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By the way, I'm feeling fine
Mar. 4th, 2003 12:37 amI hadn't updated in a while because I had a round of paranoia. When i get like that, I don't want to write (even though it's the easiest therapy I have).
I don't like to admit that, on the brink of my 28th birthday, I still get irrational bouts of semi-crippling paranoia. The clearest manifestation of this was when I was 14 and I dropped out of band class due to stress. I would do fine in school, then go home and take long naps to avoid listening to my mind self-deprecate. I think a lot of this related to puberty and a rush of hormones that had no idea where to go.
Knowing is half the battle; the other half is killing stuff. Never forget that latter half.
I knew my paranoid thinking was delusional, that it was separate from rational thought, and that it was detrimental. I also had no idea how to shut it off because it seemed to come from a smarter part of my bicameral mind. So I listened to a lot more Dead Kennedys... which kinda made it worse. Having Jello Biafra whisper in your ear "we're sorry, but you're no longer wanted, or needed, or even cared about here" is not the key to feeling better.
Then I realized my paranoia was my mind needing a companion. Paranoia was a shadow, a pseudo-entity, and it needed to fall down a manhole. So I started bothering more people and letting my brain spew. While this led to later side-effects (such as a woman in I met my freshman year of college telling me "you have to go away now because you've filled my brain"), it also led to release. I also started listening to different bands and finding sillier stuff.
Some people don't understand Dada nor the surrealist ethos. I sit well within it because it provides me conflicting concepts as places to hide. A thing is merely its representation, and of course it can't be that so it's something else, so now that thing is free to do things more like itself. The snake tugs on its tail so hard that it sheds its skin.
Some people think I'm merely full of copious bullshit. Actually, I blame poverty-centric self-psychoanalysis.
Oh, so why I got paranoid most recently: I had a crappy week or two at work, and it got to me. I started thinking "war is coming, sales have slowed, maybe we're all gong to get sacked and I'm going to be living out of a box and then we'll all lose our civil rights and the recession is turning into a depression and..."
...and I'm really glad my old roommate Vitas showed me The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. That cleared my head right up. Evil is bad because it enslaves, it creates nothing beautiful, and because it terminates even itself. Good encourages things to mutate and multiply without end. Simple, simple thoughts. Ale comes in pints.
Sidebar: another benefit of the metric system is that a half-liter is a pint with an extra ounce. It's the baker's dozen of base-ten!
So I feel much better. I had a decent day on the sales floor. I worked hard. I still kept it a lot cooler than I had. The world did not end.
Paranoia is a deep part of my psyche. The fear of rejection leads me to over-perform, which burns out others and then burns me out. So I curl up, only to lash out into another performance. I have tried to end the cycle, but the best I've done is lessen the intensity and length of the cycles. That's a start.
I turn 28 on the 19th. I will be twice as old as that neurotic teenager I once was. I am so glad that I am older: my hair may thin, but my hormones no longer own me as much.
I thought about having an lj-cut somewhere around the third paragraph but I wanted people to read this. If anyone felt any connection with (or even abject horror about) what I wrote, please comment. I thank you for reading this.
By the way, I turned my old P2 400MHz CPU and 100 MHZ mobo into Scroungie 3000, the computer that just barely meets modern cable modem specs but does it with aplomb! I scavenged a beauty, and its new owner is very happy. The montagnard army is down to three members, but I feel better giving away a working machine that I do about keeping stuff I don't plan to use. Value comes from utility -- you have to play a Stradivaris to keep it sounding good.
-more like a Squire Stratocaster but what the hey, Dante
I don't like to admit that, on the brink of my 28th birthday, I still get irrational bouts of semi-crippling paranoia. The clearest manifestation of this was when I was 14 and I dropped out of band class due to stress. I would do fine in school, then go home and take long naps to avoid listening to my mind self-deprecate. I think a lot of this related to puberty and a rush of hormones that had no idea where to go.
Knowing is half the battle; the other half is killing stuff. Never forget that latter half.
I knew my paranoid thinking was delusional, that it was separate from rational thought, and that it was detrimental. I also had no idea how to shut it off because it seemed to come from a smarter part of my bicameral mind. So I listened to a lot more Dead Kennedys... which kinda made it worse. Having Jello Biafra whisper in your ear "we're sorry, but you're no longer wanted, or needed, or even cared about here" is not the key to feeling better.
Then I realized my paranoia was my mind needing a companion. Paranoia was a shadow, a pseudo-entity, and it needed to fall down a manhole. So I started bothering more people and letting my brain spew. While this led to later side-effects (such as a woman in I met my freshman year of college telling me "you have to go away now because you've filled my brain"), it also led to release. I also started listening to different bands and finding sillier stuff.
Some people don't understand Dada nor the surrealist ethos. I sit well within it because it provides me conflicting concepts as places to hide. A thing is merely its representation, and of course it can't be that so it's something else, so now that thing is free to do things more like itself. The snake tugs on its tail so hard that it sheds its skin.
Some people think I'm merely full of copious bullshit. Actually, I blame poverty-centric self-psychoanalysis.
Oh, so why I got paranoid most recently: I had a crappy week or two at work, and it got to me. I started thinking "war is coming, sales have slowed, maybe we're all gong to get sacked and I'm going to be living out of a box and then we'll all lose our civil rights and the recession is turning into a depression and..."
...and I'm really glad my old roommate Vitas showed me The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. That cleared my head right up. Evil is bad because it enslaves, it creates nothing beautiful, and because it terminates even itself. Good encourages things to mutate and multiply without end. Simple, simple thoughts. Ale comes in pints.
Sidebar: another benefit of the metric system is that a half-liter is a pint with an extra ounce. It's the baker's dozen of base-ten!
So I feel much better. I had a decent day on the sales floor. I worked hard. I still kept it a lot cooler than I had. The world did not end.
Paranoia is a deep part of my psyche. The fear of rejection leads me to over-perform, which burns out others and then burns me out. So I curl up, only to lash out into another performance. I have tried to end the cycle, but the best I've done is lessen the intensity and length of the cycles. That's a start.
I turn 28 on the 19th. I will be twice as old as that neurotic teenager I once was. I am so glad that I am older: my hair may thin, but my hormones no longer own me as much.
I thought about having an lj-cut somewhere around the third paragraph but I wanted people to read this. If anyone felt any connection with (or even abject horror about) what I wrote, please comment. I thank you for reading this.
By the way, I turned my old P2 400MHz CPU and 100 MHZ mobo into Scroungie 3000, the computer that just barely meets modern cable modem specs but does it with aplomb! I scavenged a beauty, and its new owner is very happy. The montagnard army is down to three members, but I feel better giving away a working machine that I do about keeping stuff I don't plan to use. Value comes from utility -- you have to play a Stradivaris to keep it sounding good.
-more like a Squire Stratocaster but what the hey, Dante
