Free Writing, Journal Style
Free writing, like a journal entry. Don't worry about who the character is. Just write, and figure it out later. Don't worry if it's crappy, or self indulgent. Sometimes it's more important to write, than to write well.
Each day starts the same. I wake up and decide what in my life I'm going to avoid. Some days I accomplish something that I wanted to, but it's only because I was able to choose between two valuable options. It's as if you could choose a dessert in a nice restaurant, and the only two choices were cheese cake and chocolate cake, which just happen to be your favorites.
But cheese cake is your higher favorite, by two to one. Yet you choose chocolate cake.
I've let the important things linger, like a cold I should have seen the doctor for, and then it becomes bronchitis. It's funny, to me, when I read about very successful or happy people. They aren't always both successful and happy, but they almost always say the same thing. That they knew what was important to them, and they focused on that. Usually it's some hackneyed expression like "I followed my dream." But that's just because they aren't poets. It's still true that what was most important to them, what they felt most strongly about, motivated them to keep doing it.
In the morning, I decide what I love the most, and I don't do that thing.
The rest of the day is spent avoiding that thing, plus avoiding myself. I do this by promising myself that I'll still do the thing I know that I won't. For instance, if I'm going to work out, if that's what I planned to do the night before, and I know that it would be the biggest highlight of my day--even if that's a pathetic way to value life--I'll say "Well, I need to shower. I'll work out in a few hours." Then, "After lunch, around 2 o'clock." Then, "Early evening." Then, it's too late.
"Tomorrow."
There's a song, in the musical
Purlie,
First thing Monday mornin' I'll get up
and get me straight
So my day is in three parts. The morning, where I'm full of hope and failed plans. The rest of the day, where I'm wondering how long I have to live before it's impossible to achieve anything. And, bed time.
Here's another old reference. There was a mediocre television movie in the seventies,
Dr. Strange, based on the comic of the same name. It was updated, but pretty schlocky. There was a woman who shows up at the mental hospital where Stephen Strange works, and she doesn't want to go to sleep. She's afraid that if she goes to sleep, she'll die.
There are people who think dying in one's sleep would be the best way to go. I can't abide that. How awful, for one's existence to end and to not experience that moment of death. The fear, or acquiescence, or shock, or relief. Before going to sleep, I have to distract myself so that I won't think about not waking up. I sometimes lie awake for hours. It's not insomnia, not as I understand it. It's me thinking about how big the universe is, and how I won't get to see how things turn out. My life is a built-in
Kubla Khan.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
We read stories, watch movies, listen to music because . . . well, the real reasons I won't discuss. But, the secondary reason is to reach the end. We want to know what happens. The success of the cliff hanger is in a tale well ended.
Do other animals have ambition? Do they know what they might accomplish? Do they fool themselves, like so many humans do?
Do we, really, have ambition? Or is it just a more complex version of hunting for food and sex? We swirl paint on a canvas and call it art. We let an elephant swirl paint on a canvas, and still call it art. But, the elephant doesn't call it art. But maybe, just maybe, it calls shelling a peanut with its trunk, art.
Most people, me included, think most of the time that our heads are really our faces. By this, I mean that we aren't aware of the backs of our heads very often. Our whole head starts an inch from our face, just like our whole world is what's in front of our eyes. It's worse than that. Our worlds are what we think about. What Dr. Martin E. P. Selligman calls "the jingle channel", which is also what Eastern meditation seeks to still. Not "stop thinking". That would be suicide. But rather, don't be consumed by one's constant, jabbering thoughts. Instead, pay attention to the other senses. Some people have to turn down their car's music if traffic becomes more dangerous. It's the same thing. Most people don't turn down their own thoughts. At least, I don't think they do. But what do I know? Maybe I'm the only person afflicted with this problem.
Doubtful. That would make me special. And, it would fly in the face of several thousand years of evidence.
Blah, blah, blah. This is getting me nowhere. Of course, that may be where I wanted to end up. Putting off sleep. I chose between sleep (and the chance of death), and writing. Tonight, writing won for a while.