This Dream I Once Had...

It was one of those dreams that began with only momentary confusion and disorientation

until I was suddenly filled with the knowledge of who my dream-self was, and where I

was. An entire life blinked into existence in a dream world, a feeling uncannily

similar to when I first wake up in the morning in the non-dreaming one.



I smiled and turned in the white down bed, under the down covers of the four post bed.

The morning sun from the large bay windows of the high rise slowly moved across the

beautiful wood floors to gently kiss us. I murmured contentedly and nuzzled up next to

him. He stirred slightly in his sleep, waking partially to run his hand along my back

and shoulder. He woke a bit more, turning to his nightstand to check the time. He

sighed and rolled back over to me, gently taking my head in his hand and kissing me on

the forehead. I murmured again and stretched like a cat. He ran his hands over the

front of my body as I did so, and I knew it was because my morning stretch always

aroused him. I could feel him harden as he bent over me to touch me, brushing me

softly and arousing me as well. I smiled and let out a soft hum of happiness. He

sighed, kissed me on the chest, and rolled off to the side of the bed.


I knew he had to fly out this morning, and was only a little sad to see him go. I took

time off when he came to town, and always had plenty to catch up on when he left. I

was free to live where I wanted to, free to move if work asked me to or if I just

wanted to find something new. I was even free to live in one of his places. And I had

visited them over the years, traveling all over the world. No matter where I was he

would come to me. Wherever I was was his home. He loved me, lusted for me, yearned for

me, missed me.


And I was beautiful.


In this dream something unusual was occurring. I was not dreaming of being anyone but

myself. I was not in a new body, I was not a different person. I had no special powers

or abilities. I was exactly who I was in the waking world, and he loved every inch of

me for it. And it made me feel beautiful, powerful, and happy.


He kissed me, sweetly, gently, but with conviction, in front of the giant bay window

of the bedroom as his driver loaded the car below. I could feel him getting hard as we

pressed together, his body begging him for mine. He was older than me, fairly well-off

and well-known. Some might even consider what we had slightly scandalous. We liked to

keep our displays of affection private for many reasons. He was a known lifelong

bachelor that kept to himself, constantly turning down advances, but politely

accepting dinner dates to entertain and accompany female friends at important events.

His presence with both long time and new female friends was viewed favorably by all.

We kept nothing from each other, and he only ever had eyes for me. I didn't mind that

only our closest friends knew about us. I wasn't looking for fame or glory... just...

him. He had pursued me, I knew. My dream, however, never enlightened me to the

circumstances of the courting. Regardless of his playboy appearance, I knew without a

doubt that I was his home.


He had told me some time before that he would not hesitate to make our relationship

public if I wanted it. I would be the only one, and the playboy life would be over. I

would be the one on his arm, and at all the events. I only had to say the word. I had

responded by telling him I enjoyed the freedom, and I knew he did too. I told him I

wouldn't ruin something so perfect, our individual happiness when apart and our

combined release and ecstasy when finally, briefly back together. One day we would

settle down, when we both know it is right. The raging fire of how strongly we burned

for each other, the brilliant light we cast as individuals... nothing could be more

perfect.


We burned so bright that day. We were so, so beautiful...


I watched him get in his car. He took one last look up at the bay window and winked at

me. My stomach fluttered watching his face disappear inside the car, my body

shuddering it's own sighs of farewell as it recalled the previous night. The car drove away, and I

flopped myself down on the bed, considering what I wanted to do in the next few

months. I wasn't sold on my current job, but felt this city still had some exciting

things to show me. Maybe I could stop working for a bit, do some artwork and get a

gallery show together? I just got back from traveling, and definitely wanted to stay

in one place for a little bit... I drifted off as I considered my endless

possibilities. The memory of his touch caressed me in the back of my mind, my burning

desire for him slowing receding into hope and excitement for the adventures of my own

life... I was so happy, I was so beautiful, and I was myself...



My dream faded into wakefulness in the real world. I shuddered under the covers. He

always kept the room so cold... I opened my eyes, though I knew I didn't need to. The

bed was empty, the clock on his side reading a little after six in the morning. I

could see the line of sunlight barely bleeding through the edges of the thick, black

cloth blocking out the windows. It cast enough light in the dingy room to make out his

cheap, broken furniture, stained, stinking dirty clothes, mounds of trash next to

unopened packages of clothes I had bought for him, and the thick layer of dust on top

of it all. I felt disgusted at the familiar sight and closed my eyes. My ears began to

work, and I could hear the sound of a video clip from his computer playing in the

other room, accompanied by the sickeningly familiar sound of a beer can being crushed.

