I've realized only recently that posting on here is a form of acting out for me. I am a bit lost on the interwebz these days. It just seems like there isn't much for me here anymore. I would post in a private journal which I do but it feels like a lot of the issues are relatable to some % of people that might read this.
I'm listening to Club Soda by Thomas Bangalter. I like music. I like stories. I have gotten back into Cinema. I have watched some good ones but It feels like that high is dwindling. I only wanted to watch Salo or Gaspar Noe's new one Climax. I have somewhat fucked up tastes I know. It is tough to say which I like more: Film or Literature. It is tough to match a 1,000 page masterpiece like Anna Karenina or Infinite Jest. But, a story like Inception or Irreversible backed by a Hans Zimmer or Thomas Bangalter soundtrack it may be close. Really, different experiences.
How many of you have therapist experiences? I was going to put up a poll but now I don't feel like it. I would be more interested to see comments in the comment section. What are your experiences with therapists? Did they give you hope? Did you experience positive change? I am reading a book by Irvin Yalom and he mentions that being the purpose of the therapist: to offer hope and to perhaps ignite change. I would have to say in the past most of my therapists have inspired hope or ignited change in some form or another. But, life is strange. At one point a suggestion to go to Refuge Recovery almost seemed life changing (and perhaps it was) where as now that suggestion would be like an ant sneezing. I will say I had one therapist that just didn't seem to understand me at all. She was still helpful but compared to my current therapist she was kind shit. My current therapist is just like a weirdo psychiatry/psychotherapy nerd but it works.
I don't think it would be one of my blogs if I didn't talk about my beard or my hair or whatever. I just trimmed my beard. I was going to grow it out but it just doesn't feel right. I am growing out my hair but we will see where that goes. I can't unsee this. Jared Leto's hair and beard combo is pretty perfect. Sometimes I feel like if I can achieve that my life would be better than it currently is. Pretty silly I know but there is some truth to that though too. Fuck, what am I talking about? I feel better having trimmed my beard. Certainly, I would feel better with a smart haircut. Just something to get by that looks complementary to my face shape and I don't have to fuss over it too much. Nothing too much. I hang out with broke people. I already feel silly wearing my $800 Zegna Sport jacket even if the weather calls for it (wind/rain).
Everyone is trying so hard to get ahead. Most of us want to fuck the swollen pussy of the hot bitch in heat. It seems like there are so many rules and stipulations for that among the human race. Jordan Peterson says something like the males choose the "appointed" male and that male gets all the swollen vaginas. Or, the vaginas get swollen in response to him. From my observations it is tough to say that is a completely inaccurate commentary. So, we are all scrambling around for that. Is this the way it is because of capitalism? Was all of this inevitable? Well, yes, I suppose it was inevitable. Is another system possible? We do have frontal lobes. While we may be similar to chimps or even dogs we are not chimps or dogs. I refuse to play the capitalist game. I do what I must to eat food and then plot in the darkness on how to overcome such a shitty position. Are these just the ramblings of a resentful InCel? To be honest, I am not even faring that well at my current job which is like a "noob" job. I mean most of the people that I work with we are fuck ups in some form or another. The work can be actually very stressful and we are getting paid nothing. Barely, a living wage. Baaarrreeellly. I mean people talk about $15/hr as a living wage. I guess I am not at 40 hours but I also live with my parents and don't have full normie expenses. The thing is I don't really have any idea how I would scale up. I don't want to scale up. I am just stuck. I am a stagnant, scared animal. I come home from work, eat a bunch of junk food, watch a movie, and hope I sleep. I am on like 6 medications, maybe more. Much of the time I just don't see a way out. My only solace is the beauty in the world. But, that seems to only get me so far.
I'm growing quite tired. I think what I need is another near death experience. I live quite well after near death experiences.
Not that anyone realized I was gone. I just want to write out some experiences.
