Stupid Floppy Disk... And a Show and an Epiphany or Two

I had this fantastic post all done up.. and it's sitting next to me on an unreadable floppy disk. Maybe I shouldn't have transported it in my pocket? So today you will get the short(er) version of whatever it was I wrote on the stupid thing.

Last Wednesday, my mom and I ventured into The City (because if you live in the tri-state area there really is only one City around - NYC) to catch a show (my annual birthday present). To wit, we saw "A Little Night Music," a musical written by Sondheim. It starred Catherine Zeta Jones and Angela Lansbury. An excellent, excellent show! Absolutely wonderful. Everyone in it was fantastic. CZJ stole the show when she sang "Send In The Clowns" and AL was spectacular as the aging grandmother. Just a wonderful show.

And last week I had an epiphany or two. I could give you context for my realizations or some droning about the "process," but none of that really matters. Here's what I have scratched on a small piece of paper:

What am I waiting for?

I want change and yet I do everything in my power to avoid it.

I am waiting for myself to accept change.

And I think all of that is true. I constantly bemoan my complacency and immobility while doing nothing to address it. I stay where I am, apparently waiting for something to come along, never doing anything to move myself beyond this point.

So it's time I decided to do something did something. Screw the economy, screw health insurance, screw my lack of savings and safety nets - I'm gonna do something. Because maybe, just maybe, I'm ready for some change after all.

I had an idea I was kicking around. I spoke with an acquaintance who has some experience and he offered another idea related to my first. It sounds interesting if nothing else. It sounds like something I'd like to try and do, whether it works or not. The cool thing is that it will require a lot of learning on my part. A concerted, continual effort to figure it out and figure out how to do it. I don't know how long that will take, but I think 6-8 months is reasonable at a guess. If nothing else, that should get me a Christmas bonus as a small safety net and possibly enough time to get myself ready (e.g., use of my current, work-provided health insurance).

I don't know if it will take off, if I'll follow through or even what it will become, but I figure it's worth a shot to find out. Why not?

Happy Towel Day!

I almost forgot! (link)

Dating

I've had dating on the brain for the last 2-3 weeks. Partly because a lot of my friends are pairing up and getting married, but mostly because out of the blue some random girl messaged me on a semi-random dating site. That kind of thing always throws me for a loop, and this one seems pretty interesting. 'Course I have no idea what she looks like (no photo) nor where exactly she is (maybe NYC?), and she's a law student in the midst of finals (though presumably they're over soon). In other words, nothing is happening and I'm currently trying to pretend that I'm cool and patient. (It kills me.)

Thing is, I've been avoiding dating for +2 years now. Oh I tried some internet dating. eHarmony and Match didn't pan out. Went on 2 dates from Jdate, 1 blind date a friend set up for me. And then I pretty much just stopped looking or trying. At some point, I decided not to even try until I got my head screwed on straight. I think the line of thinking was something like: If I don't know what I want or where I'm going, then I don't want to "inflict" my problems or myself on someone else. How can I expect or hope that someone else will "get" me if I don't even understand myself?

So I just stopped.. well, everything. I'm still signed up for some of the sites, largely because I'm also bad at managing my finances. (Don't ask.) I get e-mails pretty regularly - not from women, just from the sites with matches. I still check from time to time, but I'm not actively looking or messaging. I'm like a mollusk, sifting through whatever happens to float my way but not actually doing or accomplishing much.

That's a horrible analogy. (But accurate.)

ANYWAYS, every now and then a woman will message me. And I might or might not take some interest (depending on her profile, message, etc.). And I might or might not freak out a little because, hey, that's what I do. And I might or might not pause and reassess.

Because I've been where I am for 4.5 years now and that ain't cool. Not in the slightest.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, etc., etc.

My big plans? Work, cake and board games. Nothing special in the works (excepting perhaps the cake [i]at[/i] work). Still haven't figured out when my mom and I will go into the city and catch a show. (The one we wanted, Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps," doesn't have a matinee.)

Oh, and happy tax day to the rest of the country. Yay?

Crazy Idea

So, about when I wrote the previous post I had this crazy idea (that I'll likely never act on):

What if I quit my job?

What if I went in tomorrow, gave my 2 weeks notice and just quit? No specific plan in mind, no fallback, no prior directed efforts, just a radical change, a leap (of faith as it were).

