Chomping At A Small Bit
Oct. 1st, 2003 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Hey there, all...
So this week has found me increasingly frustrated with myself, for reasons that are entirely of my own doing. I could go into detail about them, but the last thing LiveJournal needs is more angst, and I'd rather get into the philosophical/spiritual ramifications of the situation, anyway.
But first...I took a shower, washed my hair, and ended up with water in my ear. It's really annoying because it makes my voice sound funny when I speak, and it makes chewing really *loud*. Has this every happened to anyone?
A day late (of course!), happy birthday to Duncan Roo! Can you believe I've spent a month desperately trying to find a neat present, but nothing I could think of sounded good? Blah, so you'll have to settle for a belated congratulations for surviving another trip around the sun, and a promise of an ass-whoopin' at cribbage sometime in the near future. :) Hope your birthday was a good one, roo.
I've been locked into a certain pattern of behaviors that I've come to recognize as undesirable. Change them, right? But it's not that easy. I don't know why it isn't, but it isn't.
There are lots of times where I feel stuck between this mental strata. I'm smart enough to know that I want something more than what most people are content with, but I'm too lazy to really go after it. There are a few pieces of the puzzle missing that keep me from really pursuing my goal, and while I've always been vaguely aware of their absence, I've really begun to *miss* them.
Passion, I think, is at the very top of the list. I love writing, I love reading, I love books. When I think about life without writing...scratch that, I can't. :) It's so ingrained in me to create, to tell stories, that I really don't know what else I would do if that option were suddenly unavailable to me. I'm not suited for anything else *but* writing, and I'm perfectly happy with that, in fact I'm excited about the prospect of one day creating stories that inspire people, of passing on a spark that came out of me to light someone else's fire. It gets me giddy. I can't *wait*.
But I still don't write.
There are so many other things to do when I get home from work. People have problems in their lives that they need someone to talk about, and I'm a relatively friendly ear. There are people on-line that I want to see and talk to, that I want to play with, that I want to have all these wondrous and deep conversations with, but usually I'm too distracted and/or shy to really get into it with them. There are movies to watch, languages to learn, food to eat, amusing tests to take, pipes to smoke, wine to drink, walks to take, essays and journal entries to peruse, desks to straighten, rooms to re-organize, decisions to be made and things to clean. Not to mention that there are so *many* stories in my head it's very hard to pick one out of the crowd, grab it by the shoulders and suck its essence from its bones, only to spit it back out onto a computer screen. (Sorry, Bradbury again.) I end up being so overwhelmed by the decision that I don't do anything, or I try to do too much, and all of the eggs I juggle come crashing down on top of me. I end up going to bed frustrated, so much so that I need to make myself relax (fill in the blanks here, you pervs :)) two or three times before I can finally go to bed. And this has been my night for the past few weeks.
I haven't been particularly interesting or forthright with people on-line because I'm not really focused on conversations there. I'm always half-steeped in the things I feel I should be doing, and I'm very distracted by the weeping of an often-ignored Muse. (Damnit, Bradbury!) Stories, stories, stories fill my brain, the temptations of knowledge and new things are constantly enticing me, trying to pull me away from these people I talk to. But life is so overwhelming, so intense sometimes, I get afraid of it and choose to be sedated over jumping in with feet first. When you get right down to it, I'm *afraid* to be passionate any more, because I fear what people will think.
I'm already flaky enough. :) I have an addictive personality, I obsess and worry about seemingly inconsequential things, I am hypnotized by objects of ordinary beauty, I cry at small things that don't seem to matter but *really do*. I already worry that friends don't know what to make of me; Sylvan, Seph, Duncan, Dustin and Eliahn are people I really want to be understood by, that I desperately want to open up to, but I'm severely afraid of rejection.
I do believe that's why I have so much empathy for Berios/Miller. He goes through that same struggle, of having feelings that are nearly impossible to articulate, hard for anyone else to understand unless they've had them, and he's literally questing for someone to have that spark, that connection, that understanding. He's *passionate* about that, his need to express this, and it's so frustrating because he's always lead to a series of dead-ends. I wish I could go on about how much I feel I understand, but there are a lot of times it feels like he's speaking Greek, and I'm speaking German, and we're both not near fluent enough to find the words for what we mean. So the end result, as is the case with so many other people, is confusion, hurt and silence.
It's gotten to the point where I no longer think with my head. Navigating thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs is a veritable mine-field, and there's just no good way to express my ideas. I don't feel I can show people a "work in progress" because more often than not folks are very critical of things that I don't even understand yet, if not apathetic. When you pull out your guts, try to string them into a form that's recognizable, and people spit on you for it, well...you learn not to show your guts. :) It's easier to sit at my computer and be aroused than it is to try and untangle myself so I can let these stories out.
Now I'm faced with a choice. Up until now I've felt like I had been progressing, that I had chosen not to stagnate last time I came to these crossroads. Now, though, I feel like I'm in purgatory, and I'm missing my chance to live, to taste heaven and hell all at once. I'm petrified of being lonely, I'm worried about severing the meager connections that I have made, but in the end that's what needs to happen. In order to go forward, I have to do it alone. There's no need to break all of my ties, and I *won't* do that, but there are a lot of things about the current situation that will simply need to change.
This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the changes looming on the horizon. The decision is here, and I need to make it, and it won't be easy. I don't know how I'm going to do it, and no matter what it will probably hurt in some way, but I have to break myself free of these attachments, and this rut. I have to move forward. I have to breathe.
