Affirm Your Convictions, Not Your Distress

Through the lens of the many in your life your issues seem small and simple. They have disregarded these issue's emotional weight or have chosen to detach themselves emotionally from them as to not even have to deal with the emotional baggage in the first place. I know you believe that your ability to exist and thrive is contingent on support. On some level all humans are under that belief, we are social creatures and hate being outcast or othered. Some people go through great trials in what seems to be in spite of disregard - as if the naysayers became fuel to their fire, while others appear to begin to become whole as they find their support group and can truly embrace the ascent up the snowcapped mountains knowing they have some warmth to come back to. Even these however can beget an individual's downfall. The descending opinions of others that a person used to stoke their flames leaves them unable to differentiate worry from malice and that flame that once guided them becomes the flame that consumes and destroys them. The belief that you need constant support becomes a crutch for a foot you kick and scream that is broken without you realizing that in times you weren't even paying attention you had been walking strong on it all along.

The undercurrent beneath all of our progress, all of our triumph - is ultimately ourselves. I believe when we do right, we ought to do right because we believe it to be right. It is the worst part of us that demands recognition, it is the worse part of us that demands compensation. Those that have gotten those things: medals, titles, money; never is it enough that one time. You get on that hedonic treadmill and demand more and more, rather than being okay with well enough. We think that if only we had this or if only we had that - we would be better off. All of those thoughts are just distractions from what really matters: doing the work. You do the work because you believe it is the right thing to do. You do the work because you believe it ought to be done. The work should be well enough. Your reward should come from a contentment of the soul, not of the oohs and aahs of passerby.  Those that want to understand you will put in the effort to understand you, you will not have to explain yourself to them. If they do not want to understand you, do not hold contempt or ill will towards them - that's just you setting yourself back further from the work you ought to do, another distraction. 

You will have to fight this battle everyday. To believe the work is done when it has been done is foolishness. Everyday you must sweep the floor. Everyday a layer of dust accrues upon it. For every day dust is there, it must be swept. The mind is the same. Everyday you will feel helpless, you will feel unheard, you will feel unappreciated, you will feel anger, you will feel that need for revenge, that desire to show them how wrong they are. Those feelings are pointless, what matters is the work. Do the work. The work that you know to be right, the work that gives you peace of mind, the work that builds your character

Disregard the Person, Not the Lessons

 Becoming decent, maybe even exceptional, comes from realizing that you ought to not adopt all the philosophies, lifestyles, and principles of great men or discount them entirely upon finding out the flaws in their character. Rather you take the best, hold it close to your chest, and use that to facilitate your own self actualization. It's only in accepting the potential pitfalls of being human do you allow that greatness to be cultivated within yourself.

No matter the seeming perfection of past figures, dig deep enough and you will find ugliness. As humans are aspiring and transcendent so are they pitiful and disgusting. To ignore the potential ugliness inside you is to ignore all the potential good as well. The only way to have a life of neither is to live a life of stagnation and mediocrity. Can't have the lowest of lows with no highs to compare them to. You can't realize the depth of your accomplishments without seeing the traps you could've fallen into. To walk the path of potential is to walk the path of temptation. Greatness is measured by how much of that potential was realized despite the temptation, regardless of the temptations we fell victim to

Redefine Time

My most deadly mental trap for productiveness is convincing myself to not do the things I want because I don't have a full day to start doing them. I work swing shift and fall asleep immediately after coming home, so when I wake up I have a solid amount of time before I have to go to work, despite this I will refuse to let myself enjoy or be productive with this time because it is not a day off.

I need to redefine and come to an understanding with time. How long does it take to start reading a book? You can be through the majority of it in just a few hours. I have a few hours, so just read the fucking book. Even on my days off, I typically only really do these things within a 1-4 hour window and will feel very satisfied and content with them, and I have this time before work so i ought to use it! Even just one hour of some mindful consumption will do wonders for my mood and ability to enjoy the rest of the day.

