the open invitation, and why it is no more

 I had ambition, it drove me for so many years. The thought that if I got through today, someday in the future would be edifying. It was driving, but it was also an invitation to anyone involved to take advantage. They knew I wouldn't quit, because I owed it to myself. No more.

Being more or less dead for almost a year changes a man. The big thing to me was when I asked them to work with me on my health issues, and they rejected me. That was the final nail in the coffin of me trusting an employer. They claimed to be about health and balance, but their actions confessed otherwise.

This morning it is cold, rainy, and a little bleak. I did my treatment plan update in therapy this morning, never a pleasant task, yet has to be done. It also means I barely processed my week. I've been writing this self esteem journal, gotta wait another week to process that.

Right now I'm locked up, even the things that had functioned as escapes aren't working right now. Major flaw in the present focused mindfulness era; if today is miserable, that becomes your world.

I have no more to give, not to people who can't appreciate it. To my mind, that includes most employers. Dad was putting pressure on me trying, so I make a show of trying. In reality, I'm barely holding on, and I struggle to tell others about it.

like I'm arguing with myself about how much self care I want to do. If I had boundless energy I'd go for a bike ride, take a shower, and cook dinner. Things not being that way, I'll be ambitious if I manage to get my laundry done and dinner.

Upshot we replaced the sink. It's a little thing, but it feels so much better. We ditched the garbage disposal, it rarely worked anyway, for a normal drain. The sink itself is stainless steel. Also got the car up and going again. Last week I had the radiator replaced and oil changed. Today I filled her up with gas and put the fuel line treatment in. Now all that is left is body work, which is also the case for my truck.

The truck is a roadblock RN, I can't get the hood open and the battery is dead. We've joked about the truck being roughly representative of my own well being. It's accurate; it sits in the driveway, just as potent and beautiful as always, but immobile, a gravestone of the function that was.

Today's rain came with dirt. Everything outside is really gross. Oklahoma, the gift that keeps on giving. Which makes me think of the biblical story; "If your son asked for some bread, would you give him a snake?" goes the rhetoric, my reply "In Oklahoma, not only would a snake be provided, but taunting and blame for being foolish enough to expect better." The inconsistency of a highly Christian state that resembles Christ less than anywhere else I've been.... agony.

What it is, or what it will be

 You'd think this blog is long dead, and you'd be wrong for at least today. I have written out every word I can stand anonymously, and in a more public forum, and find I still have more to say.

Screaming into the void that this is, the lack of feedback is somehow comforting. Ever so rarely someone finds the blog and leaves a comment, it's the least response of any project I have ever worked on. So when I write here, I can be sure I'm doing it for myself.

Which does lead one to ponder why it is published online. Above all it is for indexing value. As long as this is active, I can track it down and review it. Given the extensive record, and that it is made in the moment and not in the idealistic retrospective, there is no more potent evidence that I existed/exist, depending on when you read this.

Arms race, a phrase I've been using quite a bit lately, may be less appropriate now that there is war in Europe. It is an ample description though. The forces that discourage me are growing more complex and persuasive. As that is the case, I have beat a strategic retreat. I don't believe that there is anything left to be gained in pursuit of a career. 

Which is not a refutation that a career might provide gainful employment. It certainly has, now and then, in very short bursts, and in ways that have not allowed me to plan or advance my life in the entire adult period. I sit here at 34, wiser, better educated, more skilled, and every bit as humbled by the challenge of trying to find people that appreciate me as I was 12 years ago.

The 12 year thing is one of my superstitious tics. Rationally, it is probably nothing. Either a self fulfilling prophesy or me trying to apply patterns to chaos, either is more likely than external religious significance. Perhaps there is a God, and if I ever meet them, I want to know whether they ever had a plan for me. IF they did, what purpose does the pain serve? What could possibly justify what I've been through? 

I struggle to turn the page. I've been trying to write a book for nearly a year now. The introduction is fine, I like my characters, but I have no climax or ending. I just want to end the book right after the central conflict is revealed; in my experience things struggle to pass that phase, if they ever do.

Life is not narratively satisfying, that's how you know it's real. If it was narratively satisfying you'd be haunted by the possibility that your brain concocted it to satisfy your inner desires.

A problem I am blissfully free of. The world is horrible, with islands of kindness ever so rarely. Those that engage are either more idealistic than I, or better at lying to themselves. That is to say; those like me. It is a small contingent. The majority of the species is motivated by less noble things, more practical though. Poverty frightens most of them into manic action, but I cannot find it within myself to fear poverty. I've spent time studying it, and it is far LESS awful that the life I have spent the last two decades leading.

That's me all over, non specific, dramatic. I wanted to be a teller of stories, things being awful is a good set up.

When last we left our hero, he had been forced to graduate a semester early, and with only a single major in psychology and neglecting the end part of the computer science education. A pandemic had started./ Every Phd program he applied to ignored him. All the while, he received accolades academically and in his research.

Meeting with the real world, it became rapidly clear that those accolades were entirely superficial, not effective at convincing anyone that he was a capable and intelligent person.

The following four-fie months after graduation existed as a passionate and pointless job hunt. Every coding job applied for ignored him as persistently and studiously as the universities he had applied to. The only lead; working for child welfare for the state. Eventually after more interviews and effort than any other job in his career, he found himself with a position two hours away from home, in one of the most toxic departments in the state.

*hand wavery* textbook disappointment, futility, and frustration. Everything that the state had been to him through his life was evident in the machinations of the machinery of the state. It ground him nearly to nothing, to desiring homelessness over gainful employment.

So he left, with every attempt not to rebuffed, he left. He tried one more time a few months ago, this time returning to inpatient psychiatric work, which imploded spectacularly, again against his will or intention.

Now, he's lying to everyone who asks him to. Saying it will get better perhaps. It won't. Getting better would require a fidelity and kindness that the people of Oklahoma lacked, unable to afford such things. The world is too awful. In a more civilized time our hero could have descended into opium and poetry like the great Poe or Lovecraft. 

Is not to be, not yet. The marriage holds. The house holds. The beliefs of others in the talents and abilities of our hero remain remarkably strong. If belief could produce success, surely it would have by now.

Max Abides

Sometimes I write here because I'm curious what my last post will be, last words, something like that. I'd rather they be planned than just whatever comes out. I was reading about Admiral Nelson today, who had perhaps the most interesting exit that I've heard of;

He was shot through the spine in the middle of a battle during the Napoleonic wars. He told everyone around him, "I'm dying, there's nothing for it." From there his friends and fellow sailors sat with him and watched him fade away. Yet, his last words, "Kiss me, Hardy" don't seem planned. He was 47.

