This Day

Woke up at six tired from staying up until 1:30 am. Looked through Instagram searching for something, perhaps a field of useful knowledge, but instead finding only jokey and juvenile memes. A scene from the 1980s movie Aliens redubbed with obscene audio. It makes me question why I keep returning to look at all these things, wondering if modern social media is addictive after all. I sometimes think that it might be. Have I trained the algorithm to show me something novel and instructive, or has it trained me to waste my time and show me ads? I returned to sleep around 8 am, and dreamt of my ex-girlfriend feeling the pain of that loss and my helplessness regarding my inability to synthesize the meaning of it with regards to my future.

When I awoke, I made an effort to shower and take care of my basic hygiene. Said my prayers, and then found myself driving into the city. Why did I do that? I only end up spending money. Did I really need to go out today? Why the city and not somewhere else? The Coast? Part of me thinks that I need to get out so I don't become too insular or isolated in my own head. 

I had left too late to go to my usual weekend restaurant, so I tried something new. After depositing my check at the driver through bank, I drove to the other end of town to a corporate diner, and had steak and eggs, spending nearly forty dollars all told.

After my meal, I also stopped by the grocery store where I bought some food for the upcoming week. Tuna. Bananas. Chili. Blackberries. Salad. Fried chicken. Gatorade. I spent some time walking around and looking at things.

I bought some summer shorts, and shampoo aside from groceries. It also happened that I saw a one hundred dollar birdhouse for sale for fifty dollars. I eventually bought it after a brief phonecall with my mom who suggested Dad would like it very much. 

Now done shopping, I drove back home. I ate the blackberries in the car. On the way home, the cowling on the driver side wheel of the car partially came off and made a noise as it dragged on the highway and hit the wheel. I drove straight home for twenty minutes to deliver the birdhouse, but also fix the car by using zip ties to secure the cowling. The slapping noises had worried me, but I made it home without incident. I feared a cop might pull me over leaving me without free options to fix it, but mercifully I didn't encounter anyone.

The birdhouse was a hit with Dad. He couldn't wait to use it. I needed his help with my car, but he had to drive a granddaughter to the pool, so I waited with Mom in the living room for him to return. Mom read her book in the chair, and I surfed my phone making small talk about her day. I found out that after Dad had dropped off the granddaughter and returned home, he had gone to the shop to collect his bird seed, an indicator of his excitement. 

In the carport, he gave me the right wrench for me to fix the car (temporarily), which is unusual for me. I don't usually have the wherewithal to fix these kinds of problems by myself. I felt a strange pride and relief that the repair I made was holding up. 

I took my leave of my parents and returned to the shop by myself to drop off the food I had bought earlier, and was gratified again by the successful car repair, which was tested on the road at top speed. No noises.

There, I watched some videos, played computer games, marked my purchases in my special purchase book, and marveled at how much money I had spent today. Forty for breakfast, one hundred for groceries and clothing, fifty dollars for a birdhouse.

At ten o'clock, I decided it was time to leave, so I locked up and went to the other grocery store in town, buying ice cream and pepperoni sticks. One a carb treat which I shouldn't have bought, and the other a cheap protein that I hoped would help with night cravings. 

By the end of the day, I was in bed watching television and writing this down on my phone. I am somewhat disillusioned by my over preoccupation with games and social media. As a senior adult, I know it is all empty, useless time wasting getting me no closer to a secure future, but I don't know what else to do much of the time. I manage my feelings as best I can, holding to the hope that I will find a useful and fulfilling path that avoids ruin and letting other people down. Isolation is ramping up in my old age, and the "not-knowing" what to do every day is a stressor that is constantly increasing.

Tomorrow is another chance to try again. To make choices, to try and plan for the future. I fear calamities.

June Worries

Still depressed about the state of things and the immediate future. Being older means that you have more things to think about, if only because you have lived more life than others. 

I struggled to get out of bed this morning. Thinking about failed relationships while also surfing too much on the social media apps on my phone. I lay in dim light trying to pray for insight into my problems, and a vision for how to come back to a less lonely existence filled with the simple comforts of life without worry for how to pay for the basics of the physical minimum: food and rent mainly.