I Want To Be Present

At times I  feel I am on a treadmill of sorts, emotionally speaking. There is this desire that arises where I want to feel the contentment and satisfaction of a day well spent, where I wish to get all I can from an activity and feel a real enrichment from it. The great paradox in this being that the more I desire such, the less I am able to achieve it. With that desire is an expectation that actively keeps me from embracing the activity and present moment for all that it is worth. Instead of engaging in all that can be engaged with I am constantly waiting and looking for the moment where it will all align and I can become full immersed and enveloped in the full nature of the activity. With every moment where I haven't become entranced is another moment I worry about time wasted. "I only have this small time to enjoy this, why can't I enjoy it" Every thought and worry another reason I can't begin to enjoy that small time I define as the only time.

I trap myself with these things. When you delve into self help literature and videos the problems and solutions are for the undisciplined. How to start cleaning up your messes, planning your day, taking care of your body, eating right, making your goals more concise and precise. These are all essential and helpful. These all sell, because these are the things people typically have trouble with, but what of the person who is disciplined? What of the man with his shit together but just can't find that solid contentment and enrichment that makes a life a life well lived. That's the predicament I find myself in oftentimes. After attending to all I I need to attend to, I long for leisure but I won't let myself enjoy that recreation. And that inability to enjoy my time outside of my tasks will then funnel back into me not being able to perform those tasks as well as I believe I ought to. Bringing me to the beginning where I have to get my discipline back in order before even considering enjoying any free time once again, just to be brought back to the same predicament of not being able to get what I need out of that free time and the cycle starts anew.

This is why I call it a treadmill. I am running repeatedly along the same cycle over and over. There is a slight irony to it all however. The solution is simple. The solution is to stop overthinking. You need to be present. I need to be present. Its deceptive in its simplicity however. Because the next question is how do you be present? A question that is seemingly impossible to answer. A question that is the foundation of the whole Buddhist religion. A question that is answered without words and experienced in full entirely internally. I think I find my beginnings in being present by grounding myself. Asking myself questions, opening my soul. Asking why my body feels a certain way. I go for the physiology, because I know I have learned to hide away and ignore my emotions, and that's how my body manifests those emotions even if I am not aware of it. "I am not relaxed. There is a tension in my stomach and my legs. My head has the smallest niggling of a headache and no matter the comfort of my seating I cannot help but slouch." I ask myself why I would be feeling that way physically. "Is it uncertainty? Stress? Worry?  Are those the emotions my body is hiding from me? What could be the reason I am feeling those emotions? What may be the cause of those feelings? Should it be affecting me in the ways it is currently?" I am opening up a dialogue with myself and allowing a decompression to transpire. I am letting my feel. It is when I let myself acknowledge the very things my body is not letting me feel that I can feel. This subconscious coping mechanism is more than a nullification of negative emotions, its a nullification of all emotion. So when I open those emotions up, feel them, and then let them pass, it in turn lets me feel positive ones as well. The emotional undercurrent of my recreational time can finally sweep me up and lose me in its luster. I can feel it. Becoming present in that moment is to feel that moment and all its offerings. The feelings of the activity become the feelings I am experiencing. An experience I can finally have because I let myself feel again after hiding away that capacity for empathy. 

Reason For Being

In the past, whenever I asked myself the question on why I wish to be alive I would always tell myself "To experience all the art I could." This externalized my desire for life to an object that wasn't tied another person or tied to my own success or circumstances or image of myself - things I saw as the objects others would begin to feel suicidal over.




When I chose this as my reason to live I always told people it was because of the power of art. How human beings can produce a series of words, a confluence of sounds, a collection of brushstrokes on canvas, an interactive medium; and experiencing these things can evoke extreme sensations within me. I can laugh until my face turns red and my breath seems impossible catch, I can become inspired and driven on a day I had already written off, I can mourn the death of a person who was never real yet feel the pain of grief, I can be compelled to eccentricity in a system that demands conformity. Its a beauty that cannot be ignored, a beauty that only humans are capable of. This ability to create and affect others through that creation. I loved that beauty.

But I've begun to deconstruct even that. Really dig to the roots of that belief. Why do I value that? And I've come to a reevaluation of my reason for being.