Health Insurance:
So, I recently found out that my health insurance doesn't cover any of my "Behavioral Health" costs at my current hospital. But, my PCP is still covered under their "Medical Care." So, the woman basically said "Your doctors will not agree with our agreement so fuck them (and fuck you)." Now, I either have to pay an exorbitant amount of money for the care I am currently receiving or switch to some LLC Pysch + Therapy combo. It's not all on the health insurance though. I re-examined the bills I was getting and they were horseshit. Double billing me. One of the charges was $440 for 1 hour but they billed me 1 hour of psychotherapy at $180 and 1 hour of psychiatry at $260. The doctor verified my meds and then we had a therapy session. It's all bullshit. Now, I have to get things straightened out with the doctors and the billing and I have to get things straightened out with my employer and their health insurance and I am going to have to make some wagers. I guess all parties have to negotiate or someone is going to get taken advantage of. It just feels like the person getting taken advantage of is me. In situations like this I want to strike out against everyone. I want to quit my Doctors, I want to quit my job, I want to quit capitalistic society. That is looking pretty bleak. Capitalism is the root cause of all my problems. I have been reading the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. I wish to discuss it further which means I don't have the Tao. I don't understand how I can be content with my lot in life. It's like capitalism causes sickness. Capitalism takes advantage of sickness. It's an absolute monster.
Taxes:
I have heard people feel patriotic when doing taxes. Fuck that! Mine aren't all that difficult except for TurboTax's shitty health insurance software. I had to re-do that 3 times. Fuck Countries! Fuck Parties! ni aux patries ni aux parties. It's all coercion. The shit system that we are supporting is depressing. Will nothing happen due to our depressed resignation???
That might be one of the most important questions to ask.
I made more than I made last year but my medical bills mixed with my increased cost of medical insurance I may or may not be doing better. I may be better off getting a job that doesn't offer insurance so I can get back on Obamacare. One rule about Obamacare is that if your employer offers insurance you HAVE to take it. Meaning I went from good Obamacare insurance to really shitty Mr. Jeff Bezos insurance. "Behavioral Health." Get the fuck out of here. Capitalism caused my bipolar and my alcoholism and still does. It's a miracle I don't still drink or do drugs. Donald Trump is anti-Tao. I don't really want to go after anybody I just want to go after something... Capitalism. I'm in the jungles right now. I'm still learning. I always seem to be still learning.
Ugh, too much to talk about.
I will go read "Capitalist Realism" by Mark Fisher and then take a walk in Nature.
Everyone is asking me, "Do you feel better?" .................................................
Of course I don't feel better. I hate being Bi-polar, it's awesome!
I had less than 3 hours of sleep for 6 days and I had never felt better. There is a nagging tiredness or a nagging restlessness that can emerge but then I have just learned to escalate the stimulation and see where that goes. There were 2 hour car karaoke sessions. I lost my voice. A 2 hour interpretive dance session that was like the most fun I've had since drinking 4 Red Bull + Vodka and popping molly at a killer rave. I started creating art again. I love that zone. I cleaned my golf clubs. I fixed my lacrosse stick. I put on the greatest display of pizza prowess in my life on the busiest day of the week. On every pizza I attempted to throw it as close to the ceiling as I could with out touching it. My mom said that was stupid. (She was giving me a ride home because I was in no shape to drive unless it was in a rally race for my life). I told her I am practicing to THROW THE PIZZA THROUGH THE CEILING!!!
This was motivation:
This was me. I identified with this. Except I was performing my forms of art and they were mostly ephemeral. I remember getting an omelette and french fries at a really nice French restaurant downtown. I sketched a bunch of pro-Gilet jaunes art on the table cloth with the french fry as the stylus and the ketchup as the paint. The table cloth was disposable paper. I am not that much of an asshole.
Then there is the comedown. Like "NOOOOOOOOO, This can't be happening!!! I don't wanna leave yet!!!" Like when I was a kid playing with the train station at the library. You know what my mom bribed me with? McDonald's Cheeseburger Happy Meal. That's fucked up. And, people are asking me if I feel better. "Relative to what?" "No, being manic is awesome"
The thing is this manic episode was pretty awesome overall. I didn't go down to the 7th level of Hell. I didn't experience infinite. I wasn't casted out to some other multiverse alone in a space shuttle with no way of getting back to Earth or at least somewhere inhabitable with something at least somewhat humanoid. There have been racing thoughts coming in so fast that the only way to deal with that was hellish primal screaming. Then they would hit me with a bunch of shots and drugs. Who knows how much time had past. I was carrying a virus that would end humanity. U.S.A. and Chinese hackers were in a constant battle in my brain. I thought the showers were gas chambers. I thought the shampoo was poison. I had to solve the code or else the world would end. To my mind I was in a torture and death camp.
