Month: May 2016

Less to say

I’ve hit a strange point in my use of social media recently. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing but I am definitely using it less.

I don’t check Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram multiple times a day, and some days not at all, and as such I’m posting less and less too. In fact if anything I’m preferring Instagram these days.

Why? Because there is too much and I don’t have the energy to sift through it to find the good stuff.

Too many opinions, too many in-jokes, too many overlapping conversations I am not a part of, too much noise, too much hate, too much love, too much silliness, too much, too much, too much.

Obviously what I take from social media is down to me but I am finding that my tolerance for somethings has been dropping recently and, more often than feels healthy, I just get narked by all of it.

This is largely down a distinct lack of energy on my part. I’m eating healthily(ish) and walking more to get some level of exercise, but my current job is proving to be very mentally draining. Every day I feel exhausted, every day feels like a battle (and it’s not just me, the others in my direct team say the same). The advantages of contract life mean I leave my work in the office but, of course, that’s not how it really works. I may not have the laptop or my notebook but my brain still churns.

It’s not just social media either, I’m reading less – I don’t think I’ve finished a single book in the last couple of months, whilst I was averaging over 2 per month at the start of the year – and I’m not as productive with my ‘down’ time, with even the basic things like keeping my flat tidy (which I’ll admit is a bit of a ‘thing’ for me) has slipped.

And that’s why I’m more inclined to avoid social media. Without enough energy to gather my elephants* they steam in all angry and ranty and make a mess.

My get up and go seems to have got up and gone I’m not sure where, nor how to get it back, or even if I’m that bothered.

Maybe I’m actually just learning to detach and slow down, to stop worrying about “What’s next?” (guess who’s been re-watching the West Wing recently), and to appreciate just not doing very much at all. Maybe.

Wow, this is a long winded post to say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, but isn’t it ever so.

* What is the rider and elephant metaphor? From behavioral psychology, a theory that suggests we have two sides: An emotional/automatic/irrational side (the elephant), and an analytical/controlled/rational side (its rider).

According to the model, the rider is rational and can plan ahead, while the elephant is irrational and driven by emotion and instinct. We have to find the balance between the two.

The days slip away

Rise to the chime.

The bleary eyed shuffle and the morning ablutions.

Take your pills. Dress yourself. Brush your teeth every day. Floss not often enough. The scold of the dental hygienist awaits!

Then to the bus. Then to coffee. Then to my desk.

Computer screen glows from black. The cogs whirr into life. Around me a cacophony of tapping rises.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I say. I am well. How are you? I am good, and you? Verbal tennis, the expectation of politeness.

I stare at rows and columns, words white on black. I sit in rooms and listen and talk and listen and talk. The clock moves in fits and starts. Taunting me for moments, racing through others.

I am working. This is what I do. I am pay my bills. I laugh. I anger. I do. I do not.

Then I am done, outside as the bus sweeps to the kerb, ready to take me home.

I shed my work with each foot fall on pavement, leaving it behind me. I will find it in the morning. Most of it at least.

Another day.

How is it May?

Only one

“Ask yourself if you would do it if nobody would ever see it,
you would never be compensated for it and nobody wanted it.”
– Ernst Haas (via)

There must be a reason I write. I write here, I write in a journal, I (don’t really at the moment) write short stories, and I (definitely not at the moment) am writing a novel.

I write.

All of it because I want to, for me and my own personal reasons which I’ve mentioned here before, at least that’s how it started.

Reading that Ernst Haas quote made me realise one of the reasons I’ve been a bit blocked on my novel. During NaNoWriMo I wasn’t thinking about anyone reading it, I was writing for me, writing to meet a target number of words every day yes, but it was (and still is) a first draft that no-one will ever see. I was writing a story I wanted to read.

However having let it sit for a while, which was always part of the plan, I find myself revisiting it with the expectation (hope?) that it will be read by others in the future. It wasn’t a conscious decision and it hadn’t even occurred to me until that quote sparked the thought in my head.

I’ve mentioned On Writing, the book by Stephen King that really helped me get my head into the right place to tackle NaNoWriMo, but I’ve forgotten one thing that he is very VERY clear on.

You write for one person, and one person only.

So that’s what I need to do, finish the first draft in the same vein I started it, write it because I enjoy writing, write it to tell a story that I want to read. I am my own constant reader.

My own comfort

Despite what I might try to insist, to myself and others, I prefer my own company to that of others.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy being with other people, those that I love, and those that I like enough to tolerate (I kid, I kid!) but when I’m feeling in need of comfort I tend to look to myself.

I put it down to spending the first 8 or so years of my life as an only child.

Back then I learned to lose myself in my own imagination, later transferring that skill to reading and I revelled in the silence that that solitude brings, lost in a page turner, oblivious to the passing of time with only myself for company. Bliss.

I sound like a curmudgeon, a grumpy hermit who shuns people.

I’m really not like that and most of the time I like nothing better than to be in the company of someone I love, or people I care about. I enjoy being out and about, chatting nonsense over a drink, or sharing stories over coffee (or vice versa, of course), often with the futile hope that those moments won’t end.

They always do, of course, and then I’m back to being alone with myself and the familiar comfort of me.

When I think of comfort I don’t tend to think of soft blankets, down filled pillows or luxuriously soft leather chairs, I don’t think of hearty meals rich in carbohydrate and protein that warm me from within. When I’m feeling low, regardless of the reason, I don’t think of others, I think of me.

That makes me sound selfish and in those moments I know I can be uncaring and brutal.

Fuck this and leave me alone, I’ll be fine. Go. I’ll be fine.

Away from noises I can’t control (stop breathing so loud!), away from distractions that break the reverie (why can’t you sit at peace!), and away from my desire to be accommodating of others in any way, shape or form, I lose all will and energy for patience and compromise. Birds are singing too loud, car engines are revved too much, the scrolling clouds that change the light cast into the room torment me. Everything that I can’t control is wrong.

It’s an odd sort of comfort I admit; being able to switch off the part of my brain that has me double checking things. If I get up from the sofa I don’t need to check if anyone wants anything whilst I’m up, I don’t need to ask if anyone minds if I change the channel on the TV, nor if it’s ok to just sit in silence and read a book, no interactions unless required, no niceties, impolite and brusque.

I’m glad I don’t seek this comfort often.

It’s an odd thing really, it’s at odds with the rest of my personality, the part of me that everyone can see, the part of me I identify with is outgoing, friendly, and I hope kind and considerate. When I get up I’ll ask if you want anything while I’m on my feet, I’ll double check plans to make sure everyone is happy with them, I will compromise myself when I can to make things better for others.

That’s me, not the horrible, blunt, silent lump I can be at times.

But that lump is still me. Those thoughts of silent comfort, hidden away from the world still persist, they are part of me every day. I’m glad that most days I barely register having to put those thoughts away, but I acknowledge they are always there.

This is who I am.

When you aren’t around, when everyone is gone, I only think of me.