I want to experience what it means to be human. I want to feel the full spectrum of experience that this life has to offer. I want to let it in and accept the nature of things. I want to understand all it means to be a human being. I valued art because it gave me an external way to experience those emotions after a life of repression and hiding away my humanity, I called all those feelings that didn't further me in a practical and professional way as unnecessary and robbed myself of feeling the full extent of my LIVED experience. I want to get all I can from my perceptions, from my time on this earth, the people I meet, the bonds I share. I catch myself sometimes, I see that I am doing it again - clouding and shrouding my soul from being a person, being a human - I want to never know that feeling again. I want to bear my soul to the nature of being. To take in all I can be given in this small timeframe of infinity I lucked into the opportunity to experience

Suicidality

 I have a lot of personal history with suicide and suicidality. My mother, very likely took her life (can't be confirmed due to no note or witness to her overdose), my uncle killed himself by jumping off a bridge in the town I currently live in, and one of my closest friends Kyle killed himself during a manic episode a couple years ago. Now within the context of these three people, they all had bipolar disorder, and I have been diagnosed with it - a notion that terrifies the hell out of me. With each individual you know personally that has committed suicide, your personal chances of doing it yourself shoot up drastically. 

I have only personally come close to suicide two times within my life. I've been depressed, felt hopeless, have dealt with having a ton of general apathy towards existence; however I have only ever come close to actively taking my own life twice. The first time was a little over a year ago, the night before I had a dream that felt like it had lasted a whole half decade on this earth. I had lived this alternative life where my relationship with the first girl I had truly loved worked out, I had felt each wave of affection, passion, putting together broken pieces that comes with a long term relationship with this girl in that one night. Within that same dream, I was next door to my best friend, Terry, and I was still in good standing with my friend Juan who I had recently had a falling out with and we just lived and enjoyed life together. It was all I wanted at that point, that companionship, that romantic closeness. I was in a relationship at the time that was in hindsight very obviously me attempting to resolve the trauma I had with the girl in that dream, Val, so I was dating this hopelessly codependent person to prove to myself that I could've taken care of Val, as our relationship ended during this time when she was fearful of her mother cutting off the family and I had begun to throw myself in to 50 hour work weeks so that I could support the both of us; and as I reach the point where it seemed to be a reality, she broke up with me. As well during that time I desperately longed for deep connection, some comradery. I wasn't getting it from my partner, I was lying to their face without even realizing it. At work I was very well liked but it was all paper thin, sure everyone liked me, but they didn't know me deeply. They hadn't gazed upon my soul.

So when I woke up from that dream, I cried, I cried a lot. I mourned a life I very literally dreamed of. I loved the lie my brain constructed so much, nothing outside of it felt worth fighting for, a reality that wasn't that which I had lived in that dream was not one I wished to be around for. The ephemeral "what ifs" we distract ourselves when we refuse to accept the past, all those hypotheticals we ponder and consider, they became real for me in a night. Every wish, every desire my soul ached for at that time was given to me and was then taken away from me that day. I hated everything that had become at that moment. A person who had been content and accepting was ripped of those delusions like it was nothing. I wanted nothing more than to stop that, I hated having to grieve that world. I believed myself to not be a person chained by desires of the could have beens, never believed myself to be man with regret. But I felt regret for life that I deeply believed could have been. A life that felt to be all my fault to had not been obtained. "If only had I made better choices" "If I had only understood them more" "If only I had done a better job at keeping in touch" The only thing that kept me over the edge was I instead became insolently angry at others when they tried to get my attention during this state of crippling depression. I focused on that anger and let it distract me until those feeling got repressed, like all my other feelings have been. Another step into the cess-pit of alexithymia. I wasn't emotionally intelligent enough to try and understand  what my brain had begun to try and communicate to me subconsciously. I pushed it down and went forward.

