Writing is easy

 "Writing is easy. All you got to do is cross out the wrong words." - Mark Twain

I started writing a short book a few months ago, and it has been really fun. Like, more addictive than playing video games, if you can believe it. It's probably not good, but it almost, doesn't matter? At least this time. I just wanted to have written. Perhaps the one good idea I will ever have, if it is even good. It's funny. It actually is a lot like the feeling of blogging. Like I'm saying something to the universe in the chance that someone will read it and find something. In this case, I hope they would be entertained. I wonder if there is some deep desire within me to be seen and heard, unconditionally. It feels very narcissistic, if I'm honest. But somehow, because I know it's probably going to be bad and nobody will read it, it becomes not narcissistic. I'm thankful that my older brother tried this too, I sometimes think he has a sense of freedom and agency that I lack at times. Or not even lack, just, self-conditioned, self-censored, like somehow my restraints protect me. All personalities, maladjustments, traumas, if you really want, learned behaviors, positive or negative, serve a purpose, as Dr. K says. I almost have to take how fun it is seriously, as I have begun to write even in transit or during mealtimes.

“The whole ‘What is me?’ thing, you know, how much of it is just training and repetition and am I just doing it to please my parents? But then, you know, I decided that actually, that’s all just a big f*cking cop out. Because if I can ask myself the question, then I can answer it for myself.” - John Stewart in Lanterns. I liked it!

Liminal and Untethered

There are things I wished worked out a different way or in a different time, but I've arrived at the airport too early or maybe too late, and now you wait there neither here nor there. I wake up these mornings with my head racing randomly but interspersed with lucid questions of my identity and career especially, the two intertwined though often people tell you not to let that happen. There are so many crashing waves of contradictions, and the noise is being amplified by how much caffeine I'm drinking all the time now. I need to let it be, breath and just see and accept things as they are. My anxiousness, imposter syndrome, fear, need to be felt out from the past and understood for what they compel me to do. Would I be okay with the worst? Is that a good question?

I've gotten married! I love her very much and dream of growing old with her. Now comes the easy and hard parts of living. Many things resurfaced this week as I saw old faces and relived old fears and wants. I wish for someone sometimes that I could invoke to talk deeply with, but hear about theirs too. There is a level of understandable superficialness in the material reality of adult lives that can be tiring, and I understand why people seek spirituality better perhaps. Let it be. You are not a loser (from little miss sunshine). 

Cheap

The past few hours has been a mistake in cheapness. I think I need to fear less about money, which is not the same as not caring about it, but it is detaching myself from whether I'm richer or poorer by a few dollars. I think I still feel threatened and seen or valued by it. I think that when I was younger it was not necessarily making money, but saving it cleverly that got praise, and that has wired my brain in a non-well adjusted way.

Just tired

I'm just tired. My brain is mush. Like thoughts and feelings flowing through with no rhyme or reason and it's hard for me to grasp. Perhaps a feeling of being overwhelmed, constantly rushing or feeling urgency. Some of it is made up, klishta and caffeine don't mix. I just want to be carried away, in soundless sleep, like during the liminal space of Christmas to New Year's. I want peace and quiet, but it's awkward and guilty, I wish someone understood and gave me a signal of whether it's normal. I feel the ruthlessness of tedium and everyday. I want to keep promises but the only thing I can sacrifice is my time and energy and attention. I'm addicted to this spiral of negativity but all I receive is awkward looks of helplessness and I get that. I want to watch a movie of struggle for a role model, is that sickening?

I wish she would understand her own American-ness, but how can I fault someone for being their own nationality in ignorance? It is like asking how they know the words they know go together. Or perhaps it is from my own narrow view and lack of sample size that I project stereotypes. But that makes it worse if there is no reason, just idiosyncrasy. How can I carry on with my choices if I'm in it alone? Sometimes there are so many small things, paper cuts, that it seems her preferences are far away. Sometimes it feels like we trend further and further away, and our history is looked back with new and darker lenses rather rose tinted. 

Change is the Only Constant II

"You're not a loser. You know what a loser is? A real loser is somebody that's so afraid of not winning, they don't even try." A quote from Little Miss Sunshine, which I have never watched.

I'm home early from work. Many of my coworkers did the same. Our manager is going on maternity leave, but also, quite suddenly, leaving the company. Many saw her as the primary reason for staying. To me it is another good person who has left, while I have not. I am afraid. I have always been afraid. I have been afraid of too much.

"You put your hat in the ring at a time of great uncertainty. I sincerely respect that." A quote from a colleague, whom I respect greatly for being who they are. 

I was afraid when I "put my hat in the ring", but at least not afraid enough to do it in the first place. I felt compelled, and I recognize it was an emotional "fuck it" decision, even though at the same time, somebody put the idea to me as "why not" once before, so I did consider it before. I can still be afraid, but I should stop thinking I'm a loser. I should stop thinking that others must say it for me to feel it. I should stop feeling like confidence is arrogance and shameful. I should learn to take Ls and live life. This is water. I should stop letting imperfect conditions be excuses. I should stop being afraid of judgement. I should stop being afraid of responsibility. Maybe the reason I don't take charge without explicitly being called to do it is because then I can blame others for the choice, but even when you are being asked to take charge, you should take the blame anyway. It is not fair, it is right.