Sure, it's probably just an escapist fantasy, one that I've been dreaming of for a few years now, but it's so darned appealing. To just toss everything to the wind and see where I land. 'Cause I'm sure not making any progress as it stands.

There are so many reasons not to, and yet I can think of reasons to do it.

Nay: Bills, money, health insurance, security, fear. Effect on other activities (i.e., gas money).

Yea: Change, movement, moving out of my mom's house, progress, hope. Courage.

It feels like one of those things that I'll ponder but never do. Although to be fair, there are a number of things I've pondered and done. (I can have be strong-willed when I want to.) I'm kinda hoping that I don't do it. I'm kinda hoping I don't have to, that I can find a more natural (smoother?) way to resolve things and make progress.

But if I can't...

If I can't figure it out...

When I mentioned this to one person, they suggested using a vacation to do some soul searching rather than upending the whole cart. Take some time off, get away from things and try to figure it out. I remember watching a segment during the Winter Olympics how Apollo Ono's father forced him to do that, to decide whether or not he wanted to pursue speed skating. I wonder if it would work for me.

Maybe that's not a half-bad idea. Hrmmm..

You Have A Choice

You know, I have relatives in New Jersey, and every winter they complain about the snow, the crummy conditions, the poor job market... and I tell them: move.

That's all. If you don't like it where you are, just... move. You have a choice. You don't have to stay where you are, you can just get up, put one foot in front of the other... and walk away.

But they don't want to hear that. They come up with one excuse or another, and they stay there, and they stay unhappy. Because admitting that they can choose otherwise means either doing something about it, or facing their own inability to act, and they can't handle it. But I believe you can.

The quote is from J.Michael Straczynski's "Midnight Nation." A high-school counselor advising a teen to relinquish his gang life before it's too late. Different circumstances, same principle. You have a choice. More on this another time.

Period or semicolon?

I have a question that I would really like to ask my friends and coworkers but can't or haven't:

Is this what you want with your life? What you do (work-wise), where you are - are you happy? Do you plan on doing it, staying here indefinitely?

And the one that will likely remain unasked: Is it enough for you?

I look at the people around me and sometimes think these questions. Some of my coworkers have families - a wife and x kids. They seem happy and I bet they are. For them, I'm pretty sure the answers are relatively easy, or at least easier.

But for others whose motivations are less apparent, I'm honestly curious. -- I keep having to delete what I write here, re-type to remain honest. I am asking with expectations and I am hoping/expecting some to feel unsettled, as I feel. I am fishing for answers, for distrust in their complacency, a sign that they, too, haven't accepted this as a period.

I guess that's always one of my fears - that I'm alone in my dis-ease. Alone in my casting about. Alone in my self-made cage. I know I'm not and I know others feel this way or have felt this way, but it's different when you get that confirmation verbally and honestly.

I know this isn't my period. And I'm looking for my next whatever, even if only in spirit and not literally. This isn't enough for me and I know that.

But why don't I do anything about it?

What Do I Want?

I'm in a pensive mood, FFXIII and PS3 notwithstanding. What do I want? Someone asked me that recently. I have lots of abstract answers, tons of those. Goals more than answers and very few of them personal. In the abstract, I think I know myself or at least know about myself. But do I know what I actually want? I don't know.

Part of me is intrigued by the question and my lack of a concrete answer. I know what I am doing, what I have and where I am, but not where I want to go. I don't think I've ever known that. Even now, the best answer I can give is "not here" and "not where I am" -- hardly of any help at all.

What do I want?

The abstract is easy. The fantasy, the illusions, the daydreaming I can do without a second glance. The real leaves me confounded as ever. My mind is waylaid by the associate interrogatories - How do I get there? Is that my destination? What's wrong with here? Why can't I accept it? What's wrong? I focus on everything but the question at hand.

My mind runs in circles, round and round with no seeming end. I want to find my way. I want to find an answer. I want to find my place. And yet none of these is an answer.

Maybe part of my problem is that I never came up with a good idea of what I want and so I cannot find or move towards that which has no destination. Hmmm.

Double hmmm.

That's a show-stopper right there.

I shall have to think more on this.

Envy

(Not a discussion of the seven deadly sins, thought it was fun to read about them at the link.)

I am probably one of the more envious people I know. I don't harbor the customary ill will that is perennially associated with envy, but I enjoy its excess on an almost daily basis.

I am envious of those who have picked a direction and followed through on it.