He had not yet been to bed. I shifted, feeling the tight grip of gravity on

my stiff body and the pain shooting up my feet and spine from the long hours and long years

of manual labor jobs.


Tears ran down my face as my dream came flooding back. I began to sob uncontrollably as I awoke

fully, aware of who I was, where I was, in pain, alone, and ugly.


And I was never beautiful again.

Brain Chutes and Ladders.

Being of an introverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving nature I spend a lot of time in my head, going off on tangents influenced by sparks of inspiration in the real world. My day is spent in this spiral, wandering and meandering. It is difficult, VERY difficult to stay focused on the immediate task at hand, but I am a VERY focused person. I just tend to focus on the swirling in my head and the connections it is making in my inner world instead of what is happening in front of me in the outer world. The trick is to corroborate the swirling inner world with what is happening in the outer world. There are methods that help me to do this. Engagement is the key word here. I must be kept ENGAGED in what is happening around me. The two most helpful things in this regard are visual and physical stimuli. I need to see, feel, and interact with the world in front of me to keep my mind fully immersed in the outside world and prevent it from slipping profoundly inside.

There has been speculation by M-Monster on slight autism spectrum with this quirk, but I really think that the definition is so broad, it catches too wide of a scope of people to really be applied in this case. A quirk that is different from other people is not an 'illness', or a 'disfunction'. It is human, it is what makes the brain so awesome. It is a whorl in my snowflake. Etc. My little comic book side project is about this, finding ways to classify all the whorls and dips and scallop types in the little snowflakes of personalities in humans. The futility in it, but also the unity it brings to recognize the uniqueness, and how human it is to be so different. And, mostly, how NOT striving to fall in the center of a bell curve makes you more 'normal' and profoundly human than robots who stifle humanity for comfort and acceptance.

See? There I went again. Ok, back to what I wanted to actually blog about. Trying not to slide down the spiral in the wrong direction here. I have a tendency to slide down the emo slide when I blog and dig, and I have been REALLY working on putting the brakes on that behavior. Not blogging while on the rag helps too. :) Anyyywho.... *tried to climb back up the slide by rereading what I already wrote and get back on track...*

Ah, right, ok. So, some of the other tricks to keeping me engaged, especially when feeling, seeing, and interacting with the topic is not an option, is keeping the material difficult and novel, but not too difficult or too new. This is a really tough one to feel out, even for me. I need these points of connections in the material that I can connect with what I already know and expand on it. If I already know everything and nothing is new, or too little is being added in, I get bored and lose interest. If the topic is beyond what I already know, my eyes glaze over and I stop engaging with the content, I just read the words but don't process them. This is why blogging can be difficult. I have usually already gone over all this stuff in my head, and sitting down to type it out, find that path I just went down, is tedious and never turns out. What actually gets typed and blogged only contains fragments of what I wanted to say, instead going down new, different paths, instead of retracing my steps like I wanted. Never, ever works out that way. I have to think of an idea before I have something to type, but after my mind has worked it out and come to the conclusion it was 'good stuff', it has MOVED ON without me and really refuses to rehash what it already knows! ARGH. Stupid brain. :(

Ok, well, it is refusing to get back on topic, as you can tell, so I will let it slide where it is going and hope I can come back around. Sometimes it works out that way, looping back around to where it started... just taking the scenic path, as always.

People are critical of psychology based personality tests, and the more I look at them and talk to people, the more I think that people who are critical are of resistant personality types. They are resistant in many diverse ways, of course, but there is a common thread of stubbornness and/ or ego involved. They don't like to be 'typed', but then again, neither do I. But my personality is softened greatly by logic and evidence, and because I make connections, when I see them, I keep looking for more, and the more I find, the harder it is to refute or resist. Other people dig their heels in and look for reasons to REFUTE, not connect as I do. I find it kind of funny when people do take one of the most common tests that I always refer to, the Myers-Briggs, tell their results, then go off about how wrong it is and why, without realizing that their personality type SAYS they will react the way they are, trying to poke holes, digging their heels in, or refusing to accept something new. Many times there is usually a personality-based lack of ability to see the connections and think about them abstractly instead of definitively in whatever language the results may have used, which may not be exact in their case but still true if stated another way and still hold the same concepts. If a result is, truly, blatantly wrong, it is because they actually were dishonest on their test, either consciously or subconsciously, both traits of different personality subtypes. They don't actually know themselves very well due to a plethora of possible reasons. This is where you bring in studies in different areas, about people who can't seem to answer honestly about themselves due to a whole 'nother can-o-worms in the psychology of the human mind. Nature and/ or nuture influences can affect the ability of someone to drop an ego and look at themselves inside, naked. Scared, embarrassed, stubborn, ego, a need to please, uncertainty.... so, so many things can contribute to people not being honest with themselves, whether they realize it or not. And many areas of psychology address this. Everyone has this shadow-self (a connection to something I read about last week! yay brain... except we are still off topic... :|) which is a side of the personality that is a true self, and has aspects we don't see or we deny. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and is unique to everyone. As intuitive as I am, and as much time as I spend inside myself, every day I discover new parts of my shadow self and still remain ignorant or in denial of others, both consciously and subconsciously. In some ways, I think I do swapping too, moving things in and out of the shadow... part of how the shadow itself works. Every new piece brought into the light casts a new shadow. Therefore, mine is not a set one, as some may have, but one in constant flux, moving and morphing as I constantly move and morph. I would be interested, of course, to know more about the fluctuations and may look into this further on my own or pick the brain of someone who is more of an expert. This little piece will sit in it's little spot in my brain, to be brought up either dusty or fresh as needed when a connection is found through the outside world or inside.