With that morbid thought passed, what have I been up to? It's been almost a year and a half since I did a proper update, so this will be primarily a recap. Memory is telling stories, and how we tell the story changes with time. That means this may be the only time I tell the story exactly this way:

Spring 2019:
My most manic semester thus far (as of Spring 2020.) Fifteen credit hours and my first weekend seminar, the subject; "Suicide prevention and diagnosis." A month later (roughly), my long term friend/complicated lady in my life made a threat towards suicide that I found credible. I called 911, as I had been told to if I ever heard a credible threat towards self harm. She yelled at me, ran out the front door and drove out of my life. That was a trauma which pushed me into going back to the NSU therapist, Destiny. At the time I was still seeing Mr. Faggin at Fam & Children's services. Towards the end of the semester I asked my Experimental Psych professor Dr. Phillips for a recommendation for someone for me to be research assistant to. I started meeting with Dr. Byers in late April and working on his historical trauma project regarding the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Originally the ex best friend, the fiance and I were going to go on a great big road trip, tentatively titled "the great mossey." Obviously that imploded, but ironically before the exodus of the friend. The reason for such implosion was a lack of financial resources on the part of the other two parties.

Oh yes, and there was a new (to me) car I bought in February. I had been saving since the prior Fall semester because I knew I couldn't afford another year of driving the old truck to school, and I didn't want to sell it. So I bought a nice Nissan Sentra in white with beige trim. The complication came when I tried to get a tag, because the dealer had bought it from an out of state person, and it took multiple months to get the title. That was one adventure, another was when the first gear started slipping, so I had to put a reconditioned transmission into it. All of that to say; cross country trip not feasible.

To Be Continued.... Playing DnD at the moment and losing my focus. I'd rather post this now as it is and continue in part two than try and make one super-post.

Every post a time capsule, every word a thought or emotion

That's about the thrust of my posts in the past few years. Here I am, 2.5 years out from my breakdown, and my thinking about it is still evolving.

That isn't where this whole need to unload started, of course. The reason for speaking is almost never the thing talked about. There's the semester ending(quite well thus far it must be admitted.) There's the cloudy short cold days with nothing nice to do apart from work. Then there is the quiet before the next stage, where I have project to work on to further develop my ability to be self directed (while working on other skills.)

Mostly though it just escapes me how good I have it. Which is how I got on the anniversary of getting out of the hospital. It is also 8 years and a month out from the day my divorce was final. 13.5 years from the day I walked out of high school. It's all meaningless, because those wounds are so old that the only memories left are of mulling over other memories.

I'm working through cleaning out my email inbox. I just got through 2016. Which spurred going back and reading what I wrote during 2016. I sure was full of myself, and pissed. Really that's the entire progression of depression over the past six years, towards anger and arrogance.

It was what it was; a bad time. It's a fucking bump that I got over. There's no changing it.

So I'm feeling down, what now? I'm going to take exactly half an hour and destress, then I'm going to do SOME sort of school work for half an hour, and so on. Repeat fucking pattern, discipline my mind. I might take a 20 minute work out break after two cycles, but not before.

I guess I just wanted to talk to my future self. I'm hoping where you are now it's better than it is now. It is my sincerest hope and goal that by the time I feel the itch to go digging again I'll have graduated, and hopefully gotten into a good grad school (or as a back up have a job that is cool enough to do for a year while I wait for application time to come round again.)

There are hopes, there are expectations. I expect to keep trying, because that's who I am. As to hopes; I hope what I do is worthy of better results. Thus far the improvement is pretty stark. Two more years and I'll hopefully be seeing as stark an improvement.

The key to making good decisions is only looking back at relevant data, and improving process.

A little doze, a little prose. Some little thoughts to warm your toes.

intro:

I wanted to work on a piece of work for myself. I haven't written purely for myself in awhile. Most of the time I write to throw my anger against the wall, but there it is. I'm going to try and capture a feeling I've been having lately. At first I was going to work on this for a site where I write anonymously. Then again I thought about writing it for a site where I am very well read.

Neither worked for creative freedom. If I wasn't so ego filled I would just write it and hide it in a drawer. Sadly ego and writing are kept in the same place in my mind.

I call it: No Longer Young

Body:

Young no more
The sun rises unexpectedly, a great and simple joy
now that my naivete is spent
I am no longer just a boy

Alas alas, I sing the song
that aged men must sing
A life so full, mistakes were made
Yet I learn
Yet I grew
Yet my first chapter was wrote

If I had done it differently
who would face you now?
If my face were not so lined
would any wisdom show?
I didn't come for vanity
nor wealth
nor fame
nor did I have desire that any would know my name
I sought to be the best I could
and better I became

Yes youth is gone, and bittersweet
the parting comes at last
I hated youth
I hated the unknown
Most of all I hated who I wasn't
Or maybe who I was

An ego large
ambition drives the man to reach so high
yet passion's flame undirected
 more dangerous than disease
A man who seeks an enemy,
an enemy will find
though none will see the enemy
if not inside his mind

Return at last to rise above
to separateness alone
Home kept in heart
treasured and forgot
Yet found again, and not too late
life bounding yet ahead
for many days are left for me
before all my words are said.

Splat splat! Everything is meaning and the delusions aint so grand!

Ah! But what is joy?

Perhaps I will just say the world is a fantastic place.

I'm no Pollyanna either. This world is a world of fantasy. Our entire economic system is an agreed upon abstraction, no fucking physics or material wealth there. I laugh to think that materialism is the biggest lie of all: The more money one accumulates the less one has, and the more one is had.

But I was talking about meaning, and got off on talking about fantasy. Fantasy and meaning are intertwined, I see that now.

When I went mad, and I've never been sure that I came back, I thought the world was my toy and spinning like a top on my finger. Then I came back to what I call reality. Yet all of me didn't come back. The part that assumed that reality was solid died in that heaven forsaken hospital. It wasn't hell either, though my personal belief is that Hell is where God keeps those who refuse under all circumstances to approach him. It was a holding pattern of hurt, pain, and attempts to mitigate the damage.

I'm not mad now. Not even a little. I have touchstones of reality with which I register, and often.

