Moving on up, to the good times.

Depression and anxiety - good doctor M taught me - comes from feeling a loss of control - I could feel it mounting yesterday as the wants and needs of my family were in conflict - how pleasing one, displeased at least another - how the multivariate equation was unresolvable. Pouring all my energies into finding the highest stable state, I was burning myself out.



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.

Douchebag, heal thyself

I have of late, wherefore I know pretty much precisely, lossed much of my mirth.

I'm letting myself flounder between seeking a serious job and making a serious go of some projects of my own.

I'm wallowing in my own filth essentially. And about 7 of you have been following the steps. Thank you. Perhaps if I'd actually been wallowing in my own filth, and filmed it, I could be a You Tube sensation in one of those European countries where that shit (ha) is actually popular.

What I've been struggling with is: what do I want to do that has value? More precisely - what do I want to do that I can sell to others?

And it comes down to helping. And it is a deviously difficult windy road between the selfishness of 'I want' to the potentially remunerative road of 'helping others to help yourself'

When I work as a Picture Editor (link) I help other's tell their stories. I like it, but I've got stories of my own I want to tell.

As a Dad, I'm almost constantly helping - I love it, but it doesn't fulfil my ego's desire for recognition and praise.

I could teach - I could share what I know about editing - and maybe I will. I've certainly thought about that one.

But what I want to do is follow my curiosity - explore the world, both inner and outer, and try and understand my place in it. Our place in it. You know a mix of tweedy adventure and philosophy.

Which is why letting myself remain mired in the foothills of taking action is very frustrating. These top of mind frustrations - this indecisiveness, really only has one solution. Get over it! Get over yourself and actually take the steps that get you off of the floor and onto the next new thing.

The only justification for posting any of this is that perhaps one reader will recognize something of themselves and know they're not alone. That we easily become so weighted down by our own bullshit - our own empty dharmas - that we remain stuck in the same ruts for days…months…years.

People have made fortunes helping others help themselves.

I suppose if 'Getting to Comfy' was a business model that would be it. 'Here…this is what I struggled with…this is what I did, or didn't do…this is what happened.' What the introspective life does give you is quite a bit of experience with analysis - deconstructing what you're thinking and why. Not necessarily tools to do anything about it, but at least some clarity. So when other people tell you their problems you're like "Oh yeah I know what you mean - when I was last in that type of obsessive depressive nightmare I did …. x"

And maybe that's helpful?

Anyhow - once I buy my iphone holder tapping the European market might be the way to go.

Otherwise - time to move on. Endless self-questioning is pathological. There are tonnes more interesting questions to get to. Though like Boynton says: "ooh bellybutton, you're so fine…ooh bellybutton, I'm so happy you're mine"

Writing is Thinking

If you aren't using Scrivener - and I aren't but intend to - for organizing writing and other projects you're in for a treat.

And in following Scrivener on Twitter I came across a great testimonial from a user. And the line he wrote that I took away is 'writing is thinking'

Because I've been wondering 'what the crapzaki am I posting this stuff for?'

And it became clear that most of why I write, is because I like to think, and putting things in words takes some of the pressure off trying to hold everything between your ears.

So I do it for pleasure. Or therapy. Or both.

Now writing for others is a whole different beast. Last night Bruno said "We've got to make art for arts sake" and I said "That's bullshit, I make art for attention" - even though I knew it wasn't really true.

What it made me realize is that I write because I'm constantly trying to figure things out FOR MYSELF - and that's ok. It doesn't pay the bills, but its why I do it.

Now writing for others is a beast of a different colour, and I'm recognizing now why I've never really overcome my resistance to it.

It's a bit too much of a performance - a bit too much of 'do I need people to tell me my ideas are good before I believe my ideas are good?' -- it's where people who work a job and do their art for themselves are probably much happier than guys like me who are trying to do both. Ultimately, I mainly just write for myself - and then wonder why the shit I rush to the web isn't super fascinating.

So that's Thursday. It's got me thinking a little more clearly on how my motivations are a bit muddled and how trying to reconcile Money and Art is possible, but might lead you down some dead ends and twisty roads before you get anywhere.

Which I think has left me somewhat more comfy.

How about you, loyal readers and automated web bots? Any empty dharmas that have stared you in the face until you managed to look at them differently?

Dust in a sunbeam

So many times, like now, I’ve wanted to “be productive” without actually acting wilfully. I am an almost wilfully unwilful person - I have this aversion to over planning (Smith might suggest I have an aversion to under or “any” planning) - but instead enjoy a random walk approach to creativity. Start typing and see if it goes anywhere, doodle, screw around in photoshop or whatever new software has gotten my attention.

Often, like now, there's an associated excuse - I’m tired or hungover, or tired and hungover, or burnt from work or whatever - with the passage of years I’ve learned what that part of it is is that impulse control goes down and compulsivity goes up when you’re fatigued - so it's harder to focus than usual.

So I let the typer take me where it may, and if I am lucky - or more accurately, if I’ve been writing with any degree of consistency or discipline, I get “somewhere” faster.

I call it the foothills of competence - the real slightly rolling green fields of actual effort that real workers have passed through years before. You are starting to exert yourself, but so minimally that you hardly notice it.

Any accomplished artist will likely tell you some version of the importance of just showing up. Of maintaining some form of discipline so that you are at least stretching your creative muscles in some consistent form each day. A great recent version of this for writers was how if you force yourself to write no matter what mood you are in, you will write when you are happy and sad, tired and excited, and that exercise - of writing in all those different states, will give you access to different ideas and feelings, mental states, than if you just write, or play music, or sculpt when you “feel like it”.

I’m working on my discipline. I’ve always been working on my discipline, and I want to get passed the foothills and really start exerting myself to climb some kinds of mountains. But I recognize too I’m like a cat on the floor. Stretching my claws out reaching for dust in a sunbeam. Not actually hunting, but still curious - trying to get somewhere, but staying where it's comfy. Knowing the sun will set and I’ll have to move, just not yet. Or at least not very quickly.