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:

a healthy relationship with an employer

Disclaimer: This post is not only about the employer/employee relationship, it is abstract. If a prospective employer is reading this remember that at this point I have not met you. As I will go into this is about where I have been. I actively want to be proven wrong on this.

I did a web search on: "can't have a healthy relationship with an employer". Instant gratification being what it is, I was shortly disappointed in the results. A long list of articles all to the tune of "how to improve your relationship with your boss" came up. Which is not what I meant at all by my search. I find the notion that it is the employee's job to make their relationship work is not a good metric of healthy relationships. It smacks of codependency and it stinks of desperation.

Maybe this is what we've come to. Perhaps our society is so overburdened with an obsession over money and employment that now employers have replaced men as patriarchs of the world. However it is not so for me. I desire an equal relationship. An equal relationship relies on trust. In an equal relationship an employer should express an equal desire for an employee to trust them. This is not my experience. In every job I have worked, and by the way that is many, the employer is not a leader in the modern context of the word. The employer is either a knight or a king. To put modern terms to it they are either a tool or the literal oppressor.

Which means I have to talk about totalitarianism. There are nice dictators. That's not to say that dictatorships represent an ideal, it is simply true that some people are nicer than others. Some dictators feed their people, while others do not. This is true of employers. I have worked for a few days for employers that do not pay their employees. That shouldn't be possible. I did not volunteer for these people, I worked for them and was promised a wage. I was not paid. This is how capitalism truly works sometimes. I find it true far too often that people work for nothing. I am not saying that I find a large trend of shorting wages illegally. I am talking about legal wage slavery. I have seen employers pay their employees just short of what they need to survive. This makes people work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

It is just so hard for me to hunt for work, running into these predators in the market. When I do meet an entity I perceive to be an exception recently I experience rejection. Which deepens my apathy towards the entire market. I am not interested in work out of a love of money. Frankly I find money entirely meaningless. A rich man and a poor man will both get sick, experience heartbreak and die. I like work, and I find it really unfortunate that I have to deal with employers to do work.

I don't know if this is representative of all relationships like this. From a scientific point of view I can't create a large enough sample size. I'm also a biased data collector given that I like myself. I also have struggled with my anger at past employers. It is only now that I try to separate out the abusers from the kind or indifferent. I have been hurt very deeply. It put me in the hospital, and I will never let someone in that position act like that again. Even if I cannot function and therefor cannot live. I would rather end myself than that. Of course it won't come to that. Despite my problems my family loves me. Despite my struggle they still have hope. So I keep trying to live up to their hopes for me. Hope is a powerful motivator.

I keep coming back to the analogy of a romantic relationship, because the parallels are so strong. Like a romantic relationship a work relationship is something I desire strongly. Like a bad relationship I have been intimidated into staying quiet and not expressing my true feelings because of fear of retribution. It's taken incredible courage in the face of my fear to even type this post. It will take ten times more to put it online. I'm not magnifying myself here, I'm admitting my fear. This is because oppression will continue until the oppressed say no. I did not shake off my chain of unhealthy romantic relationships until I told my prospective partners that I did not need them, nor would I ever. I have met a woman I love more than I could have imagined, and I had to look deeply at myself to do that. I plan to keep trying. I know that there are kind people out there. I sincerely hope some of them are hiring.

self edit/troubling thoughts

I don't want to alarm, as everything is fine. I am merely becoming aware that my thoughts are not what I represent them to myself as. This is difficult to bring to awareness. I have known for some time that I have been attempting to edit and regulate my... madness for lack of a better word. Manic moments. Which is not a sentence but nevermind.

I was under the impression I was laid back, content. That appears to be less the case than I thought it was. Which isn't to say it isn't partially true. Contentedness is not like happiness, because I can get it, and as often as I want. It is a sliding scale from not at all to completely. I'm only saying I'm not completely content. Which is only natural, life is in flux, I have to adjust. This is how I self edit. Troubling thoughts are immediately followed by comfort, rationality, and level headed feeling thoughts. I'm actually currently of the opinion that I probably am over doing it. I think if I found a productive outlet for the manic thing.... it would be better.

So it goes, so it goes.

Goodnight.

On the problem of good choices

Last night I posted some thoughts I had on futility. I want to address the opposite problem because at times it is an equal foe of productivity.

There are many good things to do. One might clean or organize their house. Applying for jobs is also generally viewed as productive. Working in the garden is a nice way to get fresh air. Going to the gym helps a person stay healthy. The list goes on, yet the problem is the same. There are 24 hours in the day and a minimum of 6 are needed for sleep. Another 1-2 are needed for other body needs. That leaves 16 hours. The individual is left with the choice of how to arrange these hours for the maximum good of self and community.