The real world that the rest of humans live in is a terrible place, and I'm aware of that. I'm sorry about it too, as sorry as anyone with a warm bed and full belly can be about the cold, desperate and starving. I delude myself that I have compassion, but I just have open eyes. The pain is everywhere, and I try and hold joy and light within. The goal is to remain stable, rational and cogent.

Programming has produced a new nirvana for me, a world of pure logic, problem solving and where things are either broken or working. It stresses me out with challenge yet brings me unbridled joy. It is not my destination, but it gives me clarity like opium to a man in pain.

I feel like a child, discovering the world for the first time. The past is a different country, one I come from and remember much differently than my fellow immigrants. This present land is alien and unfriendly, but it is unkind to us all and we commiserate in our discomfort.

Poetry used to be so awful, now it makes me laugh:

Ewwy Gooey was a worm,
a gooey worm was he....
He sat upon a railroad track
a train he did not see......
Ewwy Gooey!

Then there is meaningful but funny songs:

Fogging the view cupping face to the window
in darkness you make out a spiralling shape
putting all reason aside you exchange what you've got
for the thing that's hypnotic and strange

------------

Heave ho splash plunk rolling down a hole
heave ho splash plunk roll roll rolling down a hole
down the dark swift stream you go
into lands you once did know
move beyond the world of trees
out into the whistling breeze

------------

My friends all said you've lost your head now what are you going to do
you've been keeping your neighbors up all night
sayin "What the hell's the matter with you?!"

This might sound mean but your digging machine's gonna leave your feelings hurt
you're gonna dig right down to the center of the earth, and find out that there's nothing there but dirt!

-------------

Anything you want, you got it
anything you need, you got it
anything at all, you got it, baby

-------------

Taken from the county jail
By a set of curious chances;
Liberated then on bail,
On my own recognizances;
Wafted by a favouring gale
As one sometimes is in trances,
To a height that few can scale,
Save by long and weary dances;
Surely, never had a male
Under such like circumstances
So adventurous a tale,
Which may rank with most romances.

---------------

Ah, but we're all fools in love. I love myself, my life, and my family.

To quote Vonnegut:
A lover's a liar, to himself he lies
the truthful are loveless, like oysters their eyes!

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” – G.K Chesterton

How can you fake that which cannot have it's veracity verified?!

I'm a weird little philosophic machine. The atypical bit is my particular journey down this path. It is part of the difficulty that in starting to think about my issues with originality I address part of my approach that is atypical.

I like the word atypical (and let's talk about why): Last semester in statistics I learned quite a large amount about sampling and modeling. Statistics is wonderful in that it only gives data about a given sample and how that sample behaves. Since I am in the social sciences our samples are usually of people.

Normal Distribution Curve

This is the perfect normal curve, like we use in testing. In this model you'd want the vast majority of people to appear within one standard deviation from the mean, which is -1o to 0 and 0 to 1o. That represents 64.2 percent of the sample. Within IQ for example this represents scores between 85 and 115. 130 and 70 are the second set of standard deviations and where most assessments lose accuracy, and anything over 160 or under 40 is not measurable. 

Anyway when I'm thinking about myself and how well  I follow patterns, it is usually in my inverse relationship to social pressure. My peers and local authorities tell me to make a decision and I immediately doubt the quality of that decision. If I see something working and don't feel pressure then I'm likely to accept it as an effective solution.

Example:

No one needs to sell the concept of eating cheese. It is high protein, easily digested and high in sugar. It makes bland food taste good. People will add cheese to things to sell those other things, but no one needs to sell me on cheese.

Yet every ad wants to sell me on being anti tobacco, buying new cars, or changing insurance agencies. These things have little practical effect on my life, which means that there must be some back end benefit for those doing the selling.

-------

The strangest thing is that thinking that one is unique or original is just as faulty an assumption as assuming that what others do will work for me. It is a common reasoning error. The reason it is an error is that if many people think "I am the only one thinking this" then it isolates them, and it isn't true. I'm using truth in the Boolean logic sense, so don't get excited about the philosophy of truth, enlightenment and whether we can really know anything.

-------

But I am alone. I am fundamentally alone, singular and isolated. I am not cut off entirely though. I'm not suffering from social anxiety, and I empathize with others very well. Others don't empathize well with me. *sigh*

I'm very tired right now. This is one of my largest issues: I work myself so hard that I can hardly function anymore, and I like it. It would be nice if I could just write a contemplative on my place within the human race and my relative commonness and the value of that, but it just isn't in me.

Why:

I want it, and it would satisfy me. Being satisfied is a horrible thing for a tired man, because it might let him rest. Note I say rest and not sleep, because I sleep (not as many hours as I would like but that's neither here nor there. Seeing a doctor tomorrow about that issue.)

Some battles aren't worth fighting. The journey into self is one of them tonight.

I never saw the sudden curve before it's way too late

"And my skin is raw, but my soul is ripe,

And no one's gonna stop me now, I'm gonna make my escape
But I can't stop thinking of you,
And I never see the sudden curve until it's way too late
And I never see the sudden curve until it's way too late

Then I'm down in the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun,
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike,
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell
And the last thing I see is my heart, still beating,
Breaking out of my body and flying away
Like a bat out of hell"

Bat Out of Hell, Meatloaf

Round the curve my mind and body went, holding on to the pivot point of my willpower with hands white and bloody. Shocked I swung out the curve and into the arching fall. Oh first I swung up it was true, but always I was falling. Falling: The disaster of utmost control lost. I used to dream about falling a lot. That and being trapped in a gothic mansion were the most common fixture of my dreams. Then there was this dream I had of the terror tornado. It sounds so cheesy when I say it like that. When I was a kid that was what terror was like, a raging storm with a heading that I was in the way of. What powerlessness I felt then.

 How I lied to myself as if the drugs were all to blame.

The truth.... if there is a truth to me, is that I'm always running. Sometimes I'm running away, others I'm running towards something or other. Why is it so easy to be non specific about what I'm running from and not what I'm running towards? Both are fucking scary. 

*sigh* Love is irrational? Rationality is irrational. The world is full of paradox, ambiguity and uncertainty. We go against the grain of our very nature in our search for meaning. I feel like I'm supposed to be this fucking light in the darkness, but look at me. Not that anyone reading can look. I like to keep the me I am here and my face as separate as possible.

There's some part of me that doesn't want that reconciliation to happen easily. Oh sure, anyone could know who I am, but all this is just an elaborate lever that makes me examine myself in ways that amuse me. People talk back so rarely that there is an illusion of isolation. The blog is the 21st century answer to the confessional. It's better though, there are no prayers or answers offered. It allows people like me to work on ourselves.