So... what was I talking about again? Oh, right TANGENTS. Like what I am doing now and why I love parenthesis and people hate how I write. I think it would be more obnoxious to add footnotes to my writing, because I would have footnotes taking up half of what I wrote. NOT going off on tangents is definitely asking too much. :p

Let me try to start where my brain started originally, and hope I find the path along the way.

Coffee.

That is how I think I wanted to start it. I love coffee, and caffeine. It kicks my brain in the ass and gets it running. Sure, it would start it's chugging on it's own eventually, but I risk falling back asleep and I never really get a jolt all day. I am a bit addicted, and find myself needed to ease off every few weeks as it slowly slips into 'too much' (getting close to that point again. It's a pretty consistent cycle for me, so I can see the pattern. Took me many years to learn to see it, cause remember, I am pretty effing oblivious to the real world and just rode the waves I got from it instead of making the connections of what it was doing to me)

ANYWAYS.

I have been trying to stay super conscious of myself while riding the wave, but it is tough because water is fickle and I get lost easily (as you can see), and then burn out/ lose steam and motivation until a new day when I can repeat the cycle. Pretty typical of the stuff. And when I am DONE and tired for the day, it can't stop the crash at the end. All it really can do is front-load my energy, not even it out through the day. So, I am therefore most productive about an hour after my morning intake, when it has settled in my system, and I ride it past the initial frantic peak as it smooths out until my energy is gone for the day. It gives me about 4 hours of being really productive, and 2-4 of more mixed productivity that is super dependent on what I previously spoke of, keeping me focused and engaged. I can actually use up all my day's energy by fighting the spiral early because I need to study or do something dull, but it leads to less productive back-end hours and I succumb to the spiral too easily until I fizzle out and am brain-dead.

So, having figured out my patterns, I now need to catch the CORRECT wave for the day. Because, once I am on it, getting off it and switching waves is very, very hard. It can fuel depression on days, for example, if something crappy happens early or if I wake up with baggage from the previous day. My brain will hop right on that crappy feeling wave and ride it all day. A sudden event that taps into a strong emotion is like a boulder in the way of the wave, splitting it and disrupting it, forcing me off what I was riding and onto this new tangent. I hate that part of myself, how I can be thrown off by emotion. It is like a brain disrupting jolt. I learned a long time ago how to hide how it affects me outwardly, for pure survival... but inside it churns me up completely and fizzes me. I can't focus, I can't let it go, just like the more logical spirals. It is an illogical one, with emotional jet engines attached sending me careening all over the place. Conscious shadow-self I only show in blogs and journals (like forums I rant on).because no one wants to hear it, and it is seen as a weakness that affects real-world interactions negatively. I wish people could appreciate this honesty of self, but in an image-obsessed world, where people stuff themselves in their shadows, showing a part of it, ESPECIALLY a vulnerable, raw part of it, is perceived as a deplorable act of weak character. I struggled to put my finger on this struggle I had, expressing frustration and receiving such negative reaction from people when I do, but have also been making connections recently and figuring out what I am expressing here, why I get negative social interactions unintentionally when I am simply being myself. Emo-self tells me I must be a bad person, because people hate 'bad' people. But that is so childish, subjective, and emotional of a response. I need to reclaim the thought process once the emotional pity-party has burnt itself out (which takes a while sometimes) and apply logic to find answers instead of emotional mewling.