For the last few months I have been relatively inactive. I find times like this restful. It's good to take a step back and reevaluate what makes life worth living. Yet it also highlights flaws in my life as it was and as it is currently. The problem of good choices is one that haunts me. Is it a good choice to chase this path or that one? No one seems to have a clear answer. My family is pleased with any path that brings me back to the world. Personally I desire to remain removed from the world, but that desire is not one I'm supposed to have. It's not "healthy" to drop out of life I'm told. Yet it remains a central desire of my heart and so I chase paths towards the ability to not have to engage.

I'm still startled by that truth. I don't talk about it because it's not something I want to discuss with my family and I have yet to meet a therapist that actually will drill down to my central philosophy and why I want what I want. I feel like everyone wants to impose their life goals on me. They like going to a job, talking to people who have no desire to talk to them and chasing employment and relationships that do not reciprocate interest. I want to be where I'm wanted. That's what I look for in a job. I don't give a damn if it is cleaning toilets in a stadium, if I came to work every day and felt necessary and could maintain the hours and lifestyle I enjoy I would do it. Yet that doesn't have a degree plan. I have yet to figure out how to get employers to give a damn about me, and if it isn't obvious by now I have no profit driven dreams. I do believe that if I get out of bed and go work I should make a decent paycheck. The counterpoint is that I enjoy work in it's pure form. I could make a dollar an hour if I could eat, buy a new computer once a year and keep my house working on that budget. Of course I can't do that. A dollar an hour doesn't even cover the cost of driving to work.

That's what happens to good choices. Going to the gym is an exercise in futility (get it?!) Cleaning the house is lovely, but it will require cleaning again soon. All these lovely choices are equally futile in the end. As the good book says "I looked upon man's toil under the sun and I saw that too was meaningless." I had a few very interesting political and philosophical ideas I wanted to unpack, yet I looked at all of them and realized that they too were meaningless. I could struggle all day to understand the underpinnings and reasoning of life. Yet it would not make you read it.

Even if I came up with the purest truth imaginable, if I couldn't make it interesting I would be only doing it for myself. Finally I realize doing things for myself is a struggle against the wind, because one day I will die and return to dust, and that will be that. So it goes.

“Nobody is making you feel what you’re feeling. Nobody has the power to make you feel something negative emotionally. Your reactions are caused by how you interpret any situation. This is so important because it means that you ultimately become your own resource of emotional freedom and truth.”
Adyashanti (via celestinevibes)

I’m going to use this as a starting point for talking about my feelings of futility. I think the greatest thing I have learned is how little other people’s regard actually effects my mood. However certain realities do have a tendency to pull me downwards.

The name of the problem is futility. As the good book says “I worked hard, built things and stored up riches, yet this too is folly”. The fundamental foundation of capitalist employment is money. The stick is how unhappy we are supposed to be without our little luxuries and status. The carrot is the partial promise of life getting better. Life has not gotten better. I have thrown myself into everything I do with passion. As to the Lord, my work is my offering.

Yet now I’m struggling to get back into work. I feel as though I have no purpose and it keeps me up at night. I don’t particularly need a high purpose (though my spiritual life would benefit from such a thing), I would be content to be doing a small essential job where I can carve out a place of peace amidst the chaos of toxic work culture.

It is no one’s journey but mine, and it isn’t even one I should be going down. Yet once I confronted the absurdity and futility of living life to serve unrewarding causes and to pour out yourself and your passion to receive nothing, not even a leg up, I became nothing.



I am still yet a man with some deep thoughts, some kindness, and a loose grip on dreams far beyond my greatest abilities. I have faith, not that my plan will work out, but that something will. It’s still a daily challenge to take up my painful journey. I am often told I am going the wrong way, as my only desire is one that goes against the very fabric of what capitalism is about. I desire enough. If my current life was sustainable I’d find complete contentment here.



Even should I lose everything, my mind remains, as does my voice and faith. I cannot seem to find an actual solution to the absurdity, because by it’s nature it is meaningless. 

A subtle nudge

I'm not anticipating this becoming a long post. I just wanted to take note that I achieved one of my lifetime goals. It wasn't a big goal, and it wasn't one I thought I ever would get done.

I feel like there is significance to this. I desire to attach more to it because I didn't intentionally bring it about. That feels spiritual to me. It is also possible that I am being drawn towards the spiritual, and today is just another lever on that journey.