I ran with the ideas last night, of dance and music and I can say I feel extremely sad. Something about how much I miss this part of me. I feel sad about the weight I’ve been carrying around for so long. I feel sad because sadness acknowledges the pain in the world without shying away from it.
I watched this video last night:
I remember in art there is no right or wrong way to go about something. Just like in life. I feel we forget that a lot.
For some reason, I feel the desire to write stories. Here is a space for some freewriting:
A shark was washed onto the shore. That was the day when I asked my next door neighbor Amy to marry me. We were both 12 at the time. Amy was a quiet sort of girl, not shy, just took a while to think about things before she talked. When she did, she didn’t say much.
She looked at me up and down as if she was trying to size me up.
“So what do you say Amy?”
I wonder if this is how the shark felt. He was already dead when he was on shore, but his eyes seemed to look at you as if to say…well? What’s up?
“I don’t know,” Amy finally responded. Her fingers figeting.
“You don’t know?”
“Yea.”
“That’s ok!” I said. I was 12 and I felt invincible…
I feel sad because of how much of this I repressed within my self.
In terms of work, I feel I’ve done the experiment and I can officially say to myself, working on too many things at the same time does not work towards my strengths. I think I need to focus on one focus every day. If I get to a second one, then that’s good. Also, I can have many low effort progress toward every goal, but it can’t be the main focus.
In doing one main thing, I might be able to go to bed much sooner which is something of great concern to me.
They say that even peanut butter turns to diamonds when you crush it hard enough
peanut butter
spread onto the sandwiches in a million homes
by the knives of moms in aprons every morning
turned rare and special
under the treads of an iron industrial tractor
the ones I found
took the shape of words of a girl
laughing, crying, and clinging on to me
like the warm reflection of faraway lands
in the morning dew
I let myself fall in
and it was like the sigh of the ocean
the freedom of running as hard as you can
before your lungs remember they need air
but then
it slipped away away
and trying to catch it
I wondered
if those diamonds fall back
to peanut butter
when the tractor moves on
This poem is about mourning the loss of who someone was and celebrating all the magic they brought to your life before learning to accept them for who they have become. It is my first iteration.
I just made a little discovery about the nature of “should” and regret. What should I do, what should I have done, what is the perfect next move. They are interesting ideas but they can sometimes limit our understanding of the truth.
It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, only how we feel about them now.
That is why everything is about processing feelings and even the permission exercise processes feelings about the future. Nothing matters but now.
It doesn’t even make sense to think about the future and the past because all we can control is the now.
Because nothing matters but the moment, we can process the past, we can process the future, and make our decision from where we are on how to feel the present. We can make decisions from the vantage point of now. We can do things now. We can feel now.
All that Matters is Now
I was scared of the past
Scared of what I might find
I was scared of the future
Scared of what I might do
But the place where I stand right now
With all the things that brought me to this moment
It was on my run that I decided, I needed to leave
Dread in my heart
Peace in my head
And I didn’t cry
I told her shortly after
Fear in my head
Anxiety in my stomach
And I didn’t cry
I saw the message she sent me
Pain in my soul
Shame on skin
And I didn’t cry
Tonight I told a council of kings
Of a girl I loved
Too young
Too far
Too virtual
I told them I knew it was still special
I told them that I knew she gave up
I told them that I knew I had let go
That I cannot fix or change someone
Just because I need them
I knew it was the right thing to do
And finally
I cried
Tonight was a transformative experience for me. I sobbed today like I haven’t in years. It’s as if the pain, the shame, and the fear were just holding everything back. When I let go, all I felt was sad. I felt relieved, at peace, but so sad I cried for a long time.
I’ve been seeking excitement in my life for some time now. The excitement of walking up to random people to ask for them to vote for my non-profit, jumping off something high for parkour, or talking to a pretty girl on the street.
All those things felt like they had an element of risk but felt extreemly freeing and rewarding.
I wanted to know how to get more of this in my life and I stumbled upon a way to bring it into the more mundane parts of life, and if I can bring it into the mundane, perhaps I can bring it everywhere.
