Snippets of semi-controlled energy

Stream of consciousness writing is really cool. Or free writing; it's a similar thing I guess. I do want to edit what I write so it's not too difficult to read. But not having to worry about a particular writing style is calming.

Calmness. Serenity. Peacefulness. They're nice words. They're nice because they represent nice things. Actually, I prefer the first two over the last. I think the first two are just nicer looking words, and "peacefulness" just lacks the right letters.

Why am I writing again? Because I wanted to share how I'm feeling. And I also wanted to calm myself down a bit. I'm not overly excited or anything... no, I just feel anxious. And although I don't often turn to my blog as a therapy tool, there's no reason why I shouldn't.

I feel like I should turn to it more often. Part of it is a sort of obligation to be genuine. See, I've sometimes told people that I have a blog, and that I use it as a way for me to cope with my spiritual emergencies. But to be honest, I haven't used it all that much. It's not like I ever really had a daily ritual of writing something down here. On the other hand, I don't need to look up my old posts to know that I've often written about my feelings and thoughts on things, and it would be difficult for me to say that this blog has not helped me at all. So if I never used it, then yeah, I couldn't really tell people that I'm a blogger. But I do, so I guess I am genuine after all and I shouldn't worry about that.

Wow, tonight it seems like I have more to share. Maybe one of my theories is true. What is my theory? Well, I think that anxiety can also be thought of as uncontrolled creative energy that does not have an outlet. Without an outlet, creative energy has nowhere to go so it sort of stays bundled up in the body and it just makes you feel like crap. But if you could direct that energy outside, out of your system, then maybe the anxiety symptoms would lessen. Well, I still feel anxious up till now. Doesn't mean my hypothesis is invalid, though.

What sorts of thoughts do I have while I'm feeling this anxiety? (I wanted to say "Why am I anxious?", but the answer to that, according to what I just explained, would have been "because my uncontrolled creative energy isn't flowing").

It's a combination of a lot of little things and some big things. Like for example, I've had my phone for a while, but the screen is cracked and chipping away in some places, and every time I look at it I remember that I caused this damage to it, and repairing is not an option. More importantly, the camera is kinda broken and although I can still take pictures, they almost always come out really blurry. I think the internal focus sensor is broken. And I'm not going to repair that either. It really sucks because my phone is more appropriately called a "camera phone", since the camera normally shoots in really high resolution and it has all these settings to shoot with that make it similar to a DSLR camera or something of the sort. And now I can't use it to take pictures. So I have this pretty expensive phone that is now mostly used as a mobile browser, for calling, and for texting. I guess the anxiety stems from knowing that hundreds of dollars (and some slave labour) went into the phone and now it's sort of sitting there, not able to perform.

Okay, enough about the phone. I also feel anxious because I realize that a lot of my days are spent sitting in front of the computer, surfing the internet, reading comments on Reddit, watching streamers play Hearthstone on Twitch and sometimes also playing some games here and there. It's sort of depressing. But I just don't know what else to do. My djembe drum is sitting beside a brown bookcase, staring at me, silently asking me why I haven't struck it in months.

Come to think of it, I actually feel like playing it for the first time in a long time. That's really weird, and I should look at it as a positive thing. Unfortunately, I can't play it because it's late and it would wake up not only my housemates, but probably also the 100 year-old lady next door who suffers from migraines. And I'm not an inconsiderate bastard.

If there was a drum circle, right now, in the ravine or something, I would be there. How cool would that be? Disregarding the fact that it's below freezing outside, going to a drum circle right now (with maybe a bonfire and some dancers) would be absolutely amazing.

That makes me think of my friend K. She's in Australia right now, but she's the kinda person who goes to these kinds of things all the time. ALL the time. She does something called buugeng, which from what I gather is sort of like fire spanning. And she's been to Burning Man. So -that- kind of cool person (sorry to put you in a box!).

I have an extended network of friends, I realize. I rarely see any of them them nowadays. Some, like K, are in far away lands. Others are busy working. I just... feel sad that I don't spend time with these people. I want to spend time with them, it's just I don't know what to do with them anymore. That felt weird to type... What I mean is, I don't seem to know what sorts of activities we could do. That's just an excuse, I admit. But I sometimes think in my head that I'm not really capable of fulfilling that "friend" role anymore, so I just don't bother trying.

I get anxious about the fact that I have no clear direction in life, career wise. Even job wise. Like, is the point of living to make money to afford being able to live somewhere and being able to buy food to live? I guess it sort of is in a capitalistic society. And now I think of my friend S, who, last I heard, is working on a paper about how capitalism is stripping away things that make us human. Okay, that's probably not right at all, but I know his paper is critical of capitalism.

AHHH. Thinking about S, it freaks me out that there are people that I could potentially hang out with, but I don't take the steps to do so. What is wrong with me?! I feel like something is wrong with me because I think that I can't handle conversation well anymore. It's so much easier to write this stuff than to talk about it with someone face to face.