When emotions aren't the disruptive fuck-all order of the day, I basically get to play daily Jeopardy with my brain. It will settle on the few topics it is given with it's caffeine, whether ones I mange to squeeze in at the right time intentionally, or ones influenced by the world around me that struck a chord or made that initial connection for some odd reason, and run with them, making all the connections for the day related to those few topics. Changing completely is a herculean task, and is best accomplished more through transitions, finding connections and nudging over from where I began. The slides, or spirals, always going forward, I just need to select paths to try to nudge and influence it in the direction I want... and I am not always successful (this post, and every other one, as a case in point). But I manage a bit, and I get better at it the more I practice and make effort to remove 'triggers' or things I know will detract me.

I guess this is where I bring in food. I think I have touched on this before. It is a hardcore 'brake' for me. It really puts the brakes on spiraling, adding to the addictive nature of it. It realigns my brain when it is bleeding in all kinds of directions, spinning too fast and getting distracted too quickly for me to keep up or stay focused. It gets really, really, frustrating up there at times, and I get super impatient at it as time crawls while my brain roars uncontrollably. A physical stimuli, that jolt, focuses me and resets it. Though, the problem is, my mind tends to slip again not long after if I don't follow up with engagement. So food is a temporary fix, especially when I am really raging. When I eat, and my brain is enjoying it, it is like it is dedicating most of it's resources to that moment, the here and now, allowing me a 'break' outside of myself. Which I really need often. Other physical stimuli, as the type I mentioned earlier, can have the same effect. If I am kept fully engaged with the world around me, it satisfies the exact same needs as food does. The problem is that food is the easiest, most consistently available solution. 'Exercise', the type that is boring and meaningless, allows my brain to rage and spiral. Some people... most people... find it allows them to relax. It never has for me. It makes the spiraling go faster and out of control, having similar effects as caffeine. It will wake me up, get the brain going. But, if I don't do something with my brain right after it wakes up, it will FIND something to do without me, and I become a helpless passenger on whatever tangent it found and throws me in. And, many times, it will tap into the first emotion that crosses it's path and become a victim to it, making for an extremely unpleasant and stressful exercise session. Therefore, a road bike, for example, is boring and doesn't keep me engaged, I will spiral. Same with treadmills. Hiking or mountain biking, however, requires focus and concentration so I don't hurt myself. Need to stay engaged. I was really into mountain biking for a brief time, but found myself getting bored and my mind spiraling as I did the same trails. Unfortunately, I couldn't mix it up due to a lack of trails at my fairly novice ability level, and the elephant in the room that is my weight that both holds me back physically from improving further, and logically scares the shit out of me because it makes minor hiccups turn into major injuries and accidents, ramping up the danger level to unacceptable levels. A little danger is good for adrenaline, too much creates stress, which was happening to me in spades. The elephant needs to get closer to cow-sized before she can reliably use exercise to assist... and to do that requires sacrifices of the mind, keeping it uncomfortable and spiraling a bit too much. For the greater good.

Hence the really fucking long tangent post that will melt human brains. Maybe the robots will appreciate the humanity of it one day after SkyNet goes online. Or use it to rationalize the extermination of the human race. It could go either way.

Ummm... what was I supposed to be bloggin about again?

I'm hungry. Not really. My brain is though. Need to go distract myself. The spiral is bleeding, hitting hour 5 or 6 since that first cup of coffee.

*wanders off*

Analogies

I have trouble, at times (often) expressing myself succinctly, or I feel like I lose people and they are nodding along, so I keep going, and lose them so much they become bored. So, I have gotten in the habit of creating analogies to attempt to explain a feeling or though. I am a highly, highly visual person as well, and if I can't visualize something, my mind can have trouble focusing. I can conceptualize highly abstract and theoretical things, so much so this is the areas I REALLY lose people, and can lose myself, as language is a barrier in actually explaining the concept. But to accomplish this, I really, really have to focus and move myself into that space of my mind. And once I am snapped out of it, I am dazed for a varying amount of time, my mind finding itself suddenly drained and lost in being caught back in reality... and then it is gone. Wherever I was, I can't find it again. Finding it intentionally can be done with solitude, deep focus, and meditation. But by far I find myself in these places accidentally. I wander there. I skip around in my mind, following threads, internalizing, internalizing, deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole... until it is like I am in the nexus. A self-center where I see the universe. M-monster has described such feelings when he trips, and when he relayed DMT in particular, I nodded in understanding even though I have never tried it. NODDED IN UNDERSTANDING. Because I have been there. I get lost in the forest and suddenly find myself in a clearing... and I am there. He doesn't believe me. So this is my attempt to explain a bit about my inner workings and how minds process their physical and intangible natures.