Though that work is always transitional and temporary. Adulthood is thus: working in fits and starts and balancing reality with the places we escape to. Where are we running, or running from? One day maybe I'll have that answer.

Goodnight.

The ride that I don't get off of

If it isn't clear by now I have finishing problems, in more ways than one. I struggle most to finish for myself. If someone else needs me to finish a project I'll do it. Yet my will is not so strong as to push on for my own benefit.

Until now anyway.

I'm on a ride that feels wild and out of control all the while my drive and desire grips my hand and throat. I strangle myself every time my eyes drift away. I punch any delusion. Mine is the drive and the vision. It is as if to wonder if God had to cut my strings, over and over, until my spine was a ramrod. I know not.

The desires remain there, festering like the wound on my hand. Each day it hurts I apply a salve, yet it does not mend. It remains there to remind me of what weakness is, of my own shortcomings. I must see that which I'm running from and at the same remain mindful of what I am running towards.

I'm almost always excited these days, and with frustration comes a boiling need. I dig this tunnel, as my shovel strikes that which is harder my body quavers, my breath starts. I am but a hammer with a wood handle. The vibrations from the chisel travel back to my hand. Oh! But to stop?! Madness.

"Down, Down, Down you go
No way to stop
as you fall, hear me call
No! No! No!
listen to this warning and consider these
simple words of advice:
stop stop stop."

Ah but such madness leads towards the sweet hell that is oblivion. What is this man but weak flesh contrasted with a will that exceeds his ability? I consider my desires all the while. Ah how I love myself, ah how I despise my body, my weakness. My will has swelled, fed like a raging fire with the kindling of failure and the fuel of understanding. I push on.

"my friends all said you've lost your head, now what are you trying to do?
you've been keeping your neighbors up all night sayin "What the hell's the matter with you?"
This might sound mean but this digging machine's gonna leave your feelings hurt
you gonna dig straight down to the center of the earth to find out that there's nothing there but
dirt, just dirt, no women, aw man, dirt!"
Digging Machine, Logan Whitehurst.

For the journey is the thing I am on. The journey hurts and tires the wanderer, yes? But the wonders the eye sees only on the journey. To sit still would be satisfying, but to miss those sights and sounds that come only from a new world born every day? Solitude and depths untold, lessons new and wisdom old. I'm a philosophic old hippie these days, and a pragmatic little engineer. Who is he, that man I will be when my days come to an end? Is he kind or is he smart? Has he any friends?

Fucking poetry. Fucking sex, mystic legends and wild tales. Who knows what is real anymore? And why would it matter? It only matters that I appear to function. Ah, I function well. It's all madness inside and a tower of reason and productivity outwards. Ah the wonderful things I cannot touch, and the things I dream of but shouldn't have.

Such is my need for a controlling power that I become it myself. Would that God would take that mantle back. Someday I think he will.

The solitude is getting all the stranger these days. I crave it and run from it. When I am alone there are just the right number of voices: There's what I want, what I don't want and what needs doing. Other people are odd in a way I can't put my finger on. It is as though they find satisfaction with their weakness. Others soak up that which I am repelled by. How the crap are humans supposed to work? Is there a model or a template? I've found no common one. Thus I am vague when others ask how they should behave. Yet if they ask me how I would act, well that's easy. I would analyze and move forward. There is little else in the core of me. I am but a digging machine myself. Even my pain instructs me on better self care. I get better at juggling.

It strikes me that writing here again I'm discussing myself quite a bit. It's sloppy writing, but words I need to get out. One day there will be a great sorting out of self and other undertaken by me. Ah, again the journey is the trans-formative process. I started this adventure as a naive hobbit, yet I am no Frodo to be pulled along by events. I am a Bilbo, finding myself and strangely pleased with the reformation. There is no going back, we are round the bend already and safety is far gone, if it was ever there at all.

Never self critical enough on a Wednesday

Wednesday this semester is a hectic day:

I get up to an alarm (the only day I have to), between 6:45 AM and 7:15 AM.

I go out to breakfast, again the only day that I have to.

Then I get to school between 8:25 AM and 8:45 AM and try to start working.

Intro to counseling starts at 9 AM.

I can focus for maybe half an hour of the class. Unavoidably we end up on a tangent (as is going on right now). I don't care about the personal feelings of my peers on how broken people are. We're training to be healers, we are not sociologists.

This may be a flaw in my character. I get very frustrated with the shallow and esoterically meaningless discussions of under educated people. It is unavoidable that we must all discuss the various blemishes that our society possesses. I find no fault in the cry of "This world should be better!" My fault is in the cry of the layman of "The technical solution should be thus!" As if they had the data to say so!

Which comes back to things I hate in myself. I hate it when I think I have all of the data for a given project and do not. I would rather be mute on all solutions than speak of things I don't know.

-------

A pause thinking about borderline personality disorder.

-------

There isn't much of a choice between developing interesting insights on others and dominating the class.

I just have so much poorly sourced anger. I hate, without specificity and without direction towards a point of satisfaction. What is worse is that I depend on my anger as a crutch. My anger gets me up in the morning, and carries me through the day. I don't want to work, or leave the house for that matter. I'd be quite content to read my books and eat at home. Yet, there is no satisfaction there. I don't like the way the world treats me when I do what I prefer.

-------
3.5 hours later and nothing MHM 10/3/2018
------
Push to publish the next day because this mindfulness exercise was day specific. MHM 10/4/2018

The healthy don't complain: they're busy

Hello gentle reader (who may or might not be me in the future).

Did you know that I stop writing about how I feel when I don't want to remember? I know myself so damn well that I know that if I stop writing about my feelings than it is as if they don't happen.... *satisfied sigh*
Oh! Oh! Oh! The things that I don't know!

Oh Oh Oh
The things you gotta know
Oh Oh Oh
The things you gotta know
History history you have to know your history
you have to know those dusty musty gents
emperors kings and presidents
you have to remember which one is who
remember his birthday and remember his birthday
and the size of his shoe
remember sir Oliver Oglethorpe
and dear old Ching Chang Chose
and which queen of Qumblin had a wart on the end of her nose?
who's that geezer Julius Ceaser?
Looks to me like Ebeneezer
No that there is Ebeneezer
This sir Frederick Von Thorpe Pleaser
And this is sir Alfred Fluther Hillary Billery Blurn
Oh my gracious goodness Bub the things you gotta learn
You've got to learn why do cows chew their cud
And why are fiddle blisters always blowing suds?
You've got to learn the smell of the stipulated pinkweed
how it differs from the smell of the pipulated stinkweed
Of all of the pyramids,
how deep is the river Nile?
And how many teeth in a crocodile's smile?
And how many bones has a diploducklodicus?
And how many bones has a rumpa- rampa-wrinkle-dinkle-populatta-ficus?