Contrast this to my last episode and maybe I am just feeling a little tired at times or a bit out of touch with reality. The thing about that is that if I just embrace the loss of reality everything will be ok. I've been through this before. I know Spotify is not really trying to communicate with me and if they are cool they just did anyway.
But, now I am back in the drudgery of life. Who the fuck wouldn't want to be euphoric for a week or two? The hangover was not nearly as bad as some of my drug hangovers in the past. When I am manic I am a guy that creates concerts in the forests of Vexin, FR and all the marketing/design/etc. and makes all the women smile and laugh (not all... there are certainly some missteps with being very honest and manic but in my mind they all smiled and laughed). Now, I'm just some schlub with a bit of a belly because I eat too much, living in my parents' spare room, typically, occasionally writing about politics on a dwindling poker website. Nice identity. It is like I enjoyed my recent episode so much I just strive to go back there. Fuck Rojava. Fuck Food Not Bombs. Fuck Local Farms. Bring me THE ENTERTAINMENT, THE SIMULATION, SASHA GREY VIRTUAL REALITY. Speaking on the ladder my sexual desire was fucking ridiculous but it didn't bring me suffering. I literally thought I was in love with Mexie which I am in love with Mexie but not romantically, yet. She was the muse of this most recent outburst of productivity but I don't really like the word productivity when detailing art, philosophy, history, geography, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, complex sciences, ecology, et al.
It seems like in these manic episodes if I can grasp on to some form of Beauty it fuels my experience. I need it like those people in the Inception needed their items. In a past manic episode I thought I was in love with another women with her name starting with the letter M and the thing is I really was in love with her but I was in love with the idea of her. Another time it was Rihanna. Another time it was Kate Upton. Another time it was a woman let's call her K. She looked like a Queen from Africa. She was a Doctor. K was for Kharisma. Great smile, funny, smart. I used to call her Queen Bee. It's like as long as they are guiding me I am not going to lose my way. This could be a dangerous way of thinking and M even told me so when we were waiting in the Psych Ward waiting room. But, then the mania kind of takes over and I am in love with this women, and I am in love with this women and I am in love with this women just for having sexy, engaging eyes and a great smile.
So, I have sort of lost my way at this point. It feels like I had some breakthroughs over the last 2 weeks of mania or so but I really could have just been some crazed cat in some shiny ball chasing Odyssey.
Oh well, I am kind of excited. During my mania I was pouring through some of my cookbooks (La Cucina The Regional Cooking Of Italy) and found some recipes that could have the magic.
Booyakasha - used to express triumph, normally if trying to appear "gangsta" ...
So, I remember listening to a lot of Caribou's new album at the time and Little Dragon when I was placed in an office for rehab at the L.M.N.C. (Large Multi-National Corporation) that I sold my labor to in return for a (slave) wage. They gave me an absent corner office of one of the Top Dawgs that had cancer and was going to die. It was nice but I felt uncomfortable. My job was to audit every facet of the plant and write safety reports for 8 hours a day. I eventually let an IT guy use the office who resented me for being my father's son. I found an unused desk in a somewhat decrepit section of the cubicle area surrounded by cold concrete, a stack of forgotten chairs and a paper shredder that people would constantly use and interrupt me. I don't know which was worse. Eventually, after days and days and days of scraping the ice off of my car and going in to this dismal situation I realized this wasn't for me. None of it. Don't get me wrong, I continued to show up so they would continue to pay me my Long-Term Disability but I would vomit a little bit every time we received a new message from our handsome but decidedly undead C.E.O. The messages so obvious and banal to inspire us so he could make $20 million bonuses.
This is the part of the blog where I was going to brag about making prophetic predictions at a dinner with upper management that asked my opinions of the state of things out East at the time that would have saved the company $20+ million dollars (not necessarily expected value but how it actually turned out). Oh, I just did brag about making prophetic predictions at a dinner with upper management that asked my opinions of the state of things out East at the time that would have saved the company $20+ million dollars (not necessarily expected value but how it actually turned out).
It was on my mind because I suggested they stop selling product to a large integrated steel mill on the East coast of the U.S.A. that to this particular emotionally detached observer was doomed and forever doomed. They continued doing business with them until the mill shut down permanently and the L.M.N.C. I worked for ended up getting burned for $15 million in unpaid consignment. It was a terribly sad story. It bankrupted all the local businesses and a lot of people were out of work in an already depressed part of the country.