Imagine, if you will, we all live in clear cages. We can't see the walls, most don't know they are there. We don't understand them, but we know they exist. Like a wild animal in a zoo, knowing it can't charge through the glass. It might know it is there (after bumping into it initially), and accepts it. If they are an inactive animal, or have a very large enclosure, they might not even realize they are contained. They happily live their lives, food appearing next to their nest/ home, a mate nearby, nice little areas to explore and patrol near the house. All needs met, no reason to explore beyond. This is how most people live their lives. Sitting in their clear cage, content. Not seeing, or perhaps not caring, about the borders. They see the space around them, and live within it. They never stretch too far, because needs are so close they don't feel they need to. They never notice the walls, or maybe one day they wandered in one direction until they found one, shrugged their shoulders, and went away from it back to their happy space where there were no walls. They find their place, and live a normal life raising further generations in this space as they see fit. Some might be birds with clipped wings, even. Some are content that despite not being able to fly, they still have their needs met. Others are miserable, flopping around, trying to figure out their place and why it feels so wrong, too lost in their plight to ever explore, wandering in miserable circles in the middle of their cage. A few fortunate ones have a huge enclosure, and long legs or unclipped wings that allow them to run and explore. There is so much to see, explore, learn, and do in there, and that is what they do. Some squander this opportunity, choosing to live like others despite their obvious advantages.

I have always dreamed of being the one with the long legs, the wings, in an expansive space that I can explore, learn, and grow in. But, I am not. At this point, people will respond with 'it is all in your head'... which is the point, to an extent. I am talking here about physical limitations here as well. The wall represents limits of the mind, physical ones, and the space between it is what we are free to explore. The nature of the physical animal is the physical body itself, existing within the physical confines of the mind. 

Comparing myself to a bird with clipped wings may be the more debatable expression, but the real issue it causes me is; I see the others, with their wings, flying. Their legs, running. I see the ones happily living in their little holes. I see huge, expansive enclosures without an end in sight. I know such realities exist. And I have seen all this because I know I am in a cage, and I can look through my walls and see them too. I flop around on the ground, circling my wall by foot. My physical body limitation. I look through the glass, trace myself around it, trying to push into the bigger place beyond. The physical limits of my mind. I see the world out there, even beyond the cages of other, and more than anything in all existence, that is where I would rather be. In the beyond, not in a cage of any sort, no matter the size. Like the stressed tiger, endlessly walking in circles of their enclosure, rubbing against the glass so much their fur is worn off and the skin is raw. It knows. It knows it is in a cage. And it wants out. It needs out. 

Long ago I found the physical limitations of my mind, and began circling and pushing up against the walls. And it pains me to no end to know of them and find them at every turn. I know where the ones I have found are, and finding a new ones breaks my heart every time, like I expected to find something else this time. I explore the cage, looking for holes, a way out. And I only meet glass. Every time I think I found...more... I hit glass. I hit my physical limits. My intangible mind, my understanding, is physically limited from expanding beyond a certain point, and I know it. I can feel it. I can see it. I can see what is beyond, through those clear walls, but I cannot know it. I cannot touch it. I cannot experience it. I cannot fly to the sky into the endless possibilities, I can only flop on the ground, tracing myself around the borders, until my feathers are raw... hoping... one day to find a way out.

What I have been working on is trying to be like the other happy animals. Find a place in my cage. But when you know you are in a cage, and there is more out there you cannot touch, see, experience... it is so hard. I cannot sit still. I do stupid shit to distract myself. I eat too much to feel the excitement, the newness, the novelty, that I crave but cannot have. It is not the beyond, it is just a dream. I dream of the world outside, the one that is not mine, and will never be mine or anyone else's. I dream of even having wings, flying free to forget the walls and cage. Long legs to run, feel the wind and rush, climb over the stones and jump and leap and make a playground of my space. I was not built to be where I am. I am not meant to be contained, it is not the nature of my kind... whatever I am. I am not meant to flop on the ground. None of this feels right. The only thing that feels right is that I am alive, and I am me. My space is all wrong, my physical space. My body would be bearable if my mind wasn't so physically limited (and it is, the only people who say that a mind is limitless are ones whom haven't explored their own cages). The limits of my mind would be bearable if my body wasn't limited. If there was something in my world to get lost in, the cage wouldn't matter. I am not great at anything, but just fine or good at many things. Nothing is mine, nothing is me. Not for lack of trying, but for existence of real, physical barriers. I explore this space of mine, finding new things to see, and always finding a wall or clipped wings hindering further exploration. And I cannot be content with the small, with the everyday. The beyond is out there, the walls bar me. My wings are clipped and I cannot experience the joys others do. With this knowledge, can I ever be happy?