-Phonetic transcription by Max Malcolm of
Oh Oh Oh, The Things You Gotta Know from "Hooper Bloop Highway"(Dr. Seuss, 1975)

--------
But on the other hand:
I was getting off track.

I've been so busy checking in with others that I haven't check in on myself in awhile. That's the true purpose of a journal; to write without an intended audience. I suspect that most of my blog readership burnt off in the year gap between posts (not that I haven't been active.) My angst ridden writing has been topic driven at Quora in the intervening time.

I purposefully don't promote this blog on Quora because I have a steady following there. Promoting this on that site would reflect a quality bar I haven't met here in the past decade of writing.

There's a commonly held belief among young writers (which I am just barely still at 30) that one has to write tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of terrible words before good writing starts happening. I still hold this belief doubtfully because typing and formatting does not make a good writer. A good writer is a master manipulator of language, the reader's emotions and thought patterns. Until I get recognition in the way of people asking for me to write for a living, my assumption is that I am startlingly average among the semi professional writer class.

My belief is further tempered by bad prolific writers: L. Ron Hubbard, Larry Niven and Stephen King particularly.

I would rather be good than prolific any day.
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Which brings it back to what I'm doing with my life.

I'm a full time straight A student. At least at this point in the semester I am. I landed on the Dean's list at NSU last semester. Landed being a particularly apt term for a process that has more to do with class structure than my actual skill.

I am a paradox of terms:
I am academically well ahead of my peers.
I didn't earn my Associates degree until three months before my 30th birthday even though I started college at age 17.
I have been told by others that I am perceptive.
Other people believe I should have no problems with any academic challenge.
Meanwhile I work 40-50 hours a week on 9 credit hours (which is 27 hours of theoretical work.)
I washed out of a sophomore level math class two weeks into this semester.

--------

What else can I say? Our country is in terrible trouble, but it isn't my department to fix it. I'm having medical issues, but I'm also doing everything within my power to resolve them. There are plenty of problems but all of them have solutions and people who are okay with covering them if I don't want to.

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On the other hand I wear a glove. (a joke.)

The year of 10 million Napoleons

The year of 10 million Napoleons: a fantasy of the near future

In the not too distant future, just around the corner from today you might say. It all of course depends on how you perceive time. For some there is never enough time and they are always impatient. For them, don't fear this future, it is many moments away.

However for the thoughtful man, the quiet man for whom weeks seem like years and years pass like days, it happens very soon indeed. Not so soon we cannot prepare, but soon my friends, oh yes soon.

Time is a major character in this story, I warn you it may be the only real character of any force. Does the reader think that people happen to time, or that time happens to people?
I'd be interested to know, especially after I unwind my weary tale.

As I was saying in the first place, in the not too distant future. The world had finally begun to change under the force of the hands that had worked it for so long. Changed marched slowly, but with such determination that every year the sweeping changes moved faster and faster. It was as if the hands of the drummer had begun to rebel against the great conductor of the orchestra. Then the horns joined in. That however is getting ahead of the game.

The story of ten million napoleons started rather innocently. It was a Thursday, arguably the most hateful day of the week. The cogs in motion had been moving for some time, silently. The napoleons (as I will refer to them from now on, to not weary the reader overmuch), were all in different positions. Yet the voice heard round the world was not many, it was not like ten million, it was one voice. That one voice said the shortest and most powerful word in the English language. The voice said "No!"

Everybody stopped to listen, for the first time in years it seemed. It had not been years since they listened at all understand. The world of humans had listened as much as they could. However the noise of the machines of industry had made their ears insensitive to the quiet movement of the cogs of change.

These many voices who had joined together, many speaking up for the first time, were not all strong voices. Some were light and reedy, others were deep and rough. Some where timid and hardly used. The rough ones were over used.

The tone was why people listened, and the tone had in truth taken longest to set. It had started at the very start of organized thought and perhaps even before recorded history. The moment one had more than another, or one man tricked his brother, the die was cast. Falling through the ages of man, rattling on the way down. You and I know this rattle. We've heard history happen. Such is the rattle of the movement of change.

The tone was confident. The napoleons stood out not for wealth, strength or size, but for strength of character. These men, women, and people of many shapes stood out alone for knowing themselves, their worth, and their status. They stood out further because they desired better for themselves and their children.

That's the odd part of the early part of this story, because isn't it so human to love yourself and love your kids? In the era preceding this event that desire had been twisted.

If you love yourself, you must give of yourself the voices of society said. Such lovely carefully crafted almost facts. Working is of course a virtue, didn't you know?
Then they took those two beautiful life affirming facts and twisted them hard. To satisfy your desire to be productive and to give you must give more than you have they said. Minor alterations, you and I could probably agree. The voices spoke on how a large group is better than a small group, or an individual. This rang especially true for those with large hearts. Those with pride in their work were the most hurt.

The worst hurt, the hurt that festered and grew was this: if you love others, and you love work, then when others ask you to submit your personal ethics to the group ethic you must do so unquestioningly.

It was never displayed so bald as that, but you know the voice I speak of. The voice from above which says to you that paying your bills is better than obeying your morality. However who created the bills? Why humans we must all admit. However who's interest is it in that a man be forced to work unethically 80 hours a week? Who benefits most from the workers production?

Neither I nor the napoleons know. I merely know this tale began many many years ago, far before our grandparents were born.

The many organizations trying to run the world I suppose form the antagonistic element, at least in the lead up to the voice heard round the world. It is important to understand their motivations, for you can bet the napoleons did.

They were not motivated by simple greed, because greed is actually usually just an initiator. I've never seen greed actually put in a day of work. They were motivated by harmony, in particular the harmony of society. What horrible people the napoleons were! Who could ever be against harmony? The song though, was slow, monotonous and unthinking.

The song went:
I go to work to do my job
The job I do to make things work
If I didn't do it
I'd be useless
Hey ho, there's work to be done

It has a good beat to it. You cannot dance to it. Have you ever seen these invisible creatures, the organizations, dance? They can't. They can perform, they can arrange musical numbers for people, but people dance.They must remain invisible, an invisible machine with an invisible purpose: to create more invisible wealth.

