I fell sick again. I fell pretty hard, too. It coincided with me pretty much overtraining for my fitness tests, and my arms were so sore yesterday and the day before that I had to ask my wife to help me towel off after I showered, and to dry my hair, and to put on my t-shirt. Which was pretty embarassing. I lost my appetite completely, and subsisted entirely on 100 plus and packets of milo. I lay in bed for hours tossing and turning. It’s been really nasty. I feel like I’m past the worst of it, but I can’t be too careful with this.
So already I’ve fallen off the wagon of doing at least one word vomit a day. I didn’t get any work done on Friday, though I managed to send my daily update email as promised, somehow, through the delirium. Thankfully I had planned to finish my week’s work by Thursday, so all that didn’t get done was “extra” stuff.
I’m re-reading a bunch of old vomits and juxtaposing that against some chats with a friend who seems to be going through what I went through. And I was saying things like, “All that’s holding me back is a lack of discipline, structure, routine.”
(here I left for lunch, came back home, got tired and decided to rest instead, and rested for days without writing)
And you know, those things are valid, but not necessarily the right lens through which to view things, within the context of “I want to fix things and get better.” It’s possible to say valid-things all day and yet not go anywhere. (See again: “I didn’t do well because I didn’t study.”) I realized this mainly when I was listening to my friend repeat those things to me (via IM) with a sort of deadness in his tone and a general sort of “I-don’t-really-know, I’m-just-saying-what-I-think-I’m-supposed-to-say”. And I realize… you do need to have something that you’re working TOWARDS. The discipline, structure and routine do not exist because they do not have a compelling enough reason to exist.
So what do I want? I must’ve written about a dozen “what I want” posts by now, some of them written in moments of passionate earnest, others written in sort of depressed, dejected frustration. Well. In this case I think repetition is key. I want to destroy the old me that was pained, frustrated, anxious, weary. I no longer want to even bother trying to “do justice” to him. The old-me was haphazardly, randomly constructed, a mess of inherited neuroses and all sorts of annoying issues. I realize that I use Trello for work quite regularly, and so I’ve created a personal Trello board for myself where I list out all the things that I know to be true. I list out a bunch of things that I hate. I hate being sick. I hate being weak. I hate being unreliable. I hate being wasteful. I hate being unfair and unkind– to others and myself. I hate being unfocused. I hate being unprepared. I hate feeling like I’ve reached some sort of peak or plateau, that I’m done learning most of what I’m ever going to learn. That’s bullshit. I’ve definitely learned less than 20% of everything I’m ever going to learn. In fact, considering the world we live in, I’ve probably learned less than 5% of everything I’m ever going to learn. Probably 1% of everything I could possibly learn.
And the thing is, all sorts of book knowledge right now doesn’t help me go anywhere. I asked a few friends to school me about the Greek situation, just so I have a semi-informed POV. But I have no interest in developed a much more accurate POV because there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not going to save Greece. Hell, over the past year it feels like I can barely save myself. I need saving. And I need to save myself, because nobody else is going to do it for me.
What is this saving…? I feel like I might have written recently (or thought about writing) about the idea that “someday my prince will surely come”. Someday my life will work out beautifully. I still do believe that, fundamentally. I believe it because there are too many times where I find myself thinking that I’m perceiving something other people aren’t. But these perceptions are currently a source of distraction and misery. They’re worthless as long as I can’t do anything about them. And my ability to do things is a whole other animal. My ability to execute.
It feels like I fell sick, as I often do, because of bad management. I am a terrible CEO of Visakan, Inc. I spend most of the time waffling off avoiding anything of importance because I’m afraid of smearing my ‘perfect’ perceptions and ideals and imagination with imperfect words and deeds and doings. But hey, fuck it. Imperfect is the only way forward. I’m sure I’ve written that before, but I’ll write it again as many times as I have to so that this stuff really gets ingrained into my mind and the way my brain works. I didn’t do word vomits for a few days while I was sick. So be it. I’m coming right back, and I’ll be better and stronger because of it. There is no turning back. I want to grow up. I want to be an adult. I don’t want to have to explain to people why I couldn’t do something or why I failed. I never want to do that ever again. I want to instead be explaining the actions I’ve taken, and the plans I have for further actions to be taken. If I’m 1% as great as my subconscious thinks I am, we’ll be achieving amazing things. The thing is that my action muscle is maybe 1% as strong as it needs to be. But that’s no matter. That’s just a matter of training, discipline, structure, routine, habit. And all I need for that is to do something again and again, every day, and then to add things to it. To add reflections. To add plans. I have my daily vomits. I fell down but I am back up. I will work hard and I will keep going. For a future that is full of difficult challenges. That will be the pleasurable sort of pain, like the warm soreness you get when you’ve been working out for a while– not the horrific ache of helplessness.
That’s what I want. I want to be strong. I want to be able to cut through the bullshit that life throws at me with sharp cuts. And when I’m done with my personal obligations– and I WILL get on top of them– I will help others do the same. And in the spaces we carve out for ourselves, we will rest peacefully, under the protection of each other’s watchful eyes.