I'm going to go make myself a tisane now. To soothe (another nice word) my all-over-the-place mind. And maybe I'll log on to Skype for the first time in months and maybe I can at least have an online conversation with someone. Some of my Skype contacts are actually acquaintances I've only met online. And with my creative energy somehow channeling through me at the moment, maybe I'll be able to spur conversation my way. For some reason, it's something I crave at the moment.

My last anxiety to share is that I feel like I haven't completed some of my thoughts in what I've just written. Oh well. There's always another blank blog box to write in if I want to.

-Gabriel

Two months far gone

Hey. I don't really know who I'm writing to. I guess I have to say I'm writing to myself in a public way, on this blog. This blog which has been in my life for many, many years now.

I usually try and write at least one thing a month, so that on the sidebar of my blog it at least looks like every month is filled in. Not so for the past two months, but I guess for February 2016 there will be a post.

I guess I'll write down how I feel just now. I mean, I do that a lot on here and a lot of the time I write that I feel alone. Well, today is no exception. I feel alone. I want to be social. I want to be happy! I want to be social because I think it means I will be happier? I think it's probably true. But isn't happiness something that can be kind of addictive? I mean, being happy sure feels good! So why don't I make more efforts to be social? Is it because it doesn't actually make me happy? I really hope not! I recall reading that having a good network of friends is a good teller of many important things, like psychological health and happiness. So in the darker part of my brain I think "Oh, what's the point of being around people, I don't really have much to offer to them anyway". I don't like thinking that.

A lot of the time I will think "Okay, I will text so and so. Maybe we can do something". I never do. Or at least, I haven't in a long while. It's kind of scary to think about, so I ignore this behaviour. I talk about these things with a therapist sometimes. And I get good feedback.

Channeling some Lyra again would be great. I kinda am, again. I want to rely on this mystical conception of an angel that is there only to help me. Because otherwise the darkness is overwhelming and impossible to handle.

The darkness includes such ideas as:

• I'm going to be alone forever
• I'm never going to be able to build a life for myself
• I'm losing all my friends
• I am not a functional member of society

On the positive side of things, I know I made a new friend in the last year. Sadly, she moved back to England. But it was actually cool discovering that new friendships can happen.

I'm not sure when the next update will be. But my blog is not dead! So that's another positive.

-Gabriel

Stalling moments

I have moments in my life where I seem to not want to do anything. Wasting time. Stalling moments, I call them. I fear I may end up regretting theses moments when I'm older & wiser. I hope not. Really, these moments are easy to see: time spent mindlessly surfing the web, absorbing information I can't seem to recall in great detail anyway.

I wonder where I can draw more energy from. Vital energy that allows me to laugh with friends and go on adventures with them. Or energy that I use to buckle down and study harder - my study habits have definitely taken a turn for the worse as the coming winter approaches.

I guess I'm pretty disinterested in what I'm studying. Old philosophical writings from the early medieval era. I can't really even fully grasp what these old geezers are talking about. I should probably try harder to dig into it, but I feel like I'm studying philosophy because I somehow find it worthwhile. And yet, I can hardly explain what it is I'm studying. The nature of reality? There's some ethics here and there when I was reading some Abelard, but it seemed so far removed from what I experience in my own life (i.e. who ever considered the ethics of a servant killing his master in self-defence? why does this matter?) that I just feel apathetic toward it all.

I'm dreading the next essay that's coming for this course. It's almost 3x the length of an essay I just had returned to me (which, thankfully, fetched a mark that I'm content with) and I found this essay-writing experience not as intellectually fulfilling as I had hoped.

I'm so glad I can still write here. And it is strange that I feel like writing at this moment, for I have had a hard time finding the motivation to write anything lately. I'm glad I can write because I'm finding it difficult to talk to people. To relate to them, especially. I don't have much going on in my life right now, but I have had many moments that defy explanation in the past.

Speaking of these moments, I was talking to my therapist the other day about some pretty terrible experiences I've been through. And it felt good to really dig deeper into the kind of things that stress me out and keep me up at night, sometimes. That's one form of talk I do okay with; I'm talking about feelings more and more. Maybe not so much with friends, but at least with a professional. And I get along great with him, especially now that a lot of the anger and resentment I was feeling over some bad experiences is gone.

Stalling moments. Moments in eternity in a finite(?) universe.

I hope to see some northern lights someday.

 

Edit 2022/09/13 i.e. to i.e.

Simplify the dawn

Maybe I can write less. I feel like I have to commit when I write in this white box.

I am playing a game called Grim Dawn.It's kinda lonely to play a single player game all the time.

I wrote a philosophy essay last week. I think I'll do well on it.

I miss my friends. I miss my carefree times.

I'm thinking of getting my yoga more active again. Once a week isn't really doing much.

I've lost a lot of weight. Of course, I gained a ton of weight before I lost it.

I need to go to bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow (Class + Laughing Like Crazy Info Session + Mad Stories).

I cooked breakfast for the week. Egg muffins, no flour of course.

I am going to bed. And I'm reading The Worlds Within Her by Neil Bissoondath.

I am going to bed. And my dreams are once more part of my life.

The careful and the sluggish

Oh no, I'm not sinking again. I look at it as a vacation.
Yesterday, I played badminton again and then I came home and just... crashed. All day. I took care of one school thing (read: e-mailing my TA) and then decided to binge watch on Netflix.