And since I'm doing this at work, I should probably get back to it.
So this week has found me increasingly frustrated with myself, for reasons that are entirely of my own doing. I could go into detail about them, but the last thing LiveJournal needs is more angst, and I'd rather get into the philosophical/spiritual ramifications of the situation, anyway.
But first...I took a shower, washed my hair, and ended up with water in my ear. It's really annoying because it makes my voice sound funny when I speak, and it makes chewing really *loud*. Has this every happened to anyone?
A day late (of course!), happy birthday to Duncan Roo! Can you believe I've spent a month desperately trying to find a neat present, but nothing I could think of sounded good? Blah, so you'll have to settle for a belated congratulations for surviving another trip around the sun, and a promise of an ass-whoopin' at cribbage sometime in the near future. :) Hope your birthday was a good one, roo.
I've been locked into a certain pattern of behaviors that I've come to recognize as undesirable. Change them, right? But it's not that easy. I don't know why it isn't, but it isn't.
There are lots of times where I feel stuck between this mental strata. I'm smart enough to know that I want something more than what most people are content with, but I'm too lazy to really go after it. There are a few pieces of the puzzle missing that keep me from really pursuing my goal, and while I've always been vaguely aware of their absence, I've really begun to *miss* them.
Passion, I think, is at the very top of the list. I love writing, I love reading, I love books. When I think about life without writing...scratch that, I can't. :) It's so ingrained in me to create, to tell stories, that I really don't know what else I would do if that option were suddenly unavailable to me. I'm not suited for anything else *but* writing, and I'm perfectly happy with that, in fact I'm excited about the prospect of one day creating stories that inspire people, of passing on a spark that came out of me to light someone else's fire. It gets me giddy. I can't *wait*.
But I still don't write.
There are so many other things to do when I get home from work. People have problems in their lives that they need someone to talk about, and I'm a relatively friendly ear. There are people on-line that I want to see and talk to, that I want to play with, that I want to have all these wondrous and deep conversations with, but usually I'm too distracted and/or shy to really get into it with them. There are movies to watch, languages to learn, food to eat, amusing tests to take, pipes to smoke, wine to drink, walks to take, essays and journal entries to peruse, desks to straighten, rooms to re-organize, decisions to be made and things to clean. Not to mention that there are so *many* stories in my head it's very hard to pick one out of the crowd, grab it by the shoulders and suck its essence from its bones, only to spit it back out onto a computer screen. (Sorry, Bradbury again.) I end up being so overwhelmed by the decision that I don't do anything, or I try to do too much, and all of the eggs I juggle come crashing down on top of me. I end up going to bed frustrated, so much so that I need to make myself relax (fill in the blanks here, you pervs :)) two or three times before I can finally go to bed. And this has been my night for the past few weeks.
I haven't been particularly interesting or forthright with people on-line because I'm not really focused on conversations there. I'm always half-steeped in the things I feel I should be doing, and I'm very distracted by the weeping of an often-ignored Muse. (Damnit, Bradbury!) Stories, stories, stories fill my brain, the temptations of knowledge and new things are constantly enticing me, trying to pull me away from these people I talk to. But life is so overwhelming, so intense sometimes, I get afraid of it and choose to be sedated over jumping in with feet first. When you get right down to it, I'm *afraid* to be passionate any more, because I fear what people will think.
I'm already flaky enough. :) I have an addictive personality, I obsess and worry about seemingly inconsequential things, I am hypnotized by objects of ordinary beauty, I cry at small things that don't seem to matter but *really do*. I already worry that friends don't know what to make of me; Sylvan, Seph, Duncan, Dustin and Eliahn are people I really want to be understood by, that I desperately want to open up to, but I'm severely afraid of rejection.
I do believe that's why I have so much empathy for Berios/Miller. He goes through that same struggle, of having feelings that are nearly impossible to articulate, hard for anyone else to understand unless they've had them, and he's literally questing for someone to have that spark, that connection, that understanding. He's *passionate* about that, his need to express this, and it's so frustrating because he's always lead to a series of dead-ends. I wish I could go on about how much I feel I understand, but there are a lot of times it feels like he's speaking Greek, and I'm speaking German, and we're both not near fluent enough to find the words for what we mean. So the end result, as is the case with so many other people, is confusion, hurt and silence.
It's gotten to the point where I no longer think with my head. Navigating thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs is a veritable mine-field, and there's just no good way to express my ideas. I don't feel I can show people a "work in progress" because more often than not folks are very critical of things that I don't even understand yet, if not apathetic. When you pull out your guts, try to string them into a form that's recognizable, and people spit on you for it, well...you learn not to show your guts. :) It's easier to sit at my computer and be aroused than it is to try and untangle myself so I can let these stories out.
Now I'm faced with a choice. Up until now I've felt like I had been progressing, that I had chosen not to stagnate last time I came to these crossroads. Now, though, I feel like I'm in purgatory, and I'm missing my chance to live, to taste heaven and hell all at once. I'm petrified of being lonely, I'm worried about severing the meager connections that I have made, but in the end that's what needs to happen. In order to go forward, I have to do it alone. There's no need to break all of my ties, and I *won't* do that, but there are a lot of things about the current situation that will simply need to change.
This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the changes looming on the horizon. The decision is here, and I need to make it, and it won't be easy. I don't know how I'm going to do it, and no matter what it will probably hurt in some way, but I have to break myself free of these attachments, and this rut. I have to move forward. I have to breathe.
And since I'm doing this at work, I should probably get back to it.