Eventually, I got out of bed, said morning prayers, and got dressed. Right now, my course in life seems to be to wait for disaster to change things. I wish I was more proactive, but my mood and physical well being, which I am sure are intertwined, is preventing me from doing anything at the moment. Maybe a few micro-changes will help me get the ball rolling. We'll see.

May Thoughts

Been thinking a lot about the ends of things, specifically my end. Things and projects I should do before my health leaves me and old age really settle in.

One: I've been thinking about writing a memoir about my life. Lots of thoughts and memories of my past, especially my earliest memories of home and school. The past certainly feels like another place sometimes. A place that no longer exists in a physical dimension, but locked in a time you can't go to. Childhood in kindergarten back in North Carolina. 

I also worry about maintaining my physical health. My biological father was only fourteen years older than I am now when he died. I keep hearing stories about my elders passing, in a way that I didn't hear when I was young. Struggles with dementia, mobility, loneliness, etc. It's worrying especially considering they're all from a generation that had better access to money, healthcare, and social services than I ever will. 

There is a park that I used to hike four miles through, that I would visit about two or three times a week. I haven't gone in several years. It was a bit of mental health and physical maintenance that I managed to do that I still think is beneficial. I would wake at seven, drive there, walk for two hours, and drive back. It was a big time commitment, but doable. My sleep problems are getting in the way of my doing that again. I can't wake up early enough to go. 

There are more worries about finances, family with disabilities, younger family members facing difficult futures, but it is all too much to go through here. 

I hoping to find a solution that works for all this.

Willpower

Today's meditation is about willpower. Strange to ponder, but willpower, often thought as solely a power of the spirit or the mind, seems to be significantly tied to physical well being. It increases with positive mood, happiness, contentment, and wanes with trouble, sorrow, and depression. I've noticed that a good meal, a meaningful interaction with a friend, and being rested, makes my determination to do something new, apply an effort, or continue to battle through ongoing difficulties stronger. 

And, of course, it is also strange to think how thoroughly infused life is with difficulties and setbacks. Every stage of life presents a new challenge or obstacle to overcome, and plateaus of achievement or contentment seem to be fleeting. A teenage kid struggles in school, but finally graduates, only to be faced with new challenges at a first job or in new relationships, not to mention mental or physical challenges life presents us all sooner or later. One wisdom of being an adult is recognizing how fallible one's parents are, what mental or physical challenges they faced. If our parents faced life challenges from even before we were born, what hope do we have to avoid the same or similar challenges that they faced? Challenges never cease. 

So, willpower must, it seems to me, be practiced frequently and often, so it carries a person through the challenges; and that, dear reader, is very hard. 

I've heard that psychology asserts the idea that once an unwanted behavioral pattern is recognized, it is easier to overcome. To use a colloquial proverb, "when you know better, you do better." I guess that is true to some extent. 

It helps me to think of gardening: one may know how to plant corn, but it takes effort to go about doing it, and patience while you nurture its growth. I might know the benefit of a behavior change, but facing the lived reality of doing it, reinforcing it, overcoming internal and external pressures like angst, weariness, and sometimes outright oppression from the world is difficult. A resolve to be better has to be patiently supported and reinforced even through setbacks, to carry out an intentional exertion of perseverance that one may not wish to make. All summed up in the cliche, "easier said than done."

I want to captain my life smoothly through habits and recognition of universal truths as I experience the hard times of difficult emotions, physical and emotional challenges, and uncomfortable permanent, unchangeable realities. As old as I am, I'm still trying to find the balance. When I feel set back, I try to tell myself that a patient gets better by taking medicine. If I experience the impulse to give up, that is throwing the medicine away. I will not do that. I will give hope of positive change a chance. It's the only way forward.

Hope and Effort

Feeling like I have wasted a lot of time today in the digital world of video games, one game specifically. 

The joke about some games is that progress is simply "number goes up." No real discovery, learning, or achievement--just "number goes up." I've played this game that way too. It is not a story I am particularly interested in, partly because the lore is too vast, keeps changing, and does not have any real 'literary merit.' There are no grand lessons on either life or character. 

So, I come away from today, from escaping into a game whose only interest to me is that number, feeling empty. I could have done so many other things, but my mental health, moody reflection on my childhood, and my general uncertainty about the future, makes me feel like doing anything else aside from escape is too pointless and hard, requires a level of effort I don't have at the moment. I am still getting over a flu that lingers in my chest. I will change this time wasting behavior. I know I will change. But today? It's all down the drain.

