I wanted to play with my puppet, write thinly veiled autobiography, or otherwise 'do my own thing'…playing god knows what in the play room I tried to remember the last time I'd done anything creative - I was eating myself up with guilt over a post I'd written about depression - having had 'a point' but knowing that I'd not expressed it clearly and that, in the unlikely event certain people read it, it would be misunderstood. Would do more harm than good.
And that made me really angry too - because I did have some kind of point, even if I wasn't able to express it. My point had to do with how interconnected we all are - how the mental states of each of us spill over into the mental states of those around us - and of the almost impossible to disentangle web of our psychologies - how we are constitutively predisposed to certain mental states, and yet possess some free will. How even when depressed, there are best practices - but they are practices, and require some exertion.
My friend called me on the fact that I might be projecting - that I might be more depressed myself than I was admitting, or able to recognize, and so by drawing attention to the mental health of others I was in fact really trying to wrestle with my own.
And he was right - because I have always wrestled with self doubt over whether I am exerting myself sufficiently and appropriately. I over analyze.
Last week, sitting in the dermatologist's office because I have fair skin and start to wig out at fairly regular intervals if I've not been looked over for awhile, I was anxious. And the very simple conclusion I came to is 'stop asking "why" you're feeling x y or z' - because very often it's just natural variation, and when it's not, the same best practices that help even out the highs and lows are basically all you have anyhow.
I was in a french sealing waiting room to see if I had skin cancer. I'd not eaten enough breakfast. Was I supposed to be feeling cocky and relaxed? It was a no brainer.
When I do almost anything self-directed - from publishing off the cuff blog posts, to videos of my hand puppet - I feel like I've accomplished something. It's not a job, as much as I'd like it to be, but it helps me get through the day.
I'd love to spontaneously desire to create stuff that has clear market value, but I am way too wrapped up in myself for that. To get there I suspect will require a lot more of this esoteric, weirdness - this crablike purposefully obtuse random walk. I struggle with making any effort that I am uncertain will be rewarded. So instead, I make stuff that requires little effort, and so in the short term 'costs' me less when it receives scant attention.
But the long term costs are huge.
Now I know many of us are in this exact boat, and so my current way forward is to puke stuff out. The exercise of putting these self-doubts out into the world is to let the sunshine melt their empty dharmas away. Because it's really simple bad psychology.
If you are not willing to take any risks, you will never attempt anything worthwhile. I know, and am repeating myself, that many of you over analyze as I do. And I know, as you do, that we may not all get rich blogging, or posting videos of felt puppets - but it's fun. It's fun to share, and every once in awhile to connect.
This blog was named after what I've long joked will be the title of my autobiography. And that's kind of what it is. And it's useful to me to admit some of this stuff publicly - because most of these 'issues' are so thin - so insubstantial, that the slightest exposure melts them away.
Leaving getting on with things the best and easiest way forward.
Which is way more comfy than inaction.
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