I would experience a certain exalted satisfaction if I finish another vomit tonight, because then I’d gone from 305 on my fridge to 310. (I keep track of my vomits on a piece of squared paper on my fridge, with 1000 squares to mark with X’s).
I guess I’d like to talk about self-flagellation. That’s the process where I beat myself up internally– often without even realizing it– because I’m mimicking processes and behaviors that I must’ve witnessed when I was younger. I’ve internalized the way my parents talked to me, the way my teachers talked to me, even as I thought that I was being some sort of independent, self-directed individual who did what he wanted.
I was trying to explain meditation to some dude on reddit, and he didn’t quite get it. I’m not exactly Mr Meditator myself, but I’m pretty good at communicating ideas that I think I understand. So I said something along the lines of– “your mind is like a tank of water and sand– some things in it are shiny and valuable, while other things are dark and terrible. And you are not your mind– you are IN your mind. And most of the time, you can’t even see the shiny and dark things, especially because you’ve kicked up too much sand and everything is muddy.
“Meditation is about sitting still and allowing the dust and sand to settle at the bottom. It isn’t necessarily bliss in itself– you may encounter some dark, ugly shit. You may realize that you’re a terrible person who’s been doing terrible things. But the thing is not to kick up dust. It is to relax, and allow yourself to deal with the things naturally. This can sound weird, but the problem is that most of the time we’re too busy writhing and flagellating, which kicks up a dust. And then you can’t see, and then you get nervous and anxious and all that nasty stuff.”
Well, something like that. And it stuck with me. It made me realize that I’m quite a kicker-up-of-dust.
I suppose it’s worth thinking about what this looks like in real life. In the average day, when I wake up in the morning, there’s already a bunch of dust in the air. I’m thinking about going to work, I’m thinking about what work I haven’t done yet, what’s due, what’s pending on other people. I ought to take a few minutes to calm down and allow the sand to settle, and then plan my day properly. Then when I get to work, I ought to do the same thing again. Sit in silence, allow the dust to settle, and pick the most important thing.
Halfway through writing this vomit I ended up on Imgur clicking around mindlessly. Why did I do that? It’s 1130pm. I was hoping to sleep early. Why did I go to Imgur? I don’t know. And I opened a whole bunch of tabs, too. I suppose I like quick shots of entertainment. The thing is… why do I queue up all the tabs? I don’t know, but midway I felt like I ought to complete this instead of leaving it halfway. It’ll feel really good to hit 310. Not super amazing or anything, just nice. My battery is down to 16%, and I’d like to complete this without having to leave my seat, without having to charge my mac. Ideally I’ll finish this before it gets to 5%– I’m hoping 10%– and then drink some mlik, take a shower and prepare for bed.
So I suppose I have an opportunity now not just to talk about self-flagellation, but to actively choose not to practice it. Yes, it’s late. I’m making a decision to finish up this vomit, and then I will shower. I will not fall into the old trap I used to where I start making all these promises to myself, where I get all anxious… I’m done with that shit. Yeah.
Well, that was funny. I didn’t make it. I got further distracted by other nonsense, and then my battery got low so I plugged in my mac and went to shower. It’s 12:27 now and I’m just going to soldier through with this one until it’s done. I’m not particularly impressed but I’m not particularly upset either. This one was what it was. What matters now is that I finish this, ship out that thing I want to ship out, and then sleep well and wake early so I get to my first appointment on time tomorrow.
Is there anything to be learnt from all of this? While in the shower I was thinking about whether I ought to give my vomits ratings out of 10, in terms of how well I thought I was doing. But it gets messy. Do I rate all vomits by my current standards? Would my early vomits be unfairly disadvantaged because I was a weaker writer then? Or would I be surprised to find that some of my best work is actually from the early days? I then thought about starting from the start, and instead of giving things a numerical rating, I’d just order them from best to worst, sorting each subsequent vomit within the pile. But that sounds awfully tedious, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hold all of them in my head as I figure out which is better and which is worse. So I suppose maybe if I were going to rank my vomits, I would have to start with broader buckets. Top 50% or bottom 50%. Then take those buckets and again, divide those into the top and bottom halfs of each. Seems like a bit of a tiresome proposition with not much value apart from mere curiosity… I might be better off reading (or even writing) a book.
So it’s an interesting game, all of this. It’s all lines in the sand. And I’m still trying to figure out exactly how seriously I ought to take it. I’m guessing it’s “Don’t take it too seriously, but take it.”