I am envious of those who have a complete life and are content with it.

I am envious of those in healthy relationships, those getting married, friends in happy relationships and friends getting married.

I am envious of those who are clearly not plagued by the questions and doubts that haunt me every day.

I am envious of those who like what they do and do what they like.

I am envious of those --

Wow. That.. that's.. that's a lot of self-pity right there, isn't it? It's part of my cycle. I don't want to deprive those of whom I am envious, I simply want what they have for myself. I don't begrudge these "other people" and I am, in fact, happy for them and their success. I begrudge myself my lack of success.

It's a Friday night in merry olde Connecticut. I am home with the dog, typing this at approximately 11pm, wondering.

Questions

I just finished watching Choke, a weird indie movie starring Sam Rockwell. It's one of those movies that asks more questions than it answers, but at least this one has a nice bow on it. It's intriguing and bizarre in so many ways that I was enthralled, gripped by its insanity and the calm, cool way the outlandish was accepted as is, as normal.

I ask myself many questions all the time. What am I doing here? Where do I belong? Why do I do these things to myself? When will I break free from this cycle? Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions. As yet, it's pretty clear I have no answers for these questions. No shining light or discovery or epiphany has managed to rock me from this state, move me. In many ways I feel trapped, whether it be by my modest success or my many inabilities to find escape velocity.

But maybe I've been approaching this all wrong. That's not to say I know the right way or have any single notion of what a right way might be, but I know that my current "way" isn't it.

Sometimes I wonder - is this it? Is this what life is like for everyone? You find some niche, carve it out for yourself and settle in? Get married, have some kids, work to put food on the table and provide for your family and, in the meantime, that's life? Has everyone around me bought into this? (And secretly I ask myself: Why can't I? Why can't I be settled and follow this path? What's wrong with me?)

And there it is. The questions I can never answer and the one I always ask. I stay up until late hours of the night. I am frozen in inaction when I should not. I am lost, at sea as it were, even when surrounded by things that entertained me not hours earlier. And I combat these feelings by inaction, by waiting for them to pass and Monday to come and work to resume and the boredom to take hold again when I am otherwise not paying attention.

I think a part of me rejects the underpinnings. I don't know why or how to battle it or whether to fully give in - I just know what it feels like and that I feel helpless when I know I am not.

Perhaps this is too much truth, too much honesty in a place where I strive to be as guarded as ever, but I'll let it stay, to be reread and rehashed and rethought. Maybe the question isn't how to break out of my current cycle, but how to start a new one. How do I start a new life?

2009: Looking Back On A Year

2009. The Ignoble Year? The Year That Wasn't? What Did I Do Again?

What are titles that I tossed out for this post? Correct! You have control of the board.

I tried to recall what happened in 2009. What did I do? Where did I go? Years from now, if someone asked me what happened in my life in 2009 how would I answer? Truthfully, and I will speak the truth from time to time, not much. Not much at all.

I did very little. Of note, I went to NY ComiCon. I went to WBC in Lancaster, PA. I played board games, I bought board games and DVDs and Blu-rays and CDs and a Tauntaun sleeping bag (MR. Tauntaun to you!) and things I didn't need and things I enjoyed. I played computer games, I played World of Warcraft (WoW), I didn't play WoW, I spoke to some friends, I ignored others, I went to work, I watched other people lose their jobs and I was afraid to lose mine. I learned about the dark side of our dog groomer, I learned to trust people and old friends who I once trusted. I learned things and forgot things and remembered things and dreamed things. I found a dream and I never pursued it. I complained incessantly about my odious job and my inability to do anything but complain and I totally failed to find my way.

And that's what I regret most. I never even tried to dig myself out from under this cloud. I didn't even try to pick myself up. I don't know, maybe part of me is waiting for the life-altering incident that will never come. Or maybe part of me thinks myself incapable of extraditing myself. Or maybe, and this one's the really scary one, part of me doesn't *want* to pull myself up. I don't know and I never even tried to figure it out.

I look at my posts for 2009 and see fear, hope and then.. nothing. Maybe 2010 is "the year"? Maybe then? I don't know. I wish I did, I really do, but I just don't know. I hope it is, though. I still hope.

2009: A Year Of Regrets (And Hope).

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! Here's wishing you the very best and a pleasant and safe holiday season!