I debate whether I would be happier to stop looking around, stop exploring. The one thing I have pride in...is me. And my nature is to explore. I would have to stop being...me... to be be happy. Then, what is the point? Why exist to be content and lifeless, a warm body to propagate and exist, not live. I want so badly to find a home, to stop tracing the borders of my cage... but I also never want to stop seeing. I don't want to stop knowing the intangible. To know it exists. To be able to meditate, and find the wall, and see a glimpse of the beyond and intangible when I do. To wander and find a wall, look beyond, and not feel despair at finding the wall again but instead enjoying the fleeting experience. But I also don't want to get so lost in my despair that this glimpse stops bringing me hope and inspiration. It doesn't bring any sort of tangible or usable feelings... more just a recharge, a reminder of who I really am, what makes me who I am. I have no tangible, useful skills that someone happily living in their space, ignorant of their cage doesn't,also have. I have even less than those with the wings and legs. I have the intangible in abundance. Knowledge and sight of something others cannot ever see. How to translate it, to communicate it to others, especially when I lack any physical ability to do so... that has been the struggle for me lately. What brings me the most despair and anxiety. I cannot ever seem to properly express what I see, what I know, who I am.

I find glimpses of people who seem to see the cage too, but they live distantly and more often than not, don't see much of anything. They found one wall before wandering back to their happy space, never looking for it again, content, and perhaps scared. They don't wonder what else is there, and they don't think about the wall they saw. Some, like M-Monster, find it amusing to have their faces smashed up against it and forced to stare into the beyond and abyss, unable to blink, before wandering back into their space, swirling briefly with the knowledge. They become content enough to continue on their lives in their space, never looking for answers or anything more, until they feel an itch for something amusing again. They were not meant to know of it.  And maybe I wasn't either. It exhausts me, finding nothing but walls, always staring at the others or the beyond. Living beyond, perhaps, is where I am meant to be, or perhaps, merely not knowing of it and living with wings, flying, and making the most of my space is where I am meant to be. But neither are what is, nor will they ever be. I am caught between. Seeing and knowing of two existences; One I am never meant to comprehend but possess the knowledge of it's existence, and another I am not meant to experience, but see it's existence.

Grass is always greener when you live on a rock. Everyone simplifies me with trite phrases, telling me to just be happy with what I have like others, to stop itching the scratch, stop looking at something if it pains me to look at it. They don't understand that my ability to see is all I actually have. And maybe I am meant to be such a contradiction, filled with endless amounts of hope, wonder, and despair simultaneously. To know OF so much, yet KNOW nothing. To see the big picture without a zoom. I have an expansive mind, filling it to it's brim. But it isn't a large one, and the brim is not all that deep. It is nice to think that anyone cares that I use my mind to it's capacity, an unusual quality, but they don't. It leads to confusion on most people's part who think I am 'smart', even though I am not and tell them such. They are always disappointed later on when they find my limitations I was already well aware of and tried to warn them of. And it is always my fault, people thinking I don't care or am not trying. I am... there is just this wall here... A lazy smart person is far more appreciated, because they never disappoint when they have plenty of room to expand. Good for them. I would fill that bad boy up to the brim if I had one, so excuse me for being a bit bitter towards those who waste something so beautiful by keeping it empty.

*sigh*

I am slumped up against a very familiar wall right now, one I have been rubbing against quite a bit lately. And it exhausts me to flop all the way over here. I am drained. One with wings or legs might still have energy, but I don't. I am pretty spent, and most likely won't come back to edit this. So it is what it is, another hot mess stream of consciousness. 

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...

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.

Dissonance

Just pondering over here...

I am not sure where my ego ends and my cynicism begins.

Many times I feel... and I cringe to say this because it goes against my beliefs... better than others. Smarter, more capable. Over qualified. It makes me become super hard on myself, but also causes me to be distanced from others. Not only am I embarrassed for my lack of achievement, I feel like I can't relate with others. They are so different, no one understands the sound of how awesome I am. It would be emo if my ego wasn't driving it.

My practical side smacks my ego around, and tries to tell it to quit being a witch. I try to connect to people, telling myself we are the same. My stress kicks in, fueled by cynicism. They are dumb sheep, it says. Look at the state of things! I am not an idiot who would make such awful decisions! I make bad ones, but none as awful as all these awful people I am surrounded with make. I can't be like them, they are impractical and stupid. I can't take advice from them, because they are too stupid to be able to say anything profound. I can't relate to them because I am different, better, than them. I might as well be a different species. They say and do everything so unconsciously, driven by instinct and social conditioning. I am painfully aware of all these awkward bits that make humans, and myself, do all these silly things. They don't see it... do they?

