Something seems very off. Is it the result of incorrect expectations, or faulty assumptions, about the way it “should” vs the way it actually turned out to be?
Or a neurological reaction, a depression, impacting attitude and mood and high jacking perception to be less than desirable?
It’s difficult to distinguish where the outside ends and the inside begins; where the cultural and environmental influence end, and personal responsibility begins. How do you separate the two?
What’s preventing me from doing things that will bring me closer to the way I want things to be?
Is it fear? Of rejection? Or failure? Of not being good enough? Of being criticized? Of not being accepted? Of not being witty or clever or wise enough? Of failing to live up to the idea of who you think you should be? Or who others think you are?
I wonder if this is the source of all avoidance
Since January I personally stopped all drug use (I did lsd once). I stopped working out. Stopped eating. Stopped a lot of social media. Stopped our chat for awhile. Stopped smoking. Stopped drinking. Stopped all distractions. I worked. Not even more than I had to. And I came home. In an effort to create that space you’re speaking of. I did not see my gf much. She was gone for eight weeks over the summer anyway, but when she was around, I really asked for space. A lot of it.
Completely sober.
Freedom.
And I had it.
My job doesn’t involve any management. It’s just me managing my goals. No distractions. I go to work when I want and schedule meetings around my life.
And I was hoping my mind or spirit would come alive. Would stir. Would wake. Would began to vibrate and move, and inspiration would flow, and creative energies would release themselves onto this world, and I would begin to feel actualized, and even authentic.
Instead, nothing happened.
No high highs. No low lows.
I would sleep.
I would go on walks.
I would try to create opportunities to suspend whatever pressure I could possibly perceive as preventing me from producing.
Nothing
I read books.
Lots of books.
Seeking for inspiration.
Just enough to synergize my spirit, seeking for something to nudge me here or there, and catapult me to this state of creative enterprise.
Nothing.
I don’t know what that means, but I am trying a new experiment, with adderall again. But I know how this experiment ends.
I genuinely feel there is a larger force at work, an unspoken collective cultural structure impressing its values onto everything seen and spoken, infiltrating our thoughts and perceptions.
Of course, it’s highly likely that I am exceedingly average, and these lofty visions of my idealized incarnation are nothing but self gratifying delusions.
I wonder about the role of patience, or acceptance. Accepting the plot we’ve been given to toil away, and not spend time seeking other plots to cultivate over and over again.
Dopamine is god.
Is there another god?
I’m fond of walks, more and more by the day
How many other people feel this way?
Theres an insanity to it, this wheel of life.
Detached, disconnected, frantically wanting to connect, yet simultaneously isolating.
Instead of being a consumer, be a producer. There is something to this. We get what we give. Ironically, we usually give in order to get, and it perverts the whole feedback.
I try to capture the idea that my dreams, these fanciful imaginings, are fleeting, and I can never grab hold of them, never tie them together, hold them down, plant them to paper. In time, the motivation stalls, the spell breaks
What’s worth it?
Is it the what? Or the why?
There is something weird about accepting work for reward
Dopamine
Discipline
Habits
Repetition.
I feel like writing in general presents that challenge. Producing something moving requires some risk. Perhaps bolder lines and deeper curves, crazier color combinations. It’s a hard balance not self censoring. The right and left brain collide
When does the plot change? When does the protagonist escape? Will you let me know what you learn about this narrative? Of life?
There is a theme that I’d like to explore more: cutting off all social media. For years. No twitter. No Facebook. No instagram. No reddit. No hacker news. No podcasts. No articles. Delete it.
What do you think of this?
There is a theme of focusing for fulfillment. Deep work. Deep focus.
I can’t help but wonder what actual benefit these platforms provide, and what detriment they deliver. There was a time when these simply did not exist. When feeds of news and new information didn’t pulse at the periphery every moment. Beeps and notifications and buzzed and red circles alerting.
It’s crucial to just step away, and watch it. Do you ever observe social media? Watch it unfold and play out like an alien observer? Study its methods. How it works, how it infiltrates and incites. How it possesses people. The embedded functions
The platforms, the information, their architecture. I pause and catch myself becoming a participant, not even by choice.
The herd. The indoctrination. The repetitive signs and symbols and catch lines. Wearing down the filter. Working it’s way past the defenses of better judgement. Participation is rationalized because… free time? Is there such a thing?
Perhaps the most insidious and damaging lies
Free time, to spend our lives, consuming.
Consuming what? How are we qualifying this endless barrage of noise?
Does anyone have a choice in the matter? Aren’t we all just passive casualties of whatever pulsating agenda is permeating the network?
The most egregious deception is the illusion of freedom. The internet makes us more free? Isn’t this the greatest threat?
This is one of the entries that gets the most hits. I re read it and wonder how or why people find it, but it at least makes me think about this topic:
Liberalism is the transformation of mankind into cattle.
-Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878). I.67
The point is that liberalism is a threat to our actual freedom and autonomy. Namely, the beliefs that we are free and equal and autonomous, makes us unfree, unequal, and slavish.
What would happen if it all stopped? If we resisted? If we ceased participating? In the articles, in the likes, in the outrage, in the reactions? And began focusing on what we can do, what actions we can perform, and not living in a constant reactionary state.
I wonder if we are experiencing as a culture a “great lie”. An epoch of epic proportions.
There is a chronic compulsion to click. These habits. This phone is a ball and chain. A pacifier of poison. Robbing time and freedom, the very things it’s suppose to sell to us.
Where does the malady come from? Has it always existed in some form or another, and as a spiritual malaise otherwise called secularism, where the self is our messiah?
William Dare 