Insane, In Sane

Most of the time, I can maintain a relatively positive outlook.

There are some bits of logic (pleasant and not) that keep me from going off the deep end. They are as follows.

1. Be Realistic About Humanity

My ideas about how the world should be are the result of limited experiences of an underdeveloped and undereducated mind. As a child, you are told of magic and kept coddled and covered until the emerging truth of the world finally defeats any simple, pretty conceptions you maintained. Nothing is simple. Everything is multidimensional.

2. Everything is Flawed

Expect the world and the individuals in it to be as flawed as you, give or take a few degrees. Everything is imperfect, and in that way, exactly is it should be.

3. Sometimes Beautiful Things Happen

Beauty is considered subjective. It is also often a side effect of different in a pool of same. It is good in a sea of bad. It is preciousness. It is stars in the dark.

Resilience. Brightness. Discovery.

Follow the force that lead you away from Santa. Bask in the horror and the euphoria. Feel. One day, you won’t be able to feel anymore.

Perpetual Dread

What a lovely name (PerPEtual DREdd)

It sounds vaguely like a Rowling ghoul

A Blisstered Fester living on a bed of perennially dying petunias

A Fungal Flora

A Noxious Anx

A Swett

An Undying Death

A Panic’d Polterguise omitting the inevitability of Sweet Sleep

Intonation Incubation

Cooking in central air, I view the outsides through the slats in the window and the cracks in the door. The openings are often shut. I relax my abdomen, slack-jawed in bed, and write in white-noisy pencil. Whispering aloud, I judge the soundness of my Voice and pentameter.

Is this sentence short enough?

Will it leave this room?

Skill Seeking

You need skills.

Well, you don’t NEED skills but you should want them. Having more skills under your belt will allow for more opportunities and will help cultivate a more exploratory, dynamic life. Skill learning, while often about job security, is also a means to an artistic end. Having multiple technical proficiencies will unearth new platforms on which to create. I have been learning Photoshop in an attempt to broaden my technical and artistic capabilities.

This is a picture of my latest Photoshop tutorial attempt:

 

…Give yourself a chance to express in a new way. There is art in every impassioned endeavor.

P.S. Here’s a link to the PS (hehe) tutorial: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/stitched-text-effect/?search_index=4

(Do Do-Do Do-Do) Inspector Purpose

As I’ve grown, I have become increasingly unsettled in the depths of my mind.  A throbbing void has materialized in me and I have decided that finding purpose ought to be my constant goal.

This is a description of what purpose-searching feels like to me:

• Purpose is what happens when the frustration of worldly inequality, injustice, abuse, crime, discomfort and general mediocrity becomes too painful to bear as long as you are living.

• Purpose is what you get when you start accurately estimating your worth, capabilities and power…your inspirations and your weaknesses. It is an odd mixture of what you love most in this world and what you wish to see changed in it.

• Purpose is the coagulation of frustrating restraints, problematic circumstances and a personalized, partial solution that only you may enact.

I’ve decided that I, myself, am a top-notch, multifunctional gadget. I intend to use myself!

This video is only slightly off topic but the gadget analogy took me straight to it.

 

 

To those of you already entrenched in your most dire purposes, I admire you. To those of you not, keep looking.

-feasypeasy

The Road to Self-Discipline

A big part of self-discipline is acknowledging the aches and pains that keep you from DOing. These include:

The Pain of Getting Up (Laziness)

When you exercise muscles, they hurt. I believe the proverbial phrase of encouragement is “Feel the Burn.” The discomfort that accompanies any strenuous physical or mental activity burns because your muscles rip and rebuild. Your brain gets tired and your ability to focus deteriorates temporarily. You are growing. You are, literally, forcing yourself to grow…like a plant. This is an amazing ability.

The Pain of Judgement

Remember that time Uncle Joe left his glass of red wine sitting on a rug in a room full of hyper children?

No? What about that girl who got trashed at the party and decided to drive to Canada via the sidewalk?