It feels like no one can connect or relate to me, so how can I connect or relate to others? My mind is isolating me further as the lack of feeling fulfilled sends it scrambling for comfort. It continually closes in on my ego, protecting it from my failure. "You are better than them..." it hisses in my ear. "You aren't achieving or feeling fulfilled because they don't understand you. They don't give you a chance. They are fools. The sheep have allowed the economy to go to shit, and it it raining down on you. It isn't your fault you are a loser, the world is standing in your way..."

In it's own way all this fuels my depression. I know how asinine this all sounds, how hypocritical, egotistical, arrogant, insanely... insane. I know it all comes down to me. I can't blame the world for my failures, but half of me does. Trying to protect my ego it holds on this so tightly. Will NOT let go no matter how much I run this around in my head. It conflicts with my beliefs to hold onto these little ego fortress, but if my ego is gone the depression becomes overwhemling. I cannot function when I face myself. I protect myself by refusing to take risks, because I spend all my energy trying to hold back tides. And the pressure it building, and building. No relief. The depression overflows until I get the ego wall shored up again, this time stronger and more insistant. This time more distant from others, feeling more alienated.

I am afraid of how high this wall will go. Or what will happen when the dam breaks. Because one will happen, soon. I am becoming so isolated, angry, unable to relate. I put on my Cheshire smile, a mask, hide behind it, all the while boiling over underneath. My conflictions screaming at me while all remaining energy is spent holding the mask on. I crash so hard when the dam overflows. The wall is so high I look down on everyone beneath me. I feel so trapped and unable to move, standing at the dam, unable to do anything else but watch it and keep it under control.

The depression is manageable, haphazardly held back by an artificial paradox. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. I don't know what to do. I feel smothered by it. A tangled web, which threads can I cut without causing this delicate balance to come crashing down? I can't bring myself to lower the ego wall, accepting things 'beneath' me. The depression overflows. I can't stay where I am, because the wall is getting so high I can barely breathe in this thin air, cut off from the world.

So here I stand on my wall, waiting for relief. Some other outlet for the depression tide so I can lower the ego wall safely. Something to reinforce the ego wall so I don't have to build it higher. Something to distract me from the exhaustion of being up here 24/7. A flow of fulfillment, so I can give a finger to this entire fucking ego dam, climb down, and let the depression tide dry up on it's own without this endless flow of foul cognitive dissonance cumulatively filling it up. I can't leave to seek solutions, only watch, wait, hope, that it will hold, and that help comes soon... I feel so helpless, the feeling only adding to the tide and this horrifying cycle...

There it goes, the trickle flowing over the top again. I need to go build my dam up more.

Thank you, Emilie!

Today I went on a tab hunt again, and decided to pick some more at the very long Job Hunt/ WTF am I doing with my life/ WTF do I want to do with my life tangent. This particular one started at Life Hacker a good 6 months ago, and has been an ongoing follow up link progression. I have been chasing down link after link, day after day, and I poke at the pile of resources every once in a while.
After months of work, I have really begun to focus in on the good stuff, the important and relevant stuff. Today, I found a blog called 'Puttylike'. There I found the 'Undeclared for Life Manifesto'. For the first time, I felt like I was reading something by someone who understands me and my interests, because that is who she is!

All of the other things I had read were trying to get me to find something I like/ am good at and stick with it. Not helpful when I am good/ like a lot of things, and as much as I try, just plain cannot simply choose one. I am interested in so many things, I want to do so many things, I can't imagine spending my whole life in one area of interest. My problem isn't that I don't know what I like, which is what most of the articles I found were about. The problem is I don't know what I like best, nor how to make money/ a career out of liking a lot of things. It has been frustrating, since most resources had me skipping ahead the 'Find what you love!' parts, which then went into 'Follow your passion! Here is where you can find work at it!'. Ok, great. There is a gap between those two steps I have fallen between that I feel most people don't experience. Which job do I choose? How do I convince said job interest I am 'dedicated' and am a 'professional' in the area when I have had little training, and am not focused on moving up a ladder in that one path? No one wants to hear either. No one wants an employee like me. There is no room for a Jane of All Trades in the modern workplace, where corporate structure has so carefully laid out and planned the business model, and only relevant positions are needed to make the model work. I don't fit into any model. I am my own miniature model, actually. I have miniature versions of everything inside me, instead of just being one regular sized item. I feel like my own self-contained package that says a lot and is entertaining to look at and discuss, but seems to serve no useful purpose.