It comes to mind because that mill in East Coast, U.S.A. was 1 large blast furnace and 1 large caster. Techint in Venezuela was 6 casters which means it was likely 1 or 2 large blast furnaces and a handful of electric arc furnaces or 1 or 2 large electric arc furnaces. Chavez burned the L.M.N.C. I worked for for a likely $50+ million in unpaid consignment. That is just one company not to mention the effect it would have on local economy. In the world I live in if someone welches on bets to the wrong people they start sending large, trained men to start breaking fingers and escalate the violence as deemed necessary. Now, we can discuss whether that is right or wrong but the fact is that it is effective. Maybe it was my upbringing in poker and life that welching on bets is not acceptable. I think there was a crazy ambulance/ER bill when I was mentally ill that I never paid due to being broke and I told a predatory gym to get fucked. I think that is the grey area. What is predatory and what is not? Many people will look to exploit as much as they can get away with. Maybe every human being to an extent.
What is my point? I am not sure. I am just thinking. The U.S.A. and the wealthy elite are similar to bookies and gangsters who have access to large men well versed in violence. They also have access to clever demons well versed in "Public Relations" and Manufacturing Consent. So, if someone isn't behaving how they want them to behave they discreetly break some fingers and see what happens. It may turn into a meeting with a baseball bat. Eventually they drop the Atomic Bomb but not literally an Atomic Bomb because that is mutually assured destruction these days. They are much more devious.
I went to the Dentist yesterday. It always weirds me out because everyone in there is a tall, blonde, beautiful woman. I get along with the hygienist and she does a good job so I keep going but it's just weird. The Queen Bee Blondie Dentist comes in at the end and expects me to be more excited about my teeth being clean. She probably won a Miss America pageant at some point in her life and has a smile so perfect it is difficult to look at similarly to the sun. Her and her husband who is a Medical Doctor and her male clone came to the pizza shop once and were rather difficult and demanding. Then in the appointment she just wanted to talk about craft beer and her children and I was just like you got the wrong guy. As if I could just find some new, interesting craft beers and have a couple after work to relax and receive transcendental love from my angelic children and everything would be ok. The American Dream. I shouldn't judge though. I don't truly know her and it's not her fault.
So, where does this leave me? I was reflecting back on those days with the L.M.N.C. I am so happy to be out of that situation. But, I am still a wage slave chained to one of the richest and most powerful Masters on the Planet Earth. I still need to eat food, maintain my Automobile including consistently feeding it Petrol Gasoline, dole out money to various forms of insurance, and struggle to pay medical bills. There are so many social injustices across the world that it is hard to know where to even begin. I once spent much of a weekend with an AA Elder in the forests of Northern PA camping. He wasn't a caricature AA Elder in that he wasn't a "Big Book Thumper." He would host a weekly reading group of The Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita. Anyways, when we were saying our goodbyes he got really serious and intense for a moment and looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Rich, if i have one suggestion for you it is this: Shine a light on your corner before attempting to shine a light on the world." He was also a big proponent of not seeking the non-physical in the material world but rather chinking away the icy shell covering of our true "selves" through authenticity, honesty, genuineness and allowing self-esteem to blossom organically.
My therapist said I should in part take on the spirit of an unconditioned child. ¡¡¡L'esprit de l'enfant sauvage!!!
My dad says I should continue going to work and earning a paycheck.
A friend and I went to a massive festival in Argentina and saw LCD Soundsystem. We got so unbelievably high. He would always try and get me Blazard. Blazard is term I coined in college as a mix between blazed and the phenomena of Blazars in the universe (aren't I so clever). Anyways, he would always try and get me blazard and fuck with me. At the concert he started freaking out that the security guards saw us and were coming to get us. I was adamant that this was all bullshit and I am trying to enjoy the concert and we'll be ok. Then I notice that there were security guards looking directly at us and headed our way. My friend threw the lit joint as far as he could as discreetly as possible. They walked right by us examining us and then moved along. It added to the high. The concert was phenomenal.