The second bout of suicidality I had was this year. For some reason I had felt compelled to listen to my friend Kyle's favorite album, The Hotelier's "Home, Like NoPlace Is There" I hadn't ever listened to it in full before, never gave it a deep listen. So that time, in mid February of this year I came across two songs on that album.  "Your Deep Rest" and "Among The Wildflowers". Those songs felt like daggers. In their contents were commentaries directed sniper accurate at me. I was called out. I felt I failed that friend, I felt I could've saved them, but I didn't do all that could. All the wasted time cascaded over me, I could've done so much more to keep in touch, make them feel safer, I couldn't accept what kind of friend I had been. "A good friend could've made it not happen" "A good friend could've given them more reason to live, to stay". This time I hadn't distracted myself from the emotions, I didn't cry though. I was numb. I felt a clawing lack of anything. An existential vast nothing. I had no ties to where I was. It could all end and I wouldn't mind, a true nothing would feel better then this nothing full of dread, a nothing that made my throat burn and stomach hurt, made me shake and sweat but freeze and shiver at the same time. I just worked a lot to distract myself from this one. 

I've come to a lust for life recently. For as long as I could remember I have been fighting. I was surrounded by failed adults. I never had an example, a role model. All of the relationships I was exposed to as child, Toxic. They had no discipline, complete slaves to their desires. The people who were supposed to have my best interest in mind had done everything to ensure that I was given the worst of opportunities. I have such a deep love for Terry and his dad, Andy, because these were the only two people I can point at and say were the two positive influences I had. But in all the other adults, I had grown a resentment. I had to prove something to them, prove something to myself. I had to prove it could be done, if you white knuckled it, gritted your teeth, put in the work, had the discipline; IT COULD BE DONE. I wanted to show them that they didn't have to fail me if they just had the will, what they lacked was strength and I was going to show them what real strength looked like. And I did it. I worked my ass off. I reached the top of my workplace. I was the king on his throne, a throne built on the hate filled temper tantrums of a kid that wished he had been able to live. I did it. I proved to myself that with determination and discipline I could make it, but I wasn't happy. While I could prove to myself that success was a possibility, that it was within my abilities; I never even thought to ask myself what I wanted for myself. I was so busy in my pursuit to show up these adults that I never even begun to ask what I wanted. I wasn't living for myself. In a bitter irony, I had come to realize that those adults still ruled and controlled my life, just now it was through trauma instead of their actions. So I started taking steps towards what I wanted. 

I gave up that top position, I couldn't begin making the steps I wanted if I was working 60 hours a week.  I couldn't make the steps I wanted if I kept that position and the weight it carried. I stepped down. Stepping down let me break up with a person I had no love for, let me run from their hold on me. Stepping down gave me the opportunity to spend time with the girl I do love. A girl who was a coworker. I had heard for so very long that you should never date someone you work with and I let those words control my decisions. But now, I was ready to do things for me. I was ready to forgo all that conventional advice. I knew what I wanted. I had been watching her for so long. I felt the chemistry and happiness between us. I knew her for two years. She was at the end of her relationship and I was not going to let this pass me by. I knew if I hadn't taken my chance then this would've become yet another what if, another regret that I didn't want to live with. So I started flirting, hard. I made her fall deeper for me, feelings that we always knew that there, but were too scared to let be revealed. I pursued something I wanted, purely for me, a declaration of the person I was, a person I was hiding away. She's beside me right now, and there isn't a single doubt that it wasn't the right decision. She's the best thing to happen to me since I have become an adult. I am so very happy I listened to myself. I listened to what my soul wanted. And thats what I have started to do, I have begun to listen to my soul. It always had the answers I just chose to ignore them. Always concerned myself for what was optimal, what was going to give me the most gains, I minmaxed life. Never made me happy. But letting my emotions poke through, emotions that weren't anger or bitterness, that led me to some happiness. 

I do think those years of rigorous work helped to get me there however. I gave myself quite the safety net. It became easier to listen to my heart when the next meal became a guarantee. When  I could consider stuff like fasting for the hell of it instead of fasting because all that was for dinner was air. I don't have to worry so much about the stability of my future because I've professionally secured it with my accolades and experience. And those adults? I have truly forgiven them and love them, I don't carry that resentment anymore, but thats for another long spiel. I have learned to forgive. Truly forgive. Learned to accept. Truly accept. Right now I am the  happiest I have ever been.