So, it’s August 1st 2018. I slept around midnight last night, and woke up at about 645am this morning. I walked slowly to Chong Pang to have breakfast, and then home. I showered, clicked around a little bit )with the tabs I had left open). And now it’s 915am. And… I’m a little sleepy. Hah.
The last day of June was my last day of work at my previous company.
Now it’s 1030; I spent the previous hour on Twitter posting images from my art dump telegram channel.
I vaguely had this idea that I wanted to spend my first month decompressing. And that’s more or less what I did. I slept late practically every night, at around 4am, sometimes as late as 6am, and I would wake up around 2pm, sometimes later. I don’t think I had much of a problem with this. Why did I do this? I think it was my way of being alone in the dark, alone in the quiet. I want to believe that there was some sort of deeper wisdom underlying this, that my soul was healing itself. That’s a nice story. But there’s also a less pretty story, one that’s… defined by bad habits, unhealthiness. What’s the truth? Can I know it at the present moment? Probably not. So I think what’s best is to just carry both possible stories with me, and focus on doing what I think is best in the present moment, and moving forward.
I want to start writing like a motherfucker again. This is my first vomit on August 1st 2018. I want to write at least 1 vomit per day, every single day until the end of the year. I’d like to do more than that if possible. And I believe that it’s possible. But I don’t know it for certain. I can’t take it for granted. I want to start lifting again. I should actually go and lift right now. Or right after this word vomit. And then clean out my todo list. I want to make it a habit to update my calendar every day with whatever I’m doing on any given day.
I wanted to take some time to think and talk about my feelings. A thing that I noticed within a couple of days after I was done being a salaryman was that my emotions seemed a lot bigger and livelier. It was as though my subconscious had been repressing or compressing all my emotions. I didn’t allow myself to be sad. I didn’t allow myself to be angry. I felt very shut in, very trapped by my daily circumstances. I’ve written a word vomit about this – a man lives in a box, a life of quiet desperation. I wrote this in March 2016. “Sometimes he fantasies about writing fiction but he never really gets around to it.” Why? “It’s some of the only real social interaction he has every day” – why? “All options seem bleak and futile – the most probable outcome seems to be to work until death.”
“He wants to read big novels but finds them intimidating.”
“He wants to get fit but progress is slow.”
“He’s only 26 and he can’t quite remember what it was like to not be tired.”
I’m in a place now where I get to fix all of this. I get to really sit down for days and days and ask myself why. What’s going on. What am I going after. I think what I’m pussyfooting around is that I’m quite embarrassed by how I’ve spent the past month, even though I do think I truly believe that I’m entitled to have spent it that way. It just seems a little… unimaginative? Dumb? But why not be dumb for a while?
This is my central challenge right now. I’m trying to shed my past selves and refashion myself. I’m trying to learn to trust myself. I’m trying to challenge myself to be better, without getting overwhelmed with tedious emotions like guilt and shame. Keep things simple, keep things clear.
I had dinner with my family yesterday, and I was again reminded of how, while I bear no ill will towards my family, my home was, to me, a really unpleasant place to be. I know there are definitely worse environments to have been in. Some people would say that I should be grateful for what I had, when there are so many people in the world in truly toxic and abusive environments. I don’t think I’d call my childhood either of those things. It was just… unconducive…? For me to become the person I wanted to become. And I am really blessed and lucky that I was able to leave that environment. Leaving that environment, for me, was tied to marriage, and that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. I think I’ve done a fairly decent-ish job of being a decent husband. I don’t know. I’m probably underwhelming in some way. I don’t know how to talk about any of this. I want to be honest with myself. I want to be honest with my loved ones.
Anyway… the point is. I need to be the parent, brother, friend, teacher, guru, nanny, supervisor, manager, boss etc to myself that I wish I had. I’m old enough. I’m experienced enough. I’m in charge here. I’m going to be fair to myself. I’m going to give myself space to relax and have fun, while also working towards my goals. I’ve written about this so many times. I’m bored of writing about this. But I’m also thinking about that last psych post – something about how the work is always boring, while the drama is always interesting. Well… I’m going to go and lift. It’s just something to start with. I’m feeling a bit tired and sleepy, but I’m going to power through. And I’m going to sleep early tonight and wake early tomorrow too. Every day is a new day. I suppose the next thing I could do to move my vomits forward would be to write my thoughts on older vomits. I’ll start somewhere in the middle, or maybe go randomly, and then work my way around from there.