assist. If something launches me there, I am stuck in the scary parts of my brain until the force pushing me there has left. We had a conversation once, him floating around, asking why I wasn't joining him. I flew around him, and told him I am with him. This is where I always am, regardless if I want to be. I just wish people joined me more often, because it is hard to float on my own. But floaters tend to wander away, and that was the last time we saw each other.
I type this from the clouds, analyzing my own mind in visual terms because it is the only way I can translate. I have considered studying psychology and Neurology to better understand or explain what is happening... but no one ever seems to understand except for me. People speculate, I attempt to translate, and it comes out all wrong. I sound like some crystal-wielding hippy who has had about a thousand too many hits of acid. Unless I was born in a vat of the stuff, this is just how I am. Oddly, as I get older, it seems to become worse. Or, as I am starting to speculate, more time with myself means I am merely more aware of it. Science truly knows so little about the human mind, and I feel like I am so utterly aware of this, it is harshly aching. Sometimes it feels like I can see the signals bounce around, the clusters lighting up as I get stuck somewhere, the entire place lighting up when I am able to find that rare place where I am floating enough to function, but still able to communicate with the ground. I can see the signal bounce around as it searches for a piece of something, pinging paths along back and forth, searching for that bit I left somewhere but my brain doesn't remember where, picking up pieces as it goes, but rarely ever finding all of them. And, oddly, the hemisphere where I conduct my daily business seems to be interchangeable. I have mild control over this. Mostly, it is affected through conditioning, what I am reading or the environment I am in, that can move the activity. It seems as though I have a limited amount of energy that can be expended, though I have a mind that could do EONS more if I had more energy to go around. Like a super computer with only enough RAM to run the OS and one other small task. Haha, maybe if I got rid of this pesky, bloated, Windows, I could use my precious little RAM to do other things? Running other operating systems comes with consequences. Linux does not support nearly as much as Windows. Sure, with a lot of work, you could use it professionally, but good luck convincing someone of that unless you have already proven aptitude with it... which I haven't nor can without tons of practice. OSX requires proprietary hardware, and really doesn't support me, existing outside it's specs. I don't have the looks, the style, the dumbed down hardware, nor the desire to appeal to luddites and have all my decisions made for me.
At this point, one would argue to write my own OS. How can someone who can't ground themselves long enough to even job hunt expect to be able to make their own business? It isn't for lack of effort, it isn;t due to laziness... I just can;t focus so many things into anything tangible. Remember, I am working with a limited amount of RAM with a supercomputer. How does one choose what to focus the computer on? It can do practically anything, but without enough RAM and a lot of time invested writing a specific OS for it, it is impossible to know what it will excel at, what it was made for. By the time so much time and energy has been invested in getting it to do one function, I fear it will be an issue of learning too late if it was the wrong path.
What a waste my mind is on me. So much wasted potential. Spends all it's time pondering the possibilities, yet so painfully, agonizingly aware of it's limitations, it just watches the world. It is a creature of the stars, yet beings of the earth surpass it constantly. Unable to understand, unable to relate to them. All ideas seem pedestrian, of the ground dwellers. I feel like an idiot amongst the greats in the stars, and an alien to the idiots on the ground. I cannot even bring myself to create something for ground dwellers, let alone of the stars. I feel like the biggest fool for even fathoming that I could look at the stars, let alone be someone who constantly floats so aimlessly through them. Why do I float in them if I don't understand them? Why bother coming back down to earth when I am an alien?
Oh, LG. Who are you? What are you? Why are you here? Why do you think you are so special? Doesn't everyone else think these things? Why do you think you are so different from them? If they are the same as you, why are they able to adapt so much better? What is wrong with you? Is it a flaw? Is it an untapped benefit?
This is how my brain chooses to spend it's time. As much as I try to rein things in, it tugs at me, wanting to dance in the stars. It merely wanders aimlessly instead, bumping around, drooling incomprehensibly as it tries to communicate. I try to write, communicate the stars to others. Instead, all that comes out are these trite ramblings, cliches, boring observations of silly things ground dwellers do that no one cares about. I try to focus on a skill, so maybe I can understand the stars or relate to the ground dwellers... but I start floating again, lost in my mind and myself.
I often wonder what it would be like to disconnect. Go live in a monastery. All earthly needs met, so I can focus. Could I focus? Would I just waste my time floating like I do now? Would I just hide there forever, never trying to go back to the stars when I find such a comfortable and quiet anchor? I fear the same with where I am now, yet am equally curious about the benefits of a 'comfortable' life, doing something pedestrian, looking back at youthful wanderlust with a sigh and shake of the head. Does everyone go through this before settling into their cubicle life with 2.5 kids, spouse they tolerate, and mortgage on a balsa wood house they will be paying until they are dead or the banks take it? Am I a fool for seeing it this way? How am I so cynical and so naive at the same time?? That is something that seems to be a constant about me, cynically dismissing the silly ways of the silly monkeys on the ground, yet naively traveling through life with my head in the sky.
I let myself wander, and occasionally type them up too, in hopes some great revelation will come to me. I explore my thoughts looking for answers, and end up with nothing but a hot air balloon tour. I'll go ahead and hit post on this one, because it didn't get too weird/ depressing/ nonsensical like dozens others unpublished on the back end. It is still as pointless and frustrating of an exercise as all the rest, however. My life, I suppose.
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