I realized that this can be used in any area where I have the desire to act but feel too afraid and that this could be any type of fear, not just social fear. For example, I’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety recently with feeling overwhelmed by things. For example, I feel overwhelmed at the thought of taking out the dishes, going to the gym, doing a duolingo test or playing an online chess match against a real person.
Using the formula that I developed with talking to women (but no longer use since I have a girlfriend), here are the steps:
Imagine that I am going for it, and that I can imagine myself doing so within the next few seconds
Imagine the fullest extent of “going for it”, how would truly committing look like, how would feeling effortless and free look like
Let the fear/excitement build up in your chest as you start to breathe
Let the energy carry the action – you don’t have to act if it feels wrong, but let the energy flow through your breathing and let it move you
Continue to breathe through the experience to stay connected to yourself
These steps can bring a feeling of aliveness and control over life. I should know, I used it to write this very post and shoot the video below.
Last night I tried to go to Judo Club for the first time but they were closed for Thanksgiving.
The thing that I wanted to understand the most is why I have this feeling every time I want to leave my house, that I don’t want to go. I always want to live a life of adventure but I’m beginning to suspect that is because I never leave.
So let me try to break it down. The thoughts that come to my head when I think about venturing out:
It is too much energy
It is probably cold outside
I’ll have less time for gaming
I probably won’t like it
What if Judo isn’t useful to me
I don’t know Judo at all what if I’m bad at it
What if I need a gi, I don’t have a gi
Maybe I should go back to jiujitsu
What if it doesn’t help with jiujitsu
Does jiujitsu even help with self defense
I feel like I’m wasting my time
And these types of thoughts are also pervasive when I think about doing anything. Shopping, trying to make friends, or eating out. I don’t want to do anything.
I want someone that I know who is also game, but at the same time I don’t want to bring the wrong person who I don’t trust or feel safe around.
It does help to have my audiobook so at least when I drive I can get some escape into a cool and interesting world.
I think I feel very alone in this world. I think I now understand why I always push my gf to be more ambitious or wish that she was. It’s because then I would feel less alone.
But there is a good reason for going outside and experiencing life. I always want to feel anything is possible, to feel alive and connected to the world. To take risks and grow as a person. I suppose the counter to that is just feeling that the world feels too unsafe and like it will not understand me or give me what I need. At home, I have my games and friends and it feels nice and comforting.
Audiobooks are almost a way for me to self-soothe outside my house.
In a way, youtube and social media make sense too. It is like having a friend who you can tell things to when you feel alone outside filming or going on adventures.
I want to accept my loneliness. The first thing that comes to my mind is to turn my loneliness into art.
As I slowly process, I start to think about how I can slowly start branching out by staying in my apartment complex but leaving my actual apartment.
I understand why people find solace in religion. I really feel that I need a group of people who are seeking to do the same thing as me. To do things in life. To have the same values and philosophies. Not just share the same favorite TV shows. I have a friend who is Christian and I envy his options in having those deep connections. It just doesn’t feel right to me, because I don’t believe in that faith.
I am almost seeking spirituality.
That is an interesting statement. I’ve always felt that was the thing that was missing from my life. I have career success, success in money and even love. It is spirituality that I’ve never embraced because I felt nothing from a lot of the types of spirituality proposed to me.
Two more things occur to me now.
First, is that I recently borrowed a book called Man’s Search for Meaning By Viktor Frankl and I will read it. It is actually funny that this book was available for me to borrow at this time (I had to put it on hold since there were no available copies when I first checked) because it is supposed to be the best book for my EXACT problem. Spirituality. Meaning. Purpose. It was written by a Holocaust survivor.
The second thing that occurs to me is that I used to do a lot of work to change the world. It’s been a long time since I have done that sort of thing, but I think it really gave me something of what I need right now. I think that’s why I love coaching so much. It fills many needs, but one of the needs is for doing something that is changing the world for the better.
That’s it for now I suppose. I will go read that book now (or listen to it, since I got the audiobook version).