Well, I guess I’m making some progress in this story.
See, I think the irony of blocking everything is my difficulty in replacing it. This point is touched upon often but I always forget about it.
Too bad lobotomies won’t fix the disaffected schizoid – too bad how it’s swept under and the Medical Ministry rules the day effortlessly. If only I could believe their doctrine! Then I could “rewire” my “mind” even though such deficiencies are in my character not in my chemicals and even talking about these things marks you as a heretic or callous, heartless, indifferent to the traumas and other sicknesses in the boring game of playing Doctor. It’s infectious! I hope a Doctor could cleanse me, assure me that I passed in my Psychological Profile Audit.
A lot of prickly discussion points hide an ethical question at its root: at what point are you responsible? When do you gain AUTONOMY? When are your actions yours and yours alone? There is no answer, is there? It seems you only gain autonomy when you are already at death’s door.
Well, anyway, I take responsibility and confess to my dear reader my failures. What first started out as research on fixing an Anki deck turned into a “well I’m already this far-gone” and so I spent some time catching up on forums. A mere 5 days I lasted. Is it shameful?
I guess it could be shameful, but it’s also amusing to think that if you ban some websites you’ll stumble into an ideal life. I don’t really have that much shame seeing as I write with an assumption my reputation is already smelly and sickly, gum on the shoe sort of appraisal and this is quite preferable – only up from here.
Anyway, about my failures. Ideally one’s lifestyle would be totally offline. But when I roam around outside there are only houses, cars, and dancing with death at crosswalks. Target, Walmart, greek food and a burger joint nestled between parking lots and four lane roads. An American flag too, of course.
So I’m not sure if outside is my solution. It used to be bike rides, but not anymore. Walking is okay if you learn to enjoy the silent nature spots. Silent nature walks certainly are a part of the solution, but only a cog in the new-life machinery.
Anyway, it seems the “virtual world” is the only place you can make “steps forward” whatever “forward” could possibly mean. Maybe my Calvinist brethren can finally cast me aside as hopeless. Even if I’m sobbing and bumbling about how I’m trying my best, they’ll break the news: I’ve lost God’s favour at birth. Before me with my choice of life so I’ve been reduced to the shivering blob on the floor. Let the chapel doors creak together until a sliver of light remains.
まあ、いいや〜 (´･ω･`)
Well, here was my confession. You can dig your heel into my back and cast me aside as the plebeian I’ll forever be. Perhaps… perhaps.
But you know what? The path to glory is paved with hell… and there’s basically no point to such a path… but the doors all close on you and you’ll be left in a darkness so… you’ll probably have to go down that path anyway even if you hope to remain in the shadows for most of your life scraping by with isekai novels… so the joke is that you have to convince yourself it’s a good experience, conquering any trials, tribulations – along with a foreboding sense of being a farm animal for higher entities to extract your emotional swings. I mean, that’s the challenge, and as long as you aren’t convincing yourself you’re only inconveniencing yourself.
So you know, it really is a good experience: I do believe it at this point. If it isn’t, it’s my fault and my fault alone. Become your own Doctor! I usually prescribe myself some snacks and toons to hobble along. It works wonders at wasting time and doing nothing for me beyond kicking the can, so with this current visit something must change unless I want to be…
In other words, let’s try again!
Waltzing back and forth in my quarters, swashing around my almond milk chalice, so I direct to you the central issue: I don’t have any goals.
I mean, we all have goals we mutter a bit when people ask you what are you thinking of doing. But I don’t know if I have any actual goals. The issue with swallowing taoism full sale is that I’ve effectively killed most grandiose desires. At this moment, I fully believe whatever desires I try to achieve will be met with an equal amount of despair, so it’s better to not desire anything.
So that has to change. My siren song needs a chant lyric: prove it. Prove that getting all the things you want makes you miserable anyway. Let confirmation be one’s mana source. Thoroughly confirm there was absolutely no point to 100%ing anything, I suppose.
The question is how to change something so deeply ingrained. It’s hard to not understand how most desires make you miserable, but I also understand shutting off desire completely is unproductive and hazardous, depending. Surely some desires must be met.
Seeing as it’s either crawling around in the dark corridors of a forgotten life or drag my shoes along the swirling heights – I mean, I guess this is the point of no return, isn’t it?
I guess instead of being motivated by fulfilling one’s desire, maybe one could find some discipline in how, well, if you don’t do much from this point forward, you will only experience more pain and despair.
So it’s not a question of what goal really, but rather having any goal at all. I’ll get back to you when I choose some things. Maybe I’ll make a little tracker.
再見！