Reevaluation: Level 1

So shockingly enough I've been doing a lot of thinking about my circumstances lately. I know, I know, that's so unlike me. Anyway, I've come to a few conclusions, the specifics of which I can't really get into right now. However, I will mention a few highlights.

1. I tend to overanalyze situations far too frequently. I mean we all know that I'm just going to go with my gut in the end, despite how crazy or self destructive that impulse is, so why all the wasted grey matter? Perhaps it's because I have too much time in a meditative state on the train. What else am I going to do with the ghost in the machine while my body goes through the motions of keeping the city mobile? In any case, putting some thought into my actions is certainly not a bad thing, but lately it's getting ridiculous...particularly since all that thought has little relation to my decisions or reactions. If anything, it only helps me to justify the action I was going to take anyway.

2. I'm at my best when I'm feeling just a little lost or troubled. I think I feed on my own complications far too voraciously. At some point I have to wonder if I subconsciously sabotage myself just so that I'll have more fodder for the creativity furnace. I feel more at peace when I'm dealing with drama and I write and just in general think better when I am writing or thinking about pain. It doesn't have to be my own either. I want to watch you bleed, too, even as I try my best to help you lick your wounds. My darkest or most melancholy thoughts always come to the surface when I'm writing, and this serves the dual purpose of both creating interest or conflict in my writing and purging me of those feelings. Once they are expressed, they are dealt with. I think. Although not always...some feelings need to be expressed over and over and over and over. Some will never ever be dealt with. What can ya do?

Curiously, the misery that was the last bit of my marriage did not produce these same results. That was more of a numbing experience than anything else. I wonder what's up with that?

3. I don't really know what I want. I think I do, but I don't. Nearly every time I decide I want something all of the sudden other possibilities come into play that make me reconsider. Then it becomes a decision between chasing this new dragon or sticking with the old one. At least I rarely regret my decisions once made. It just strikes me as odd...so often I go from a drought to a downpour with so little in between. The fluidity of this desert life. Inconsistency of thought and emotion...it's a mad world, and I rule it with an iron heart. Actually, I don't. Rereading the above, I have to say that often the choice is no choice at all. My actions are dictated beforehand, not by fate or destiny, but simply because being who I am, I have no other option than to choose one path over the other. Birds must sing, brides must cry, clowns must drink too much, and I have to do what I have to do. It's hard to explain this without going into examples that I'd rather not examine, but basically my personality, my "self", dictates my behaviour despite my own sometimes-better instincts.

4. There are some relationships that I thought were dealt with and clearly defined and that I now know are not. I won't get into specifics here but it is interesting. Actually, now that I consider it further, how can any relationship or even simple interaction with any other human being EVER be clearly defined? We're all flitting from idea to idea and feeling to feeling like flies on a bloated body. Put two people in the same room and you have near infinite potential. Wars, religions, mass suicides and surprise birthday parties may all be planned. Add a third person and you may cause Armageddon. Or you may have a few drinks and watch Star Wars for the 473 time. Certainly seems more likely. However, the possibility of anything happening is right there in that room. That's probably why our so-called "leaders" make sure that we're all numb and sated on TV and sex and religion and drugs and commercialism. Helps make it easier to maintain the status quo.

So where am I going with all these lovely new insights? No where really. Change may be in the wind, but it will be at a time and a place of my choosing. And it will likely happen so gradually that you'll never even notice. Or not...historically speaking it could go either way. In the meantime, here we have a lovely little look into Mike's thoughts, or should I say Stryder's dementia? Enjoy!