I tire for today friends, come back another day and I will try to write for you again.

Poverty appropriation

https://theestablishment.co/the-troubling-trendiness-of-poverty-appropriation-4d3681406320

The subject of the article in question is the tiny house movement and how it demeans those who have no choice but poverty....... Oh god it's going to be an old fashioned rant.

I will be the first to acknowledge the complacency of the well to do and how it sickens the american worker. Yet this..... exclusion route you choose does not make sense to those of us who are already excluded by our birth communities. Just because someone chooses a life DOES NOT MEAN they don't deserve it. Example, you chose to write an article complaining about hipsters and the counterculture trying to understand your culture. Yes, I can see they did it in a way that offends you. Are you surprised?

Is there some kind of morality of the born poor, that the misery they feel is more genuine because of systemic oppression? I, like many of my born well off friends, will GLADLY tell you how EVEN YOU can have access to limitless fucking money. Because if THAT is what you value, I want you to have it, in abundance. GO buy your fucking mansion on the hill, hire a pool guy, a yard guy, and a fucking maid. Fuck the maid, and make sure you get a prenup so you can hold on to your precious MONEY.

I've been to hell and back trying to empathize with these people. There is an endemic hatred of those with culture, education, high social class. You can try to wash it off, it DOES NOT. I'm not going to say I've had it rough, because I know you think you've got it rougher. Who ever you are if you like wallowing in misery you have it worst. You win, feel better?

Nope. Because class warfare is a battle no one is winning right now. The forces we deal with are designed to keep us fighting each other. Look here, even now I'm having a little rant about my personal exclusion from a community.... When these are the people I want to stop being victimized.

I hate the system that distributes money and what money has become. I don't think capitalism is a bad concept... ok, it's flawed. The key motivation of capitalism is investment, and making money so detestable is a direct failure. It is my personal belief that if you continue to prop up the establishment, it will continue to fail you. We must deny them all we can, as they have denied us for so long. Perhaps they'll learn to fix their own cars and fill all the roles we once filled in the economy. Elon Musk seems to think so.

Wash me clean(prose)

Wash me, scrub me, rub me raw
Take me down to the bone
Let me be what remains alone
And does not flow away

Let yesterday be in the past
Let tomorrow be ahead
Let me be free of nagging fear
Or worse a looming dread

I am not free, will never be
cannot/will not own my cage
I'm dead and buried, I'm alive and well
I'm the author of my heaven, or the source of all pain

A paradox beautiful
A life without end
It's a beautiful memory
It's the day you say goodbye

Partings and comings, like seasons pass by
Harvest and reaping, a time for all things

I die I die, so someday I'll live
I scream I scream, so that I can learn to sing
My rage, my joy, are they so different?

My life and my death, a search for harmony
The story will not end until the final word is WRITTEN!

Yes and no

I want to mention that I likely won't post this often again for some time. I'm starting a new gig next week and that will likely keep my mind and body occupied for awhile.

Anyway I was thinking about not talking. I was thinking about the power of a simple affirmative. I love to say yes to people. It is by far my preferred response to any question. It has become such a happy sound. Even if I am affirming the horrible reality, affirming is peaceful and uplifting to me.

Even if you ask me: have you been suicidal? Even that dark question lights me up to say yes. It's an inky void I'm in to be an advocate of writing and good communication speaking on the virtues of not communicating. I really do write just to get the ideas out. It gives me some peace to know that should I die I leave behind what is essentially me in this moment. It's my dream to write a good book. Not because I crave fame. Fuck fame, fuck money and fuck reputation. Not one of them stack up to the utter beauty of the written word.

I want to write a good book because if I write a book that you enjoy reading it you'll remember it. Memory is the greatest currency I can trade in. If you remember my work you remember me. If you remember me I'll live on as long as that memory does. Which is why I am such a huge fan of the format of the novel. Christ himself communicated his ideas with stories. So if I can find the right story, the right words, perhaps my words could live 2000 years. You want really impressive, look at Moses. Of course the works attributed to Moses may or may not have been written by him. More to the point they are never credited as his words. He was supposedly recording what God told him to write.

I never have figured out how much of the Bible is shaped by propaganda of the time. A good example is the story of King David. I have no doubt there was a real man. However how do we separate the man from the myth. I think of the stories of David as stories parents told to children. A mother might scold their child warning them not to behave as a particular biblical figure did. Or a mentor might coach those under their training to be as obedient as Moses or David. So by the time the stories were written down there may be a little historical warping present.

Anyway, that's the challenge.

No is powerful as well, yet it's frequently unpleasant to say. I think it takes more energy. Then there are times I get into a habit of saying no. Which bothers me.

A chunk of good news and a little tech musing

I'm having trouble focusing on what I should be working on... there really is no should be working on right now. Anyway my good news is that I'm starting a new job on Monday. Which means my budget options are about to open up a little. I've mentioned before I'm an economic agnostic, however I still think it's cool to play with options when they are available.

So I've been thinking about possibly ending my fast off of smartphones. Since I have been home and near my tech all the time I have not been able to justify a smartphone. My parents found a basic phone that costs very little a month, in fact we only have to pay them a little every three months.

I'll start with the good reasons to have a smart phone:
Syncing contacts between devices
easy to get maps on the go
searching for stuff on the go/fill in boring moments

So those are good reasons to get a smartphone. However lets start at the tip of the iceberg of problems I have had with smart phones.
1. Carrier choice and monthly fees. I haven't mentioned it but I think that subscription and other monthly costs are some of the most insidious things keeping my generation poor. It doesn't SEEM like much money, 45 dollars a month. However yearly that's a couple hundred. I could buy a new tablet, top of the line, for that kind of money. This is another example of my economic agnostic side cropping up. Yes, I could spend the money elsewhere. I could also not spend the money at all. Engaging in the economy is semi optional.

I also have had a few carrier troubles, mostly with Verizon, AT&T and US Cellular. Most of it comes down to not covering devices they sell. It's a weird relationship to have with a service company. After all most service companies don't provide any support for the products associated with their service. Examples include Windows, internet and other utilities. If your gas stove doesn't work you call a repairman, you absolutely do not involve the people selling you the gas.