Talking to others is just as frustrating. They seem to think I am not looking hard enough for work (I admit, I have stopped actively looking after years of finding only the same stuff), and even worse, misunderstand my skills and the skills required in the workplace. My mom seems to think that since I am and 'artist' who likes computers, it is the same as 'graphic designer'. She thinks that being good with computers equals 'digital design'. And she doesn't understand why I don't apply for these jobs or why I can't seem to get them when I have applied. Most people I know are the same way about all my skills. I dabble in it, that means I am an expert, right? If I have shown interest, it means I should get a job doing it! I should focus on that, go to school again (which I have considered... but there are SO MANY things I want to study that I can't decide what to go for! Different schools for everything! Grrr...) I applied for a graphic design job, using my self-taught Photoshop skills as my main selling point. They wanted me to sit down with the design guy who was leaving and show what I could do. He seemed frustrated and pained as he watched me work, and I knew I wasn't doing it the way that was taught in design school. I wasn't using the appropriate tools for the tasks, and it took me longer because of it. I was always happy with my photoshop and digital work, but I realized after that I really am still a novice in terms of professional knowledge with it. Plus, I learned on and have been using Photoshop 7 for over 10 years now. WAY outdated. And I still don't know how to use everything in 7. Obviously I didn't get the job (and not even a callback, even when I called THEM back, a tiny office of 5, asking for a followup, and never got one... I guess it was THAT bad...) It was simple work too, I thought I did ok, but apparently I blew it. That particular case left a bad taste in my mouth, and I have not applied for a digital position since.


So, anyways, I spent the day reading through that manifesto, then following more link tangents that spouted from it. I am considering joining her group, and seeing what that is like. Seems like some nice, like-minded types, and I could use some help staying motivated, as well as having some people who understand me that I can to talk to...

Spent time reading through some more D&D stuff too, just confirming all my changes are Kosher and trying to chase down info on hanging issues too. It was a couple hours worth of reading and clicking around that happened in the middle of reading the Puttylike and related tangents, so I thought it was worth mentioning.


Ugh, there goes M Monster again, gnashing away at me... I'm spent.


A final note-- I need to start up my comics again, this has been really bugging me. I have tons in sketchbooks that I never finished, and even more in my mind I haven't even sketched. I set up this blog as a place for LG, but have yet to post any comics... The first set is pretty easy, but there are some little addendum comics I want to insert between the ones I already published, so I need to do some work before just slapping them up. Of course, I haven't finished some of those, and some I haven't even sketched. Argh. DAMN YOU ADD brain! -_-


Closing out tabs from today, decided to watch http://foureyedmonsters.com/feature_film/ Well done, but not my kind of movie. I stuck through it and watched it all, however. I know lots of people that would love this film. I personally just can't stand watching stuff about relationships, I CANNOT STAND chick flicks or romcoms. I have limited tolerance for straight dramas. While I like depth, and lots of it, I feel stuff about relationships is self indulgent, narcissistic, and... I ran out of repertoire, it's late. I just don't like to watch stuff about it, I guess I feel it is personal and not a world I feel comfortable in or even can find myself giving two shits about. It's their business. I care mildly if I am connected to the person, and that is the most I can muster. I guess I will put this out there, that I plan on specifically NOT featuring relationship love stories or any googly eye moments in 'On Tour'. There will be NONE of it in my sci-fi stuff. It has NO place there. 'On Tour', due to it's nature, will have references to it, but won't focus on it. I won't be playing ANY 'match up' or 'romantic tension' bullshit. Ugh. Gag me. I wrote some non fiction in a non fiction course while in college. I did NOT want to take the course, but it was required for my minor. For my main project I had no ideas. So, I did a kind of journal about my relationships with M Monster, real life friends, and virtual friends. It was basically current events in my boring, tediously uneventful life. The most exciting stuff happened while playing video games with strangers, and most of the 'excitement' was typical, overblown, and forgettable internet drama. I thought it was awful. My classmates, especially females, LOVED it. Like, I had three requests after the final project begging me to finish and send them the story. I never touched the story again. I looked at it years later, and cringed. I think I might delete it entirely in the not too distant future. My hesitation comes from the overwhelming, and unexpectedly positive, responses to it. It would be long gone otherwise.



As a side note, this journaling has made we realize that I do play less than I thought I do, and I actually am 'busy' (it's in quotes AND italicized for a reason...) most of the time. I am wasting time, but I am not. I am not accomplishing things, but I am learning and exploring in the vast majority of my time. That has to count for something... as least I tell myself that so I don't feel like such a bum...


Ok, only time for an hour or so of video games. I have work in the morning...