Doing, not thinking

My life has seriously gotten off track in the past four or five months, and I've come to realize that a large chunk of that is because I spend a lot of time thinking, and not enough time doing. I think about my situation (financial, emotional, relationship). I think about where I got off track. I think about why I got off track. I think about what I should be doing. I think about why I'm not doing what I should be doing (yes, I see the irony in this post). I think about making plans to do what I should be doing. But I actually do very little.

The more things change

It's been... uh... 989 days since I had a cigarette, or even a puff of one.

I want one now. A therapist I used to have would say that I have a bad case of the fuckitalls. You know - those days where you just want to wear all black, listen to loud angry rock, and push old ladies into traffic. Well, maybe not that last part.

You just want to give the finger to society. If you have a bad habit, you indulge in it for its momentary relief. If you had a bad habit, you'll be tempted to pick it up again. If you never had any bad habits, well, you probably aren't going to be inflicted with this syndrome anyway.

I have journals dating back to age 12. I had the fuckitalls nearly constantly, to varying degrees, from ages 12-27. That's a long fucking time and I'm lucky I didn't do any permanent damage. Honestly, I think the only thing that saved me was that none of my friends did drugs, and I wasn't streetsmart enough to go search them out.

I was single the vast majority of that time, and it's easier to deal with it then, because there's no one around to take it personally or reflect your anger back on you (of course, there's also no one to catch you when you fall). I have great difficulty showing this side of myself, because I don't want people to worry. I've made it through far, far worse, and my moodiness is not their burden.

Yet, I am the kind who wears her heart on her sleeve, so when I'm not happy, everyone knows it. What people want is some sort of explanation I can't give. The fuckitalls, by definition, are completely irrational. I can't draw a diagram and show how A progressed to B which caused C. It doesn't really matter how I got to C. It's all damage control now. It's all about seeking shelter from the storm. You can't stop the rain. You can stop standing in the middle of the street.

I like this apartment. Thick walls suitable for blasting music, and no one below us to complain.

meh.

I thought the showering and the clean clothes and the caffeine would make me feel more motivated, but actually, getting out of the house made me feel worse, because it's sunny and nice, but I have to sit in front of a computer.

I've been full of anxiety lately, and it's not hard to see why. We're moving, I'm (supposed to be) job hunting, we're (supposed to be) house hunting, and I've got people breathing down my neck about projects I'd said I'd complete once I was out of school. The default for me and most people I know is temporary paralysis. We just shut down and mope around the house in our bathrobes until someone pokes us hard enough with a sharp stick that we're once more motivated to move.

I've come to the conclusion that humans are, at base, profoundly irrational creatures desperately searching for any bit of rationality they can find - but then furiously destroying it once they've found it. Perhaps it's time to embrace our irrationality and face the fact that rational thought is forever going to be that piece of driftwood just out of reach while we flail in the currents of our own thoughts.

I didn't mean to be this deep today. This was going to be a post about how I'm so over LOLcats, and how I've completely failed to grasp the point of Twitter. Then there was going to be something about the coolness of (some) HDR work on Flickr (and the banality of others). But, ya know, you really can't predict.

My designated Web Hour is coming to a close, so it's time to get back on the horse and ride it off into the SQL sunset.