To All Those Friends I've Ignored

I'm sorry. It's nothing you said. I'm not angry with you. Really, there's nothing bad between us. I'm sorry I haven't called and I'm sorry it's been so long.

See, there's this thing where I hide in my shell and don't reach out to my friends. Nothing happened, nothing caused it, there's no real reason. It's what I do, it's what happens. There are good friends of mine that I haven't spoken with in years. Years. I'll speak with them again, I just haven't lately.

So to any of those friends reading this, and you know who you are (and, unfortunately, there are a lot of you), I am really, truly, honestly sorry. We will talk again soon.

Family

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Family and dinner. My younger cousin bought a house. My older cousin is pregnant with her second. This year we had "Tom The Turkey," raised by my uncle. Excellent meal. My grandfather is degrading faster and faster. My grandmother, too. These get harder and harder.

We're not close. My family that is. My generation - we swore we would be different, we would keep in touch, stay together, be the glue. We're not. We're not friends. We're each crazy and messed up in our own right. We watch our parents and grandparents move in their patterns. We see each other on the holidays and mean well, but we didn't change a thing.

I know that every family has its problems - its flaws and blemishes, its skeletons and secrets. We are no different and I watch us tear apart for it. I don't know that the happy families exist. I don't know one. Not a one. When my grandparents are gone, the larger family will disintegrate into non-communication and fade away. Twenty years from now, one of us will say to their son or daughter or nephew or niece: "You have cousins in New Jersey/Texas/New York/Massachusetts. We haven't seen them since your great grandfather passed away."

It saddens me.

It's not even that I really want to keep up with these cousins. I don't need the family to persist as it has. It's a wild, growing element that will become what it is to be. I just don't want the next generation, the toddlers now and the ones soon to come, to have the same unresolved curiosity that I sometimes feel. We had family in Germany, in Europe, in Israel. Had.

What the...

Strolling around the grocery store this evening and what do I spot? A SIXTH HITCHHIKER'S BOOK?!???! Why was I not informed?! How did I not see this coming??!? FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS STILL GOOD IN THIS WORLD, WHY WAS I NOT TOLD??!?!!

Incidentally, the novel is titled And Another Thing... and is authored by one Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series of young adult books.

We apologise for the fault in the communication. Those responsible have
been sacked.

Languishing

Languish:

–verb (used without object)

1. to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade.


2. to lose vigor and vitality.


3. to undergo neglect or experience prolonged inactivity; suffer hardship and distress: to languish in prison for ten years.


4. to be subjected to delay or disregard; be ignored: a petition that languished on the warden's desk for a year.


5. to pine with desire or longing.


6. to assume an expression of tender, sentimental melancholy.

–noun

7. the act or state of languishing.


8. a tender, melancholy look or expression.

I languish. Very little-to-no progress in any real way. I have a good idea, though. I think I'd like to get into publishing, preferably fiction or graphic novels or comics. Try some sort of radical career shift and see what happens. After all, it can only get better from here, right?

Right?

Well, that might be the case assuming I did something about it. In the absence of real progress, work at my current job continues unabatedly. I have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. No one yells at me or says anything anymore. I think we may have reached some sort of compromise, an unspoken understanding that I'm a colossal fuckup and that I do good work when I do work and little that my bosses say can or will affect this state. I'm sure I'll wear down their patience at some point, but obviously not yet. As long as I don't screw up in some huge manner, and as long as I'm still good for the bottom line, which I currently am, my bosses are nonconfrontational enough that things will continue and I will be employed and paid.

I keep thinking "we'll see how long that lasts" but it's already lasted longer than I thought it would so who knows. As someone recently put it to me, perhaps things haven't yet reached that threshold where I force myself to act. Is complacency so bad? Am I really (that) unhappy in my current position?

I don't know. All I do know is that I continue to languish in this self-made purgatory. During the week I internally scream and fight against my daily work, while on the weekend I sit around directionless and immobile. I took a nap this afternoon for 3.5 hours. I watch television. I watch movies that I've seen half a dozen times already. My head runs in circles and I don't know what to do with myself. If that's not languishing, I don't know what is.

I know I'll break this cycle some day. I also know that I've said and written that before to little effect. Ah well, more another time.

Notes to Self:

For the past 2.5 years, I've been living in fear, waiting for the axe to fall, waiting to be fired. I've been given numerous warnings from my bosses. I've told friends of mine that I would be surprised to make it another x months or that I would most likely be gone by x date. I've gone into work many days wondering if that day, today, would be my last.