In an attempt to get outside of my reclusiveness I went to a nice restaurant and an orchestral concert on Sunday. I ate a $17 pancake. I would have been happier just making blueberry pancakes at home by myself. I was wearing my favorite boots. They strike me aesthetically. They are pretty shit for walking around a city though. It is like wearing heeled casts. I pretty much only wear minimal running shoes or barefoot shoes and the contrast with the boots was uncomfortable. There is a book called "End of Illness" by David Agus that I read years ago that pretty much sums up the profound relationship between heeled footwear and inflammation. Being at that concert I was in a sea of brown leather shoes. I don't want any part in it. It was 99% white. The other 1% was filled in with Asians and Indians. There was a black guy that helped move the piano on stage. It was similar to a The Who concert I went to in Western, MA. The only black people at the concert were part of security. A lot of suits and collared shirts and ties and brown leather shoes. One thing I've realized is that I didn't have to go to this event. These events are not what I'm striving for. Why am I hung up on going to some cocktail lounge with some gorgeous woman covered in expensive makeup, a small designer cocktail dress, and stilletos? I think the answer is I am not really caught up on that anymore but I still get seduced by Kate Upton. But, just talking to co-workers especially ones who buy vegan slices of pizza they are so much more interesting than the woman in the Mercedes Benz commercial.
I didn't really feel like being in my last therapy session. I mostly just stared at the corner of the door expressionless until prompted to say something. She called me out on it. She also said I didn't have a sense of self and started going into Freud. I think she was relating it to the whole Buddhism thing and that I lost my identity or my ego was punctured or something like that but I don't really agree with that. I didn't really care to bring up Otto Rank or immortality projects at the time. We talked about my depression. She asked if I wanted meds. I said definitely not. I explained that I thought I was just situationally depressed. I am not happy with the state of things in the world. I don't remember how grandiosity was brought up but we talked about it for a while. I mentioned that I have streaks of grandiosity especially in mania. I told her the story about how I wanted to be a progamer and then became a poker player. She said that that isolated story wasn't an example of grandiosity. I told her that when I am manic I want to kill all the billionaires in the world and actually I think about that when I am not manic. Somewhere in this timeline she asks to see me every week. I say no. She asks if I actually planned it out and I say no, I never get further than the fact I don't have the training for something like that. It's not really the right way to go about things I don't think. Then I talked about activism and getting more educated and more involved. Then I started talking about capitalism and corporations and all of the movements I feel strongly about and structural determinism and class conflict and class struggle versus race struggle and I think I was probably talking for a long time. She asked me if I think I am smarter than most people? I said I don't know. She asked me if I think I know more than most people? I said in subjects that I've read a lot about, yes. Oh, I think she also wanted to see me more because I said I had thoughts that either this activism thing would be worthwhile or I'd probably just kill myself. Kind of seems like a lot of the makings of a suicide bomber. I'd rather be a part of a large movement affecting change than just dumbass me blowing up an Exxon building or whatever. I wouldn't even want to do that as it might kill a security guard or something. I don't actually want to murder anyone. We are all human beings with our own determinism. Rehabilitation is a complex subject.
I finally finished "Infinite Jest." I thought it would free up all this time to educate myself on other topics but I've mostly been living in r/infinitejest and re-reading it. I think on most days I'm pretty lonely and "Infinite Jest" soothes that loneliness. It just seems like I am drawn to it over these other options that I have.
I read a lot of disturbing and distressing stuff yesterday.
China's Selfie Obsession was probably in the lead until Loco posted about the French protests. Why in the fuck would someone shoot flash bangs and stun grenades at peoples' faces who are non-violent? I swear these guys have dreams of doing stuff like this and their adrenalin gets pumped up and they are enjoying it. I also noticed that after the first person fired a shot it was always accompanied by a handful more. What the fuck? Also, I think the French people are just more aware due to their history and culture.
No New Year's resolutions here. Absolutely not. I ate a whole pint of pistachio gelato the other day just to spite the idea. I remember also feeling quite depressed, lonely, and bored and that that Italian iced cream could somehow fill in The Void.
I started watching movies again. Junk food and movies is my new thing. I'll cook up some rice and beans which is really a perfect meal besides the arsenic in the white basmati rice. Then I'll start in on popcorn and chocolate covered pretzels. I watched "Isle of Dogs" the other day by Wes Anderson. Really enjoyable film. Then I watched "First Reformed" by Paul Schrader. Fuckin' great film. I enjoy stories. I think much of the human population enjoys stories. I typically like it best in the form of a novel but cinema can be quite enchanting in its own right.