I cannot shake the feeling that others are not telling the truth out of polite-ness, but I recognize that thinking this way is a form of bias too. Some of it comes from this idea of a "compliment sandwich", which at this point I believe it counter-productive, in a Goodhart's law kind of way. Since everybody knows about it, or at the minimum the more people know it, the less authentic the whole sandwich seems, because you wonder if the template is being filled out in a forced manner. One cannot boil down good and bad things always into neat slices of 2 to 1. But still, if the only "truth" I seek or believe are negative, that's all I will ever "hear" or accept.

Have some work to get back to. I'll think and process more later.

Heaven and Hell

I remember distinctly seeing a Buddhist depiction of heaven and hell in samsara. The idea being that nothing is final, you just go through cycles of heaven, earth, and hell. Escaping the cycle of suffering is the goal, i.e. achieving nirvana, and realizing you are in that cycle. It struck me as an interesting ancient metaphor that basically you go through life, and the high pleasant, pleasurable, happy moments are what sets you up to go back down to earth and into hell as well.

I feel... bad, like lonely? Helpless? Left out, not being told what's going on, on purpose? Ostracized, maybe that's the word, like I cannot shake the feeling that people are talking behind my back, negatively, because I've seen that done to others, and it hurts. I think logically, this may or may not be happening, but the feeling is really strong, and I only see signs when the feeling is strong. This is mostly coming from the a work communications problem on one particular project, that has become a lightning rod of my negativity at work and everything wrong that is going on with it. I want so badly to fix it, but I'm not sure if people will let me, and I'm not even sure what needs fixing. And of course it's all predicated on assumptions, as if I'm seeking the negative validation. Like if someone told me "you're right we were ignoring you and trying to get you off the project this whole time", somehow this would be better for closure reasons, even though it may be that there is nothing wrong and there is only a couple of original sins of miscommunication. I wish there was someone to hear me out on this. 

I saw a Dr K video that suggested that people who double down when things are bad, which is me often, is not a good thing when it comes to toxic situations you honestly should just get out of. I'm not sure if I'm in this scenario right now, but I feel like I need to see this through, and the only way it's not painful is if I show how good I can be, but that ... feels wrong too, like all I'm seeking is some personal validation... I wonder if it's something I just need to work on, a symptom of people pleasing. I can't please everyone, sometimes, and sometimes it's even people you like... Maybe I have not accepted that. And maybe I have not accepted that sometimes it really isn't you. They're going through something, or perhaps some actions you take, that seem so insignificant to you, are just perceived in a much more significant way by others.

Another video I watched was about klishta, the "coloring" of what we perceive, based on inner thoughts, which mean that we do not perceive reality. I think it's really helpful to just have the word for it, even though I know it to be true even without watching that video.

The things I must give up and or accept, in order to get through what is ultimately, perhaps in many years, not a big deal, and not to learn the wrong things.

1. I may not be promoted, perhaps for a long time, and that is OK. 

2. It may not even be fair or just, and that is also OK.

3. Others may judge you, poorly, and their approval is not in your control, and you may exhaust too much in trying to get it. This also does not mean they are bad or wrong.

4. People may not be communicative, and sometimes that is that, there is no need to add or assume ill intent

5. It is somewhat mid-west/American culture to be nice/polite, e.g. doing compliment sandwiches, and this does not mean you should overcompensate by immediately assuming people are lying, sometimes, maybe even most of the time, they are genuine, and the saying of the thing makes it genuine

6. You should do you best, not to please others, but because you value doing your best.

I want a good cry, and I want a good friend.

Processing Emotions

Dr. K put out a video talking about how to process your emotions. It's so funny that I've never heard somebody actually teach me this (or anyone) before, though I understand it's a sort of western (I'd just say more science-y type of approach to life) thing, and many cultures, religions, philosophies simply have a different way of saying it or dealing with the same subject. In any case, I want to give it a go, the basics at least. In the video he says the two basic things you need to do is :1. to let it come up, let it out, but not just in a 'talk about it way', just feel it, and then  2. ask two questions - what is it trying to tell you, and what is it trying to get you to do. The concept behind this is a bit like thinking fast and slow's system 1 and 2 thinking - emotions are an instinctive, intuitive, information - and we want to process them by activating conscious reflection. In doing so, we feel it, consider the lesson, and let it go, rather than keeping it dormant and reprogramming our behavior, as in developing an emotional response habit to situations.

I felt ashamed the in the last week, amongst a mixture of other emotions. I'm not sure how to describe shame, but I guess it told me that I had some expectations upon me, that I knew, and that I did not live up to. My colleagues and Chris have told me I shouldn't feel it in this case but I do. I understand what they mean though, they think that the expectations I'm having are perhaps erroneous. But what are they? I feel like perhaps I do deserve to be promoted, but also that I did not, was not, at my best, and I expect myself to always be at my best (not the same as being perfect, which is not entirely in your control). The shame compels me to "prove myself" back. Repent through doubling down. Funnily, Dr K just had a video on high-functioning depression - which I don't think I have to be clear - and mentions this is a common pattern called "sublimation" - where instead of changing the maybe non-conducive environment, the person doubles down because "they are not a quitter" but it doesn't work long-term, generally speaking people will at some point sink with the ship that's taking on water. The action needs to be on patching the ship, the inflow cannot be negative.

I've ended up talking with people I don't usually talk to today, and so I'm truncating this processing session at just the shame I felt today. Let's see how it goes again, I'm glad to have done it in any case.