But I'm still here at the same firm, in the same position, doing the same things, reacting the same way.

It's about time I choose to change.

And in view of something about how writing it down makes it even more true...

Unless they fire me first, by the end of this year I will quit my job.

Since I've just been given another warning that first clause may hit regardless, but let's see how things go -- I would prefer not to leave on bad terms if I can avoid it. There are a number of ancillary goals to work towards on the way, but I think the above is step one, goal one. A lot of my unhappiness comes back to my job so why do I cling so voraciously to it? Change.

I'm not going to set down everything here quite yet. I'm going to work on some of the more personal, initial steps first -- changing my attitude and behavior. The rest in due time, first steps first.

It's not that I can do this or that I will do this. I am doing it. Starting here, starting now. Change.

Food For Thought

From: Epiphanies on Weight Loss

Select quotations (blockquotes omitted for readability):


The more self-examination I did, the more I realized that being overweight wasn't my problem at all. Being overweight was a symptom of my real problem - apathy. I seemed to be content to allow the world to just pass me by without getting into it, or getting anything out of it.

I believed that not liking roller coasters was my preference - my own choice. In truth, other choices I had made were the ones that ultimately influenced my preferences.

I think if I choose to like different things, maybe I will like different things. Maybe I can have the life I choose to live instead of one where things sort of just happen.

Something about how writing it down makes it even more true.

1) If you don't choose to live your life a certain way, you will live it anyway, but not on your own terms.

I realized that I am a product of the choices I have made. I turned out exactly the way I was supposed to be. Eating isn't the thing that made me fat. My whole life was what made me fat. More importantly, I haven't been victimized by my choices. My life is simply cause and effect. If I want different output, I need different input. Plain and simple.

3) Don't wait for a certain set of circumstances to become the person that you want. Become who you want to be now, and let circumstances change afterward.

4) You can enjoy whatever you choose to enjoy.

So, if I can learn to love beer and cigarettes, surely I could learn to love walking/jogging/biking/etc. I can't really explain it other than saying, I just told myself to enjoy these activities, and somehow it worked. Now, I get up every morning before work and do a two mile walk or jog. In the evenings I do 10 miles on the bike, or another walk or jog. I can't explain why I enjoy it, other than this is what I have chosen.

5) Don't look find reasons to not be fat. Find reasons to be thin. Positive reinforcement is the only way to really achieve any personal goal.

I decided however, that I wanted my life to be very different from how it was in the past. I wanted to teach myself to enjoy new things. I wanted to be open to experiences I haven't had, and to enjoy things I didn't know I might enjoy. And this became my motivation.

6) Live the change you want to be.

This particular epiphany yielded a startling result. I no longer missed the things from my former life. Sure, I'd like to have a slice of pizza, but I don't miss it. I don't crave it. I remember having fun playing computer games like World of Warcraft, but it just holds no appeal for me anymore. These desires and interests leaving me didn't happen slowly like I expected. It was kind of sudden. I used to eat several thousand calories a day, now I don't. I used to spend 15 to 20 hours a week with computer games, and now it's pretty much zero. I'm not really better or worse for any of it either - just different. I don't think there's anything wrong with eating an entire large pizza, drinking a sixer of beer, and playing World of Warcraft until four in the morning, I just don't have the desire to do that anymore.

7) Weight loss isn't the problem, it is a symptom of a different problem.

So I started to wonder. What does weight loss have to do with making my bed every day? The answer is "nothing". So what is the bed making about then? I realized that the reason I was doing it is that I had cultivated a new sort of personal discipline. I wanted my life to be different, and it was. In fact, the weight loss isn't the thing that has opened things up for me. It's all of the other epiphanies. The weight loss is only one benefit of the lifestyle changes I have made. Self-discipline is another. All of the good things happening in my life are under a bigger umbrella than I even realized I had raised. The desire to be different hadn't just changed the things I expected it to change for the better. It had changed a lot of other things for the better, too.

********

I think people only need to realize this: You are whatever you have made yourself to be. If you're happy with the result, then don't go changing for anyone. But if you aren't, you are the only one who can change your life. May as well start right this second.

When I tell people about my weight loss, they always want to know what program I did, and I always tell them. But I'm now believing that the program I'm on matters very little. It is just one of many possible successful paths. It was the decision to change and the desire to put that plan in motion that was most important of all.