[835] Beat Of Disillusion

I feel dumb. Beyond the idea that we're always in a state of infinite ignorance, I mean I feel dumb in practical terms. I feel like every day I see an obvious solution, and pick otherwise. Depending on the problem, I pick it over and over again.

Some of it boils down to whether or not it feels like a “problem.” I'm a person who pretty regularly says I don't have real problems. Mine are boutique and come after “first-world.” Much of what I aspire to amounts to a degree of leisure, access, or consumption. I've lost illusions of “saving the world” and do not regard my species of really worth me (like so many pretentious teenagers.)

We can start with an easy example in considering working out. The gym is 3 minutes from my office. Why not just go? Well, how big of a problem does it feel like? This has gotten even more complicated, because I used to just look the way I looked and was regularly whoring around. Now, I still look like an older version of the way I've always looked, and got a friggin' girlfriend. I don't breathe heavy doing things like walking up 7 flights of stairs in the parking lot, but I will utter noises sometimes getting up, a harbinger of bad things. I, disingenuously, default to an idea about nobody living forever, and try to “feel it” before I make attempts to return to my human hamster wheel.

There's so many niche “problems” that beg to be addressed. I semi-regularly assume one day I'm going to come around the bend and see my house on fire. Home insurance and an inventory would be great for that situation, no? Why haven't I called across the country (I have), but even more so, until I'm able to find what I need? Why haven't I spent my weekends staying up all night listing my things and uploading backup logs to various clouds? I suppose I don't think the likelihood of my house bursting into flames is that high. I suppose I don't wish to add another monthly bill as I creep further and further from ongoing financial obligations.

A new problem happens every time I try to read, now listen, to a book. I want notes! I want to follow-up, and at least read one or two of the books the author mentions that seems like it would open that world even further. How do you do that with a day job? I never really thought you could, but I'm a year and half of living it, and every book I read leaves a gaping hole where I'd jump in until I felt I had a meager grasp on “the economy.” Now I just get notions and impressions, and take them where? Do you care that I might chime in that China's “growth” is more precarious than the numbers would suggest?

Work is a big problem. It's more like representative of the larger problem. There is no field that won't suffer the humans attached to it. There is no problem that can't be talked in circles about. There is no definition that won't slip from common consciousness and therefore common cause and effect.

Most of what I conceive of myself doing, that might be listed on the “large agenda” are projects that take a day or so. List two thousand books? Mostly done, just need to ensure I could actually timely ship 10 or 100 at a time if they actually sold that quickly. I can't, so I have a pending task upon my retrieval and storage of boxes for shipping, and cultivation of space for cutting and crafting. Me at 9pm swinging cardboard around knocking various things from shelves and raining scraps is goofy and inefficient and not scalable.

I got an auger. There's holes to be dug. It's perpetually raining or snowing. Do I power through, maybe burn out my motor, and soak through what were perfectly good shoes not-so long ago? Or does this require my often mentioned tent city system to try and keep work areas dry independent of the weather? Is it a problem that I have a new piece of equipment to taunt myself with? I understand it more as creating more potential. Maybe Greenland will get done melting and the weather will figure out somewhere else to dump the rain.

I have books and video games and music to be learned. How is every waking minute not spent drilling them while I'm “free” to do so? Do we finally have a problem, or a paradox? What do these activities represent? Distractions? I don't treat them that way, so it's not enough to have something I like just running in the background as noise. They're aspirations. I want to be able to discuss the books I read. I want to be immersed in the video games I play. I want to surprise myself and push my physical boundaries as well as build on my knowledge with music. When the goal isn't spoken to, they hum in the background until that righteous inspiring moment kicks in.

Part of learning that I either learn particularly quickly or have an ability to snap into focus when something matters to me is that my pensive infinite down time, I believe, looks like procrastination or shit-talk. I get overtly excited when I get something like a tool because it allows me to create a shared picture of something tangible verses the endless talk. My house with my things arranged in it, with me typing to you from the middle of nowhere, did not exist for me until it did. I don't see intermittent steps. The whole process looks like a thing, all at once, and that's what I want to do until the end. Why watch every episode? I can see the end. I can record the progress. It's almost, but not quite, pathological.

As I get close to or ping in and out of being in debt, I want to spend more. This makes me feel dumb. When you consider what I'm spending on, it's $70 in oil, wipers, and engine flush my car absolutely needs. It's $300 for glasses and contacts. It's $200 for gravel, $150 for the auger (that runs closer to $400), and it's back-up keys or food. When I buy something I call “stupid” or label as “toys” in my tracking page, it's less than $100 combined. Why don't I feel mature and responsible for trying to get out ahead of problems? Why does my cold acceptance that every dream I have rests on a series of practical underpinnings not leave me revved up and looking forward to owning the future?

I think I have an internal politics. The point is often made that people vote with their emotions or against what's in front of them, not on 20-point plans or anything remotely long-term and reasonable. That's the work of the “deep state” and day-to-day bureaucrats I work with trying to turn the mess of right now into sustainable vision and practice. I spend a lot of time downplaying my “right now” because it gets out of hand. I become the task master. All of the tasks I've mentioned would have been addressed, aggressively, and at the moment I had maybe 60% of the resources to do it correctly. It's a great way to live an intense, short, life.

Now, I hesitate to use the word “tired,” but my energy is not so much focused on my and my effort alone. I shy away from attempting to manufacture guilt that's pretty incredibly hard to come by in the first place. My philosophy has a pace or tempo that doesn't suggest runaway train.

I still think I'm going to get everything I've ever wanted in life. I don't know if that thought has ever really wavered. In fact, the more I've engaged with aspects of life that I've worked so hard to try and avoid (like dress nice every day and work for the State), I'm even more convinced. The more head nods and references to and from people I admire reinforce it. The befuddled, indifferent, or angry looks I consistently illicit create ancient foundational concrete that strengthens over time. Though the secret to its mix is not lost to history. The “problem” of “all that I want” is an easy one. On many different levels, I've already solved it. I recognize that I can and that I want to. I know most of the barriers are dumb or distracted. I can count and budget. I have the home. I have the land. I have the words. I'm courting the time, and when pressed, remember that when I had all the time, I used it to read, and put me at my current starting line about what to read next.

I still feel dumb. Irony again? It can't all be irony all the time, right? But what do I know?