2. I was going to include device issues in carrier issues, but I realize it's large enough to be it's own set. I have had a few very reliable phones. However I have gone through a couple lemons. I still think it's a weird concept to include a phone with a computer. I mean, a computer does EVERYTHING the smart phone does, but with better quality assurance. You also don't carry a full computer in your pocket, worry about dropping it (much), or worry about water. It's akin to putting your only microwave under the hood of the car. In a few limited situations I can see how having a microwave on the go with your car would be useful. However it's going to be quite a bit of fun trying to get the microwave repaired, or having to buy a car you don't want because of it's microwave function. In fact it's worse than a car, because a car you can choose not to drive and it costs less, that is not the case with a cell phone.

3. Mental health issues. I have not read as many articles recently on this issue, but for me there are health risks associated with owning a smart phone. Being always connected is mentally taxing. There is also something undesirable about all the apps that track your every single move. I suppose most people manage to forget about it. Yet I still get seriously disturbed when my phone memorizes the route I like to drive home. It remembers my favorite places to eat, shop, and whatever else I do when I have to carry it around like some sort of fucking convict's relationship with the parole board. That's actually a perfect description for what it feels like. It's like having to wear a tracking anklet. I've also noticed that others who own smartphones get mad when I don't carry mine. Too much drama for me.

So, it seems like I still have far more angst about the concept of fancy cell phones than can be overpowered by benefits.  

The dance with Atheism

The very concept of an intellectual Christian seems to be incompatible with the modern concept of Christianity. I must discuss now my ever present struggle between Christianity as a philosophy and atheism.

I have never yet reached a place where I can totally believe God does not exist. However I have at many points reached a desire for him not to exist. It would make death much easier. If this was all there is then what does it matter what I do? It does not, as I do not perceive a need in society for me to exist. I do admit that I remain alive to some extent out of momentum and self hatred. The part of me that hates myself delights in the punishment of living. I don't want to wallow in that pit today.

That is the dark world of a lack of God. Yet there is a romance to the idea of a godless world. Ah to live in a world with reason alone, then what would stop us from removing our petty emotions entirely? What purpose has love or hatred in a cold world governed by what logic we can grasp and the needs of society?

There is also the problem of how unwelcome I am in the Christian community. I live in a deep red state. I also have at various points identified as a liberal, progressive, socialist and true communist. That doesn't sit too well with people around here. In some of their minds I can't possibly love and be loved by God with such ideologies in my mind.

You would think that given the social nature of Christianity I would collapse under pressure and either settle into atheism or abandon liberal ideals.

However God is not the church. God is not other Christians. God is his own entire entity. Who happens to love me and keep saving me from my stupid shit. Somehow I have managed a relationship with God without a single likable mainstream Christian that I can find. By likable I mean someone I could be honest with about my general ideology. My friends allow me to spout what I will. However most of my friends are spiritual without religion. Many of them mix and match religions, which I cannot do.

I hope someday to find a church where I like people.... or to move to one of those weird small towns where the church is the center of all social activity and not involve philosophy or politics.

I had this dream

I had this dream a little while ago. Sometimes I give thought to dreams, they seem to be either the echos or the burps of the unconscious and the spiritual.

I had this dream of a white room. In the white room an older Russian man was there to talk to me. I asked him if he was vladimir, he said he wasn't. He I perceived to be descending on a great cycle of rebirth. He was reaching the end of his cycle I thought. While I was reaching the apex of my climb. He seemed to want to examine me. I allowed this, because it seemed polite.

He couldn't speak to me, so odd, but he wrote a few words down for me. Ubermensch psychosis. That was his diagnosis. I woke up after that.

I have just spent a little time researching the Ubermensch, it's a concept of Friedrich Nietzsche's. He was if you remember an influence on Hitler, on Nazi-ism. I decided to read some of the book which the concept is in. It's called Thus Spake Zarathustra. In the part I read I realized more and more that the philosopher views the concept of a perfect being to be in defiance to God.

Which is where I diverge. I don't think it is God's plan that man be subdued. In my personal philosophy that is the direct opposite of what it is to be Christian. It is my view that man is to stretch towards God as far as he can. Is it not Christ's call that we become Christ-like? Yet it is also my view that a man should remain humble, and maybe that was my crime. Not the humility, the lack of it. Is it not such great vanity to assume one understands?

So yes I must grow up towards the sky and as far and strong as the earth should sustain me. Yet I must also not base my growth on a crutch, such as the concept of arrogance and greed. Those are my pitfalls. A great man does not become so because of his confidence in self, not that I've seen. Greatness is surviving and thriving in spite of opposition, and with full knowledge of the dangers faced. Christ knew when he came to this planet that redeeming would take a long time. He did it anyway. He knew he was to be crucified, yet with complete boldness he preached anyway. He outraged the authorities and did not rely on an easy out. Thus is my one desire, to become like that.

It is that singular focus that defines what meaning is in the reborn man. Didn't he say we must die to self, die to past and to our very sinful nature to be born anew? I don't think he was talking about starving ourselves, or punishing ourselves until we cry out in our self created suffering. God LOVES us. Christ died FOR us. While we were still in sin. He wipes us clean, and like a dutiful parent he continues to extend to us his grace. His grace is enough! I find new meaning in old words. His grace protects, covers, provides in spite of my human failings.

Ah to know the day of understanding, and yet what a wonderful taste I get as I grasp to try and understand myself. That is what dream therapy and interpretation is all about for me. It is there to understand the messages I send myself when I can finally find the sweet peace of sleep. 

unsaid

Ugg, so much is going unsaid these days. I want to say so much. My mind is on an uphill swing and I overflow with thoughts and observations. Yet I hesitate every time. Every time what I'm saying seems too judgmental, or not what I want to put out there I take a step back. Does this need to be said? So much doesn't. I still type up quite a bit of it mind you. I just don't feel any kind of compulsion to bare my soul. Perhaps I'm growing a sense of shame, or guilt. Nah. I think I'd just rather be who you see me as. For now that's good. This is a season that I will pass through and pass through well. Every man without an external PR guy has to be his own PR guy.

It's a rough time, but I think that's what I need. It is no mere chance that we would see the most offensive government in my lifetime at the time I am trying to change for the better. I don't mean in an ego centric way as if my life choices dictate the political climate. I mean that a man must match his season. This is the time when he felt called to hold public office, so in that way he went. I felt called to become more gentle and self reflecting. These things don't happen in a vacuum. Other men are standing up and speaking up, when for years they had been quiet. I think that everyone gets their turn to speak up and try to steer the world.

