2024-09-07
Saturday today. I last night - perhaps as some self-intervention necessary to save myself from the pain, anguish, misery, melancholia, and suffering attended to by new state of mind - drank in a quantity I haven't done for a long long while (well, since July, but that was socially), having a shot and a half each of kahlua and of sambuca, as well as five ciders. I slept actually rather well, in that my mind did not perceive the interruption of the sleep caused by the alcohol, and in the morning I felt poor, but acceptable. I went for breakfast and a long walk with my dad, and came back, deciding upon a half hour nap that took me from twelve until now, six.
Possibly well needed.
Of course this is not a good state to be in, and I am feeling quite poor by the swing of a body out of control, though I think I did need it, in a way. I'm struggling a bit this September, with what would ordinarily be called mental health, and I think it's a lack of exposure to beauty. The world really does come to become ugly when you make it all so ugly. The only beauty I've been experiencing is music: The Smiths' elucidating *I've got no right to take my place in the human race*.
I saw as well, tangentially, earendelmir's writing from a long time ago, echoing the sentiment - or rather, I am echoing, in a more verbose way, his - [where he says](https://earendelmir.xyz/archive/2023/29) that he is falling behind, and has a need to appreciate beauty... I'm lacking that beauty in my life at the moment, and thinking I may have been wrought from it by my own hand, and last night seeing Omoide no Marnie, and today losing six hours of my day, has that beauty attendant to the life of a young thing at university, though I know it can't last. I need to get somewhat back on track, restoring my sleep, going to the gym, and such, but I can't help but feel I will lose this beauty again. Really, I want to see if I can keep the beauty, but also gain in productivity. Journalling is beautiful and can attend my along the way of life, but all this noting down my failings, and beating myself up, or saying I need to do better, or trying to fill every possible hour with work - look, my employment does that bad enough! Why do I want to replicate it?
The grey sky this past week isn't helping me, either. I really can't hack this.
So, I want beauty in my life, and pre-eminent, and as something certainly there, and regular, and of different types (not just reading considered a virtue..., not just music considered a vice...), and appreciable, and to relax, and to have something other than what I'm doing at the moment, almost a hustle culture. I am not even doing very good with it. I want to be able to relax and appreciate things, not to always be on the back foot with everything I want to do... appreciate, me, the day has 24 hours, and sometimes it's worth watching some Studio Ghibli in that time. Sod the gym (but like, still do it, like).
And so, I've today and tomorrow of pleasure and joy, and have some things I do actually need to do. I'm going to pick the gym back up on Monday morning, and the guitar as well, and not worry too much about this. I'll call it a blip, though really it's reconsidering the direction I'm going... I'm doing what isn't good for me. I sort of knew that from the start, but I guess I had to go through it to get to here. There's a healthy position at the end, and I just need to let myself go through this slow process of thinking about everything to get to where I ought to be.
I suppose I just want to get rid of the vices that attend my life at every stage, and pick up some amount of skills at the gym and with the guitar. But, if what I'm doing isn't working, then I've got to consider another way. In objective terms, I'm not playing the guitar as well as I would like, or as much as the productivity-guru in me says I ought, and I'm fine - yes, progress isn't great, but so what? I'm still here, and I will gradually improve. I just need to not beat myself up about it.
I was thinking earlier last week of sending my boss a weekly email detailling all that I've done in the week (or, I could send it to myself). I suppose that could be more fun for myself, and then I won't have the chance to beat myself up about things. I can just say, look, let's try get it up in the email, and then everything counts in a way. Even social events, which I almost end up viewing antagonistically as they take me away from the quote-unquote productivity (or, the metric, really), are of course good for me, and I can't view it as a loss at all. No experience in life is totally lost! But of course, the main thing I want is not to be resting in bed in the mornings so long, just listening to music... to me, that does seem wasted. It really seems to force me reconsider (again) what wasted time is. I guess I would only say that it is those things that are not experientially worth it, that are engaged in, or are not in some sense spiritually building.
As an aside, I don't like my processes. As in, the processes I have set up on my computer and in my life. For instance, I have Youtube blocked on my phone (via /system/etc/hosts), but still use the phone more than I'd like, as if the desire to use it clings onto whatever scraps I can give it. I also try to get around it with finding new Invidious instances, which is just silly, but allows me to do things like listen to new (to me) The Smiths' songs... Silly, isn't it? I'm almost in an adversarial relationship with myself. Like a parent trying to control its misbehaving child.
So I've rambled for a thousand words. I'm still just really not sure what I should adopt as a system for next week. What is healthier. I have, for a couple years now, wanted to separate out philosophy and generally rambling about my mental state, which I do (did) too much of, both here (though, it is really the entire point) and a tradition form of diary, that is generally rather short, and have them as separate. In other words, disentangle the diary from the journal. That said, I disagree that there is a way to separate them out so entirely, given that of course I will need to have my thoughts and feelings be present in the diary - but I think it should be the thoughts and feelings attending a situation, or the acts that I've performed, not the surrounding rambling and philosophy. As such, I could have something like (made up example with Tom being a fake name):
Six o'clock awake; gym in the morning; breakfast, then work. At lunch I had a brief nap and went for a walk. After work, I went for a walk with mum, listened to Easy Italian, and saw Tom virtually. Some rambling in the journal about xyz. Wrote wv 52. Bed at ten.
Something brief, like that, for each day. Then, the rambling which may be going into philosophy or just mulling over how I'm ruining my life (like this kind of thing) can go either into a different notepad, or can go into wv. Honestly, the kind of thing that is good for wv and what I normally ramble about sort of are similar, so it might be a good shout. Well, it's what I'm doing at the moment.
The advantage of this is - I can send myself the email (or, letter, or whatever) each week, telling myself all what I've done, so I know I'm not wasting time.
From next week, I think I'll implement that. I do want to be able to write on paper to express either things I don't want to publish publicly, or things that just need to written down - the tactility of paper is better, and superior, than that of a keyboard.
That separation could help. It's all about trying things out. I am not sure the exact purpose of separating, but it will at least make it easier when I search for actual events that have happened. And hopefully I'll get through less paper.
Oh, and before I forget, it's my fiftieth wv. That's nice, isn't it? I've written 50,000 words at least - well, my stats say 59k. I'm 5% of the way through as well. That's nice, I guess. It doesn't fill me with overmuch joy. In a way, I don't care, and am just enjoying writing these.
Ok, that's all. Have a good one. It's been a bad week, but I think I've learnt from it. Hopefully next week will be better.