I am completely cruelty free in the soap, shampoo, deodorant department. I got some Tom's deodorant. I didn't realize their home base is Kennebunk, ME. That's about 15 min. away from York, ME and is within the diameter of one of my favorite areas of the earth. Biddeford, ME is also within this diameter. Home of milo and Soulfax record store. I may go up and visit my sister and brother-in-law in Northhampton, MA and take a trip to the coast this summer. Being in the South it is like a breath of fresh air going up in that direction. I did better in regards to Tinder in regards to attractive matches and stimulating conversation. It would appear I am more attracted to the Tinder women collective of Western, MA and Coastal, ME than I am Charleston, SC. If I were to generalize I'd say there seems to be a lot of blonde sorority types here in Charleston and a bit more of an unusual, intellectual vibe coming out of those parts of New England. I like black women too but not the ones immersed in popular rap culture. Some Asians are great.
I have been watching a lot of Angelica White porn lately. I like her personality. I like her breasts too and her degree of thickness but in reality those mammary glands are quite large. It just all seems to work out in the world of pornography. In reality, for me, when dating a woman breast size is not really a conscious thing. I remember one woman I dated had rather large breasts and she would wear these blouses showing off blood rushing to the head inducing cleavage. I just wanted to free them up. But, even so they are just mammary glands. I had to want to have a conversation with the woman. A smart, funny, atheist, anti-natalist, with large breasts who is sexually adventurous. Not sure how many of those I'll find.
This blog kind of took a turn for the it seems clear that I at least partially want to start dating again.
I'm survivin', man, I'm survivin'. Just did my bills and it looks ok. Car insurance and doctor visits and blood work are expensive though. I was getting over depression and caught a really bad cold I'm still fending off and I'm still depressed but things are looking up. I don't know why. Maybe, that is just my personality. I love the springtime and we are getting closer to that but I am getting older so what do we do with that?
I love my barber because she is a friend of mine and we talk about really dark shit while everyone else is talking about Christmas and the NFL games over the weekend.
There is something about Christmas though. It threw me into new ways of living. My sister came into town and we were always doing stuff. Making pancakes, eating brunch, going to oyster roasts. It was nice to have someone to talk to and joke around with that weren't my parents. I go back to work yesterday and it is like, "oh yeah, back to the grind," but I don't want it to be that way and I don't think it necessarily has to be that way. There is a sort of hollowness that I experience in relation to Christmas but then an even more pronounced hollowness following Christmas. Maybe I just feel hollow a lot. Maybe that's just the way things are going to go.
I'm going to try this. I'm going to write whatever comes to my mind and not think about writing what is the right thing to say or to please anyone. This is what my therapist instructed me to do. She is also a psychiatrist and practiced psycho-analyst. She also believes in God and made it sound like she was a Catholic but then was kind of ambiguous on whether she still is a Catholic. I know more about her than that but that is just what came to mind first. In our last session she talked about not knowing me at all. I think we've had 3 or 4 sessions and the fact she knew so little about me she said was abnormal. Ok? She correctly posited that since my goal was to reduce suffering I must be suffering. That wasn't even an official goal or anything. I think I mentioned it in the first session sometime in relation to partaking in Buddhism. I think the session I was supposed to have goals I opened with that I was depressed so we explored that. I like Loco's idea of being ok in my own skin in a society that doesn't suck but I'm not convinced there is a society that doesn't suck so we'll just have to go with whatever Loco said about getting the benefits of society without having to conform to it. My therapist believes I am avoiding something with these neuroscience lectures and complex systems courses and in the past with all the Buddhism and meditation. To be honest, I don't really have any goals. I'd like to go to Thailand, I'd like to go to Japan, I'd like to go to Paris again. I do what I can to make my days reasonable. I have strategies and plans that I employ at work to make the day go better. It's some mix of making my life easier and improving the company's profits. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they don't. She is continually interested in what I do for joy. It is sometimes for me hard to decipher this. Reading a certain chapter of Infinite Jest brings me joy. I went to a new place for brunch today that turned out to be really cool. That's just in the moment off the top of my head. Buying my toddler nephew's really awesome books brought me joy. Buying my brother-in-law slippers. But, it seems a lot of times it takes me a while to produce instances of joy or sometimes I just don't experience that much joy. I say things like running a model that showed how ants find their food brings me joy and I feel like I am getting judged. Whereas telling her going out to lunch with my friend and going for a walk brings me joy is like a normal answer. I'm really just judging myself.