Yeah, binge watching Netflix. I hear it's a rite of passage for uni students these days. Now that we have access to practically unlimited amounts of entertainment through the internet, it's become so easy to just... let the episodes fly by and forget about time for a while.

Ugh. It makes me feel dirty. Usually, the commercials would make me want to stop watching TV after a while, but now that they're gone... I just think to myself: "Oh, I'll just watch one more episode of Arrested Development and then I'll buckle down and get some work done". Yeah... well, that's not going too well. At least a part of my philo essay is done and I haven't left it to the last minute, which actually feels REALLY good. But if I keep down this Netflix path of instantly gratifying stimulating entertainment, I know that I could let myself go.

Luckily, I foresaw this cycle happening again and so I decided to enroll in a couple workshops/classes at Hart House early this September. One of them is a yoga class I've been going to (beginner's, but still challenging in so many ways!) and now I'm starting a class on training your voice & speech to boost self confidence. It's happening tonight, and for the next 8 weeks or so. I'm curious what it's all going to be about. I think it will help me get out of this mini rut I've been in since this weekend's late night gaming party.

My old yoga studio (that I quit this summer b/c I wasn't going and I felt too self-conscious to go to because of my weight which is now, amazingly, lower than I've been in years!) has been closed for a few weeks. And now I'm thinking of enrolling again - but instead of an unlimited per-month fee dealio, I'm thinking of buying a punch card that I simply have to use up. 50 classes. There's a challenge. I know that undertaking this challenge will make me feel great. And that's what I want to feel.

Great.

I am not going back to Netflix. I am not going back to Netflix. I am not going back to Netflix... at least not for the rest of the day.

Booze, cars, and... e-mail?

When I was a kid, I used to go to these Salon du livre events which are basically french book fairs. I used to love going to those things because I've always loved books. Of course, there have been times in my life where I haven't particularly liked books - especially in my early twenties - but I've generally liked having them around ever since I could read.

I remember picking up a book at one of these book fairs. A small and thin collection of short stories written by a franco-ontarien (french speaker from Ontario). The stories were mostly small excerpts of true memories from this author's mind, and out of all the stories in the book, the one I remember the most was one titled "Non, je ne bois pas" (no, I do not drink).

This particular story had, I believe, a profound effect on my world view. It was illustrated with pictures of an adult who felt insecure that he chose not to drink. This adult sometimes felt awkward when refusing alcohol at dinner parties, and he sometimes needed to make up excuses as to why he did not want to drink.

See, I like to think that I don't like to drink. And generally, it's true. I rarely seek out alcohol, and while I do enjoy having wine once in a while when I'm eating dinner with the fam, alcohol is not something that's on my mind often. I don't like/I can't drink beer, so I don't have much an issue when I go on my rare pub nights with friends.

I don't understand why alcohol is so ingrained in our society, and I don't want to talk about that here. I know there are many historical reasons why, and I just don't care. I guess I sometimes feel bitter about it. Now that I'm doing well, and living without substance abuse, I sometimes see alcohol as my enemy. I know it's not good to antagonize something like that; what if I start drinking more? Won't I feel awful about myself? And what about all the times where I had a great time being drunk - am I just supposed to ignore the fun times and think that alcohol is a terrible thing?

That's not a healthy attitude. But you know what else isn't healthy? Driving around everywhere. And it's the same thing, really. I enjoy being in a car, or a truck, or whatever thing has a motor. I doubt very many people can confidently say "Nah, I never like being in  car". It is like a body armour that goes very fast. But I just don't like that our society is so... dependent on these things. Didn't we do just fine before the horse and carriage? Haven't we always done just fine without these convenience tools that now dictate how cities are being built?

I guess this absurdity that I remark on is quite influenced by the fact that I grew up in a family that never owned a car. Once in a while, we'd have access to one, and we enjoyed the hell out of it. For example, I have fond memories of being driven to Quebec for Christmas and playing games in the car to pass the time. Or watching the changing landscapes as we transitioned to city, to suburbs, to country in the blink of an eye. One of the things I remember doing is watching the power lines dip up and down like one dimensional rope swings and wondering if they'd ever end.

And yet, I don't like cars. I like being in them. But I don't like them. They scare me. They scare me so much, and I've had to grow accustomed to this fear otherwise I'd never have been able to live 20+ years in the city. I've never been in a major car accident, so this fear does not stem from trauma. Curiously, I think it stems from the link I see between cars and environmental degradation.

I miss nature so often, I forget that I even miss it. And it makes tears well up in my eyes that I can't seem to live separate from the concrete and plastic, when I realize I'm so separated from the wild. But I remind myself that I am lucky. I remind myself that I live in the most beautiful country in the world and even though I've never left it, I know that one day I will find my place on Earth, possibly in Canada, where I belong.

Until then, I weep at the sight of my inbox. And I find comfort in the fact that I don't need to shop online to feel happy.

I wish my writing was magically more lucid. I never feel like editing for clarity. This is definitely one of those times.

-Kalyrascope