A Different Cycle
I'm learning when situations, ideas, environments are positive or negative for me. Everything in the world around me divides up a little better and forms according to my specifications more and more each day. This is good.
I'm also trying to stick with the "don't fixate" idea I've come up with. See, when you fixate on one idea, you become lost in it. And it seems that there is no one thing that is worth completely fixating on, due to the life-cycle of a thought: it starts as a simple abstract concept, possibly formed as a result of other ideas. The amount of information it is composed of is proportional to the thought's tipping point-- the point at which all the information that makes up that thought are not enough to expand that thought anymore; at this point, your mind can only speculate. And although it may provide some sense of comfort, nothing positive or solid will come out of speculation.
So I know these things. And I wake up every morning and go for a drive and try to remember to let everything flow through me so that I don't fixate on a single idea, and consequently live in that moment, know that nothing dies, etc. etc. But some days those thoughts become a contradiction themselves because I think I have to fixate on them to make them work and then I do and then shit falls through, plainly.
I think it's happened today. But it doesn't feel counter-productive this time; I reached that truly elated stage which I haven't had in at least a week, and then I had to deal with people so I started to whole people-cycle again, though I feel like I fought it slightly more than usual. I'm out of cigarettes but haven't bought more, I went to a job interview and laughed as I headed out because the guy was the typical salesperson-- and he was the one interviewing me; and then I had some more pseudo-frustration with other people. And at this point everything started falling down; the walls I had built, once again crumbled.
But this time was different. I've found comfort in knowing that not everything I do will work at this point in time. I'm used to it, not holding onto any thought as invincible and stable. Maybe it's because if I changed as much as my mind formulates a new "me," nothing in my life could be stable-- friends would leave, etc. etc.
But that's bullshit-- I shouldn't be concerned.
Yeah, talk about a bad case of the negatives.
This is why I don’t like society
When it comes down to it, I have one basic complaint about society. We spend the rest of our lives that we aren't so easily manipulated by it dealing with what it has made us into. So instead of living (granted, it doesn't make that very easy anyways), we are stuck wondering why everything doesn't work out for us or how to make the best of some situation we're in or anything you, as a human being, occupy your thoughts with when it concerns yourself.
And it makes life into such a waste of existence because half the time, we're too focused on the bullshit of our environment that we can't focus on ourselves or actually taking advantage of our existence that has been so shortened by society. And if we can just be free from the environmental standards and expectations on an individual basis, we can truly live rather than simply exist.
That's what I really want.
Making Friends
It seems like I only wake up in a good mood when I’ve spent the night before with people I really enjoy. Other times it’s just a mediocre night, a mediocre day. But my mood this morning got me thinking about how it’s easiest to make friends when you don’t have them. When you have friends, you might gain a sort of lackadaisical attitude: you’re set, you have friends already so why would you need more? I’m not entirely like this, I like to go out and make new friends constantly. But even with this attitude of trying to make new friends as much as possible, there are some unavoidable facets that come with having friends.
It’s like this: if I go to dinner with friends as opposed to being by myself, no stranger is going to approach me and vice-versa. Therefore, no new friends on that occasion. If I’m walking down the sidewalk and see a friend, I may stop and talk with them—for longer if I’m alone than already with friends, more than likely.
There are some philosophical implications I’ve been just gaining knowledge of lately that have to do with this. Seneca, in arguing that life isn’t short if you know how to take advantage of it, basically said that we don’t live when our time is taken up by preoccupations; we simply exist. By preoccupations, he means people, money, trying to achieve a life of leisure, basically things that take away time from yourself and doing what you want to do. People are obviously a big perpetrator of this. Think about all the times you’ve spent waiting on someone to get ready or even “getting ready†when instead you could be out doing what you’re getting ready to do or anything else.
This all comes back to being your own person. Life really should be about living for yourself in my opinion, and just because that makes you a perceivably “selfish†person doesn’t mean it’s wrong; the day you become a douche bag about it is the day it becomes wrong. I think I’m going to take a break from my normal friends, as I have this weekend, and see where life takes me—do my own thing like always, just officially (as far as they’re concerned).
Reflections
I've realized that I need to take a little time out of my daily routine to reflect. I need to think something for myself again. The thing is that I get so caught up in my surroundings that it becomes hard for me to be myself unless I'm in an extremely comfortable and done-this-before environment. But I'm purposely putting myself in the opposite situations right now-- because I want to learn more. I want to leave my comfort zone and be vulnerable to gather as much new information as possible.
So I need to look at what's really going on in my head. It would be most effective to do this in the moment that I'm in that new situation, but that's not only hard, but impractical. If I spent those moments in my head, I'd miss what was going on around me-- consequently not gathering much from the situation at all. But if I can look back on it or even have the me mindset going on before I get to a certain moment that requires it (such as interacting with people-- the main time I need it), I can learn as much as possible from the situation without overlooking it.
There's a problem: I usually reflect in my last waking moments of the day-- the time between when I remember I have to get up for work in the morning and when I decide I'm actually ready to close my eyes and shut down my brain (I usually don't decide I want to do the latter right away if I'm not yet satisfied with my day). So I lay there thinking-- on bad days, about things I can't control (other people, where I live, etc.) and on relatively better days I think about things I've been wondering (having to do with myself) and I work through them and I have my revelations. The problem is that these self-realizations don't help when they occur at the end of the day (although for the first time it made me wake up in a good mood today). I need to be able to have them during my day so I can, in a sense, wake up from the sort-of drifting state I can fall into by simply being in an environment that affects me.
So I'm setting aside time every day to do this. Whether this is on my smoke-break at work or when I drive to a place out of my hometown to sit for a while, I think I'll finally be able to stay sane and afloat in an environment that seems to constantly try to drown me.
Getting Old? No way.
After working a 9-5 job this summer, between my first and second year of college, I've started to realize some things. When I was doing the same thing two summers ago I didn't worry about much because I had plenty of friends around and I could always go off and hang out with them, even easily take vacations. But now I find myself slowly slipping into old age. I get up in the morning, go to work, eat lunch, go back to work, come home and laze around.
But after this year of college the one thing I've realized is that I can do things I want to do while still balancing the things I need to. I don't want to grow up. Along with old age comes a lot of complacency, stubbornness, and overall pessimism. I mean we're usually happy when we're over the "hump" and half-way done with things—everything except life. So yeah, who wouldn't be upset? But this is why I don't stop at the end of the work day. In college, after I was done with class for the day I'd go hang out with friends and go party or eat or dance or something. Now, after work, I go hang out with friends or go see a movie or go to a concert like I did last night—even if it keeps me out till 12 (or 2 in my case). Some breakfast and a vitamin in the morning gets me going just fine, no matter how many times I hit the snooze button. And this is where the balance comes in. Because I could easily wake up five minutes before I had to leave for work and just run out the door (I'd want to sleep some more). On the other hand, I need to be able to stay productive (not to mention awake) and I want to be able to be relaxed and have some "me" time before I have to give my time to someone else. It just seems like many people lose track of doing the things they want.
My point here is that keeping these things we have in our youth seems to be the only consistent way to remain happy—at least for me. I know I'll never be able to simply roll over and accept my fate as someone whose life used to be great and one worth living but has become a waiting game for a magical retirement age or the soon-to-come man in a black cloak. But it took a lot to get to this point. Somehow I'm not afraid to die and I've truly accepted and internalized the fact that I'm going to at some point in my life. When you're that sure about something and only that something, I guess the only thing left to do is take advantage of and milk every bit of enjoyment out of the situation you're currently in.
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