I don't have a duty to fix everything, as I said to myself earlier today. My job is to be the best self I can be. Today that meant a really stressful physical for a job that I want to start. Tomorrow? Who knows. I am currently a little more liberated than I was a week ago. A day will come of total liberation. The day will come when I won't be able to stay silent anymore. Then I suppose others will be letting things go unsaid. It's just the way the world appears to be. It's still harder to listen than to speak, and it remains hard to watch the world around me.

Yet watch and listen I must. How else will I ever understand?

unsolved

I don't know if this matters enough for others to care about. That isn't the point, the point is that it matters to me, it's keeping me up at night (and causing me to sleep during the day). The issue is focus. More directly I can't seem to focus on the relaxing/fun things I want to do. It's interfering with my productivity because when I can't relax I don't feel rewarded/fulfilled. The whole point of work is to make me feel justified in relaxation.

The game is heavily modded minecraft. I have a world that I have spent almost ten real time days in, which is almost 500 hours. I really like the map, and I'm really proud of how far I've gotten. I have never gotten this far on a game ever. It also represents a return to normalcy and some health. Making progress in game helps comfort and support real life progress. But I haven't been able to get in a solid work session in a week.

I log on and instantly I don't know where to go next, what to work on. I feel frozen, stuck. The anxiety is killer. I've tried playing other games, it doesn't help. I've looked up cognative therapy for various creative issues like writers block and analysis failure. Yet no approach I have tried yet has proven successful in the long term. I've watched videos which makes my hunger to be in game worse. Then I log on and feel blocked up.

I work around the house, watch shows I like, pray, read the bible, nothing is taking away this hole where the quiet space of my mind was. I don't expect others to understand, but playing the game made me feel at peace, even if I only got in a little time every week. I went without it for over 6 months while I was sick, and coming back to it this year was part of my return to some normalcy, to desiring to function again.

I have no idea if typing out the problem will help. I am determined not to let it win, one way or another I'll find my peace again. I didn't feel this way before which makes me think this whole blockage is temporary.

Growing tablet apathy

I want to take a moment for an aside on tech. I am currently living with a gaming laptop and a 3 year old kindle fire which is rapidly showing it's age. In the past 3 months I have been trying to figure out how to update my tech to suit my usage style. The problem is that my usage style is not represented by the tech specs and tech sales strategy of the companies I can buy tech from.

I just came back from best buy, who did horribly. Yet they did the best at actually trying. I found a decent 2 in 1 laptop for $750. That is quite a bit of change to drop for a tablet alternative. I will not be able to shift my gaming to that machine, it is strictly an option for taking stress off the gaming machine. Then I looked for about two hours on Newegg and Amazon, after which I found roughly the same specs best buy offered for $500-$600. I could not find a single tablet with specs that motivates me to part with over one hundred dollars.

An updated version of my gaming laptop is available for $500. So the lowest end 2 in 1 I could live with costs MORE than a top end gaming laptop. What kind of fucking economy is this? Do they understand older consumers? I have no interest in being hip, or replacing a smart phone. I have no interest in anything being compared to Apple products. I made my decision about how I felt about Apple between 1995 and 2005. They had their chance to not be smug elitist assholes, they did not do it in that decade, they cost more for the SAME hardware. Further I have to point out that their operating system isn't even independently developed. It now runs on the same kernel as linux. Which means that if I want the performance of a mac I can just go to linux, which I have experience and somewhat warm feelings with.

As far as I can tell modern tablets are either middling high performance machines that cost more, or advanced smart phones. I could get a 2 in 1 capable of replacing all my other tech for a few thousand dollars. Or for less than half that I could buy a new kindle (89 dollars), and a newish gaming laptop for between 500 and 1100 dollars. I really don't know what is going on in the economy these days, since the focus is not on customer service, nor good hardware.

Tech has become a tax on the consumer by the tech industry. To stay with the times we must part with hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year on tech which they seem to think we don't understand. The tablet is the best example I can find of a profit loop. They cannot be repaired, fiddled with, or in any way taken care of to extend the life of. Two or three years is the best we can hope for from a tablet. Same with cell phones. Sometimes a laptop can make it 3-4 years, which I'm hoping for my current one. The reason for the difference is that I can fix my laptop, it doesn't have a touch screen and I don't care about the battery life. It is a light weight work station. I might be able to do better, but it is against the will of the retailers and manufacturers.

strategies on sleep

I know: two posts in one day, madness!

Interestingly I am going to be addressing some of my madness in this post. I have a sleep strategy that I am modifying from my previous strategy. My previous strategy being whatever pills feel right (as prescribed, I'm not that crazy as to overindulge).

I am going to treat sleep as I am treating my current get fit program, that is setting median goals and following them.
For example both of them involve doing a set of exercises first thing when I wake up as an aid to alertness. I enjoy that and it helps me stay active through the day.

My new strategy for sleep centers on the wake up time. In my mind nothing else matters, because my body will crave sleep at a certain time eventually. The overall goal is to need help getting to sleep only 1 in 2 nights. Right now it's every night, and that's awful. I feel sluggish in the morning, and late at night my thoughts race.

Another part is dealing with racing thoughts during the day and not trying to put them away for later. Sooner or later the problems will get solved.

Most important right now is my strategy tonight, which I will try and replicate at least 1 in 7 nights to start. I will not even try to go to sleep before my normal time that I get to sleep. I am either going to go without or do a reduced dose of meds. I am planning a quiet half hour to hour before bed to cycle down. If I can't sleep I'm not going to medicate as my first option, I will continue to try to fall asleep naturally until 4 hours from my wake up time, and if I do need the meds, I will still wake up at my normal time. Routine is my ally. Sleeping in is what is messing me up. I'm not sleeping past 9 am at all, this time of year that's not enough sunlight. 7:15 is my ideal time on weekdays, eventually I'd like to move that back between 6 and 7.

Writing things down helps, and this is pretty much always my first line of defense against losing my thoughts.

musing on learned helplessness.

As predicted I didn't fall asleep the first try, which is okay.

In finally taking the first med I did a little research on it and learned about a condition called learned helplessness. It is the condition in which the subject under prolonged stress concludes that stopping trying is a valid strategy. Which may be a gross oversimplification.

Learned Helplessness Wikipedia Article

I think that this may explain my current state in regard to..... what I talked about earlier. Disfunctional relationships... not finding a job. I am really struggling to think about it. Another time.

Anyway, I suppose I'll provide you with a song stuck in my head: