Jan 31
How do I sit in this same seat for so long, so dismal, yet unwilling to move?
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To be engaged seems like it should be at the core of human experience. But, no, we are creatures of efficiency. When you are well-fed and housed, why do anything?
Why do I struggle to work on personal projects; why do I struggle to do anything beyond my schoolwork?
Manu comes and sits. Truly I need people. Why must I shun them? At the end of the day, I have nowhere to go. Often. And nothing to do. Seemingly.
To scroll through Twitter for hours on end is not an ideal life.
People are often impressed by me, but at this point I wonder how much of it is just momentum from a good education, from the occasional time I do acheive sic motivation or structure/discipline.
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2. I see Liv being closer to me, and it scares me because I don't know if she's entirely platonically motivated—esp. since somebody asked again when we were going to date. And I could see us dating since I kinda do like her. But that's not what I want.
3. I don't know everything that is causing my recent depression. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX However, I am confident that part of it is that I am not keeping up with my schedules. This is a great place to focus to try and start feeling better.
4. Even with all my friends, I am lonely. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
5. Even when I am doing well, I don't think I feel 100%. I have a recollection of a time, during break, I think, in which I was feeling well each day and yet wondered—was that the top? If that was it, I had achieved a good life (for the time being), I was not totally satisfied.
6. God, I am lonely. I don't even know how to express it. I don't know how I know it's true. But I seem to think very strongly that it's the case.
Again, I don't know how to fix myself, but I do know how to get myself back on top of things. Maybe. I feel incredibly averse to doing anything productive at the moment.
Doodles
I can't even think of anything particularly engaging that I want to do right now. (I think doing so would be a great help!)
I think I'll get distracted reading. I don't want to go to Liv's room. I'm not entirely keen on working on personal projects—though I am partially keen. I could walk around campus, but I'm not sure what the end would be—I find that an unsatisfying end on its own. I could go to Maggie's—I could ask Camille what Odie's shifts are. But that's also like a 5-minute thing.
At least writing this is engaging.
What would this moment look like if it were perfect?
I wouldn't necessarilly have all work done, but I'd have a plan, see progress, and be confident that it would get done in good time.
I would be doing something engaging.
I wouldn't necessarily have to be with people, but I want something relating to people—not sure what.
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Do I do so well in Chinese because I enjoy it, or because flashcards are a good time-filler? Probably a mix.
At least flashcards have taught me one thing: that an activity can move from the list of things I am averse to doing to the list of things I do out of boredom and automatically.
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I think I stopped hugging Seamus.
What do I want? A PhD? A website? Do these things truly make me happy?
Maybe. Probably not.
I do seem to have a genuine and acute intellectual interest in math & CS that I perhaps should not downplay.
I can feel all 5 of my limbs at the same time.
This must be such an interesting experience for a future reader. Hello from the past! hello
I have identified one block: being behind on work. Now, how do I fix it? I have to catch up. Easier said than done.
I'm wearing two band-aids on my shirt over where my heart is.
I think Savannah likes me.
Tomorrow I have a free day until my shift. I could do things then, but I could equivalently do them now—my blocks aren't going to magically disappear though sleeping.
What is something I want to do right now? I don't know. Continue writing, I suppose, as I have been.
I could play pool with Roann. I could do many things. But they all feel like distractions.
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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX What was that TED talk? That vulnerability is the key to human experience?
Twitter and Reddit are distractions. When I head to them I think I am going somewhere that will be full and exciting. The way that the current moment is not. Of course, I am wrong: they will only take me away from my problems for a few hours of agony.
9:34. If I want to chant, I need to leave now. Is chanting also just a distraction? Maybe. I want to go; I also don't.
I kind of want someone to read all this. What if I just left it out?
Stood up for the first time in hours to get a drink of water
I like XXX. But I patronize him.
It feels as though there must be something beyond activities to life. Like holding someone's hand. That's not really an activity. Like feeling a connection when you look them in the eyes.
Why must I be within a human body with a need for attention, for love. This is not what I wish. Perhaps.
I could sit in this chair until breakfast tomorrow.