Today's Thought

The insight for today is that world view controls emotions and attitude. Most of the despair I might feel over a given "situation" (deliberately unspecified) might be a result of my view of why it occurred, how events led to its occurring, and the significance or meaning I then assign to the event. And my world view, or outlook on life, will color all of that "why," "how," and "meaning."

For example, a peasant in medieval Europe might blame a plague on the turning of the Wheel of Fortune, being born under a bad star, or their being cursed by an evil eye, etc. Modern science, of course, would explain the disease carried in the flea living on a rat, and then would explain how we have an avenue to improve hygiene, living conditions, and reduce the occurrences of disease. But a peasant hundreds of years ago has none of that knowledge, so would therefore be unhappy at being sick, mad at the supposed evil person who cursed them with an evil eye, and feel despair for being treated wrongfully by fortune. 

Therefore, I make an analogy between myself and that peasant. Like him, I don't know everything, and I use my world view to fill in the gaps. As a result, I can assign wrong causes to any given situation, extrapolate meanings and symbolism, and give myself over to despair. A bad experience driving, might lead me to blame poor drivers, might cause me to over generalize which sort of people are bad drivers, and then cause me to feel anger at a blameless group. (A terrible example because I don't want to be specific about what experience led to my having this general thought about world view.)

Anyhow, I hated this day. I let myself down, felt despair, and struggled to adapt to experiences I cannot control, but could have tremendous impact on my life or the lives of others. I know I had a bout of depression today.

My glimmer of hope is the lesson of the day I mentioned at the beginning. I *could* view the world as a dark place that will only get darker for myself, but to have hope, then I must cultivate an attitude of gratitude for what I do have, the virtues I have earned and will carry with me. This view of gratitude will go a long way to helping me have a better world view overall, and avoid the pits of despair. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. Gratitude is not lying to yourself to feel better. It is acknowledging the positives and helping your brain see them in their proper place, integrated perhaps with some bad stuff, but not overwhelmed by it. 

I have health. I have family. I have options for the future still. I have had good things happen to me in the past. I have a perspective that gives meaning to these bad experiences as life does and will continue to present uncomfortable things that likely will not change. I will try to get better going forward. I will try to commit to myself again, and recognize some of the permanent improvements I have made. I will try to develop what is, essentially, a skill.

Troubled Waters

Self care is a "troubled" phrase for me. I usually suspect that when people say they need some "self care," they're usually trying to disguise self interest or selfishness as some kind of virtue. Service to others is really what we all need, and that usually requires sacrifice of time, attention, and sometimes money, a fact that is counter-intuitive to most people in my society, and often unexamined in their own personal lives. 

Still, depression can lead to "self-neglect." One stops showering, stops eating healthy, attending to necessary work, allows the quality of the tasks at a job slide, etc.

I fear I may have fallen into a self neglect trap, that in some ways, has lasted several years. Ever since the breakup of my former relationship, a relationship that was deeply meaningful to me, I have struggled to captain the ship of my life in a direction that would have had positive benefit in my life today. Some opportunities come only once, or not at all. I fear I neglected the proper stewardship of my opportunities, and sacrificed my prospects for other people's wants and needs. I wasted time by hiding, for fear of making other people angry or uncomfortable.

So, today, even as I hid from the tasks I have been dreading in a computer game that took seven hours of my time away from me, I thought about my need for true "self-care," because the opposite, "self-neglect," is getting in the way of service to others, or at least to myself--a neglect that would also have terrible impact for others, something I don't want. Strange to think that neglecting yourself leads to other people's eventually distress, but it is true.

While playing that game, collecting upgrades and finishing quests, I also watched a TV series online from the 90s. The appeal of that show, apart from nostalgia, is the easy/joking relationship between a gentle father and lackadaisical son. I think I am attracted to the idea of a gentle parent concerned about my well being, even as my own crazy life takes me in absurd directions that I can't predict, let alone prepare for. 

Of course, I know that sitcoms are not real life and that the relationships depicted in them are nothing more than fantasy. 

On the other hand, in the still and perfect waters of art, fiction gives us room to imagine little scenarios of a smooth and happy life of growth and care for others that is deeply appealing. If only one can mirror just a small facet of that appeal, life can be all the more sweet in that self-same degree.