i am writing this as a reminder to myself that i can do things even if they are hard. writers block has gripped my throat and my fingers for many many months now that i’ve begun to f orget what it feels like to write. nothing that comes out is good — nothing is worth talking about. everything i’m saying has been said before. ad nauseum.

how do i make the time for the things i truly love when so much of my time is occupied with things i do not care for? this is something we use with patients in MBCT — its a pleasant vs unpleasant events calendar. we have people write out their daily schedule and record which events were pleasant and which events were unpleasant. the extent of the psychic damage we inflict on ourselves becomes much more apparent when you really breakdown how many events in your day are unpleasant vs how many are pleasant. i haven’t done this for myself — im frightened by it. i’m frightened by so many things these days.

i want to spread my arms out so wide i could envelop the earth. then i want to run those arms along the soil and oceans, flattening the whole thing out. i want to start everything over again from scratch — no plants or animals left from before. and i want to watch it all happen, sticking my finger in and moving some pieces around when i want to have some fun. but mostly i just want to watch. i want to control this world. i want to control everything. if i cant control it, then it is my enemy. and if it is my enemy, then it frightens me.

i haven’t meditated in ages. meditation is the ultimate form of control. so much of our time is lost to factors beyond our initiative. in meditation we are alone with ourselves. our thoughts are the currency and we are the merchant. all we must do is guide ourselves in the direction we want to go. if we do not allocate this time to sit and think and control — we lose ourselves. i am losing myself. i am losing everything sometimes.

i used to be able to predict when i was about to go insane. i used to feel the cold air cut into me as i stood over the canyon edge. i may have been physically blind to it — yet i could sniff it out somehow. now i’m not so sure. the feeling in the pit of my stomach has expanded, mellowed, and evolved until it became my stomach. my organs have been eaten by the blackest thickest sludge imaginable, and coated in it until i’ve lost all feeling. you could rip me open with your bare hands and i wouldn’t feel a thing. i’d stare at you blankly wondering why you did such a thing. why would you try to hurt me?

i have no breakthroughs to report. no battles won. hardly any fought. at this stage it feels so much better to lie down and sit with things. which isn’t so bad, perhaps its a step above aversion. but it is not the life i want. the life i deserve. everyday i’m bombarded with things i’m doing wrong, and ways i can improve. but improvement is hard — so so hard. i used to scoff at the notion of us being human “beings” not “doings”. i still believe doing is what makes us human. we have fundamental creative capacities that must be exercised to be whole. it is what separates us. when we give ourselves over to the machine, and disengage from this life for quiet comforts, we are not creating at all. it is the ultimate state of dehumanization. we lose ourselves.

i have lost many things. there are so many things i wish i could have back. at the same time, there is little to nothing stopping me from creating those things again — in new places, new peoples, new times. i wish i was as self assured as when i was young. in many ways i’m still young. but i don’t feel it anymore. i just don’t feel it anymore.