He walked through the hallway, peering out of habit but not curiosity into the windows of the rooms he passed. The lights were on, illuminating his every footstep on the carpet. The end of the hallway was a T. Peering left he saw an exit, two sets of double-doors back outside. On his right was a staircase to an upper level and a hallway that passed it. In the intersection he stood, facing a wall covered in rows upon rows of mailboxes. Hundreds of them crammed one against the other, steel rusting and adorned with stickers whose glue had long outlived its span. On each mailbox was a combination lock, protecting the enclosed contents from nothing ?. He walked along the mailboxes, halfheartedly inspecting one every now and then. A cactus sticker. A cat. Gay pride. A typewriter. Eventually he reached the end of the mailboxes and found himself at a counter peering into a room full of packages and letters. Putting one foot onto the counter, he rolled over it and onto the floor on the other side. He took a package, tore it open, and looked inside. A set of toothbrushes was enclosed in varying colors. Peach pink. Blueberry blue. Bugglegum pink. He put the box down.
In this room, the mailboxes were exposed. The back of each had no cover, allowing employees to easily place mail. He began at the first box. Contained was a single piece of paper. A poster of sorts. "Trail Hike", it advertised, "this Sunday, Feb. 2nd". "Meet new friends and enjoy nature!".
He stared at the photo in the center of the sheet. Six students looked back at him with beaming faces under fuzzy winter coats. He dropped the slip of paper onto the floor. He looked in the next mailbox, which contained a personal letter. "Maynard!", it read. "I hope your semester is going well.". He stopped reading, and dropped it too. He shoved his hands into the third mailbox and tetrieved the contents in a tightly closed fist. He did not look at them. He threw them on the floor with the first two. He did the same for the fourth. Row by row, he methoddically expelled the contents of each mailbox onto the floor. Letter by letter, he dropped loose notes, congratulations, prescriptions, photos, advertisements, cheques, notices, and gifts onto the ground. As he continued, he began to shake. Some of the paper ripped as he tore it out of its home and down. Colorful cards flew out of sleeves.
Paper fell out of envelopes, never to be reunited again. Salutations lost meaning. Photos with notes written on the back danced through the air as he displaced the personal contents of hundreds of people.
When he finished with the last mailbox, he was shaking uncontrollably. He fell forward and braced himself against the mailboxes in order to keep from falling. In front of him, the floor had been transformed into a sea of color, dominated by the white of envelopes and the black of addresses.
Accross sic the room he spotted the packages. He reached into the first package and retreived sic the toothbrushes from before. He hurled them with all his might accross sic the room, but they were light and simply fell to the floor. He reached for another package nearby—smaller but heavier. This too he threw, violently heaving in no direction in particular. It found its mark on the opposite wall and whatever was inside shattered violently.
With it, his knees collapsed beneath him. His right shoulder smashed against the floor, only barely padded by the carcasses of mail. He held his head in his hands and curled his knees up against his chest.
He began to sob. Uncontrollably, he heaved again and again, rocking his body back and forth on his monochromatic bed of memories.
And so he was, crumpled on the floor of the mailroom, surrounded by letters, lifeless.
it's still: Manarin Chinese for Jan 31
God that felt great to write. I'm gonna type it up.
Typed it up, quickly edited it, and added it to my website as an unindexed item. Now what? Feeling less depressed, but still not sure what to do.
Explore, apparently. Explored Templeton a bit & found some interesting stuff.
Explored campus some.
I felt like I really learned more what it means to be present. It's not a complex thing: just focus on what's around you. Engage with your surroundings.
There was a lot to see. I found some cool stuff, enjoyed a pretty sky, set off one alarm !?.
I noticed that when I would pass by people, or them by me, it would fluster me out of my presence.
A difficulty I had is sustainability: I'm not sure I could be present and explore as an end unto itself. It is nice, but I always end up feeling like I want to be doing something. I need something to pair it with.
I notice that mindless phone & computer things can feel like "doing something" in this sense, even though they're not actually constructive. I wonder why this is.
Also, as an example for what I mean by "I'm not sure if I could be present... as an end unti itself", I will list programming as something I often feel I can do as an end unto itself.
It is now 00:05 2020-02-01.