We'll take a space so this doesn't turn into one big block of text. Someone criticized me for that in another blog and it is a fair criticism. So, I talked about general stuff about myself. It's mostly normal besides the fact I am bipolar I, and a substance addict. Then she steered the conversation to dating/sex/relationships/etc and I would say my dating life throughout my life has been very abnormal. I talked about being willingly celibate but at this point not being sure about that decision. That I get urges and attracted to women and some times varying levels of fantasies. I talked about poker and my life as a refractory salesmen. I think the feelings that are sitting with me are that I am abnormal and what exactly I am avoiding if anything. She also mentioned as I was walking out that she hopes I can find joy in whatever it is that brings me joy. I will continue seeing her. I like that she is challenging and blunt. I really don't know where this is going. I know that I look forward to therapy and then don't really enjoy it while I am there. It is quite intense. That's probably a good thing. I don't know. I just felt like trying a therapy session on my therapy even though probably 0 of you are qualified therapists.
I think you can scroll through and look at them with this link but not listen unless you sign up for a Spotify account.
They also have a cool playlist called "Tastebreakers" where they took the songs from the Top 100 list and then compiled a different list. "Start 2019 by broadening your horizons. We've made you a playlist of songs from genres and artists you don't normally explore - and we think you'll like it." The playlist is pretty f'n awesome. Anyways, this blog is sounding like an advertisement for Spotify.
2018 isn't over yet but all of this had me reflecting. 2018 was a strange year. I was kind of all over the place. I think a lot of it tied into my struggle to get a date as a poor person living with my parents or even beyond those "excuses": How do I date and be ok in my own skin? Or, at least this is seemingly what My Interpreter is piecing together (Michael Gazzaniga, Gifford Lectures, "The Interpretor" Youtube it - fascinating stuff). Or, more simply how do I get ok in my own skin?
I remember back to my days of waking up at 5am to train. I got pretty nicely pumped up there. I still think bodybuilding is based in vanity and narcissism. Byung-Chul Han posits that depression is based in narcissism as well. I think my unaltered state is to be pretty narcissistic. Now part of this is AA brainwashing. I really can't answer the question if I am more self-centered or narcissistic than the average person. I really don't know. But, my immediate response to being self-centered and narcissistic is to go help someone else. That I must help someone else or I am going to end up drinking or doing drugs again. I am in conflict with these fellowships. I can never feel ok in my own skin if I am a part of them and it seems to be difficult to be ok in my own skin without them.
There was my experiences with Tinder which spurned the dissatisfaction to look further into Buddhism. I pretty much went tunnel vision in one to tunnel vision in another. I am not sure how I moderate that behavior. It seems to cause a lot of suffering.
There was that amazing 2 month period of being unemployed. I learned a lot.
Tonight I thought about going to an AA meeting just to get out of the house and socialize with some people. Even if those people are going to tell me I need to pray and I need to turn my will and my life over to God. I made myself dinner and signed up for a complex science course instead. Seeing the two options written out there is really no competition.
So, what are some things I am trending towards as we move into 2019?
I would like to get back into Buddhism. Start exploring Samatha (Calm) meditation. I am holding off on scriptures. Currently, really enjoying "Infinite Jest" by DFW. Overall, it is just enjoyable but also I think it helps me with AA. Here is a guy poking fun at the whole situation and it's great.
How am I going to be ok in my own skin and find a society to be a part of with out having to conform?
That is a tricky one but I think learning more about relevant sciences and Buddhism is a part of that. I suppose I also may just have to accept that I will spend my Saturday nights making myself dinner, watching science lectures and posting on LP. I will take my dinner tonight though. I cooked up some rice at like 35c per serving, fried 2 eggs my dad had in the fridge that were going to go bad before he comes home from his trip, mixed in some chili paste my Thai aunt gave me, and added a little bit of Sriracha. This is something else I will be working on. Working on meals over the course of the week that are varied, vegan, nutritious, nourishing. Using the produce that is local, in season, and organic if possible.
I think this Tastebreakers playlist is an atopic Other bringing me out of my depression. Who knows?
Contact Users: 451 Active, 1 Logged in - Time: 02:34