If you don’t remember these events, it’s because I made them up. The point is that those kinds of people exist. In fact, all people have a little of that person in them. People are not perfect. These include your blog readers/people watching you at the gym/the veteran dancers on the dance team you’ve been meaning to join. Remember this the next time you get scared of what others think about you.

The Ache of Existential Uselessness

If you are the kind of person who sees life as pointless because we will all die, then fine, be that way.*

The Pain of Success

I envision two possible “aches” related to success…

• Achieving success often requires increased workload and focus. Keep in mind the Work is Life principle. Check out my earlier post, Laziness Itself Is Actually Quite Active , for a bit more about that.

• As success grows, you’ll be scrutinized more often. If this is your particular gripe with productivity, please view the above “Fear of Judgement” portion of this post.

The Ache of Insecurity

I do believe much of this devilish work bubbles up from subconscious pools of thought. As Psychology Today has made clear, one cannot consciously access the subconscious and cannot, therefore, do any maintenance there. I will say though, that much of ones confidence derives from how closely they adhere to their personal success gauge. If you move towards your life vision everyday, no matter what the roadblocks, you will inevitably have reason to be confident.

I would imagine that there are plenty more hindrances to being productive and disciplined.  Any of you out there encounter some other monstrous roadblock to your success? Leave a comment!

…with love,

feasypeasy

*Please Note: Doing gives you something to do while you die. Might as well make whatever you choose to do rewarding, progressive and fun. If you play video games, this should make sense to you.

Emotionletting

 

I have a tendency to suppress my emotions. I rarely cry in the face of tear-inducing phenomena. I never get angry enough to to do something horrible or frustrated enough to stand up for a cause. I attribute my seemingly still emotional life to my unending compassion and critical thinking skills but something tells me anxiety has a hand in all this.

 

As a kid, specifically a third grader in Brooklyn, I remember crying almost everyday at the hands of a Mrs. Burnett. Mrs. Burnett, while often Teacher’s Pet-ing me with White Castle “meals” and school play roles, was a cold, cold woman. I mean, that’s how I’m remembering her. I can’t generate a memory in which she is smiling genuinely at me. Once, she told me to spell out B E C A U S E in my notebook…

 

b e c a s

 

b a c u z e

 

b a c a u s

 

When I couldn’t spell it correctly, she sent me back to my seat repeatedly, in front of other students, until I got it right. I actually remember never getting it right and having to ask a classmate.I think I cried all day that day.

 

 

 

I don’t mean to be self-pitying. I was told I was “overly sensitive.” I hate that phrase…”over sensitive.” How can a child be over however sensitive they’re biology and psychological development have made them? Anyway, I was indeed an emotional kid. That’s what makes this suppression thing ironic and a little sad. I even studied theater in college. I think I’m a good actress. This is also ironic.

 

It’s possible that these minor traumas of mine are responsible for my current reluctance to feel. I was advised back then to toughen up and I have. The stage was where I released and the world had no problem with me standing behind the curtain as long as there wasn’t a show going on. However, the suppression, the damning of perfectly reasonable and sometimes tumultuous emotion puts heavy strain on my heart and sanity. I can feel it building up in my chest and I decided that I REALLY didn’t care for that feeling.

 

 

 

Fast forward to last week. I was feeling particularly anxious, as I often do, and I looked up some articles on at home remedies for quelling anxiety.  I came across a great (probably stock) article of which I can’t remember the name. The author advised it’s readers to, rather than fighting back emotions, allow them to come. I, the anxious person, ought to acknowledge and accept painful emotions, that they may pass through me.

 

So I tried it. Instead of telling my feeling to go away, I told it to come closer. 

 

When it came closer and I felt it fully, I realized my idea of the feeling was much worse than how it actually felt. It came and it went. When it didn’t destroy me, I could accept it as an extension of my Self. I became a prouder, more relaxed version of me.

 

Give it a shot.

 

-Khadeja