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18 September 2010

solace in journaling long cycles pt 2[More:]

There's something about the nature of persistence of things in life that I haven't completely grasped comfortably. I think my brain gets weirded out at something that suggests a rut ('I was right here years ago') even when there isn't one in a negative way. Somehow demarcating what happened since then ('when was I last here?') helps clear that light anxiety.

Occasionally I get into the habit of writing a couple bullet points of stuff I've done every day. I get a bit uneasy when I feel my days are kinda blurring or melting into each other and I've discovered that being able to be like 'so that's what I was doing' kinda clears that feeling a bit. It can get a bit oppressive if I try to keep it too comprehensive so if I forget something or skip a day I just let it go.

(I don't do much 'real' writing because it takes me forever and I sometimes find it a waste to crystallize fleeting thoughts especially when they're repetitive or meandering/useless.. but on the flipside I'm glad I got a few people whom I can email with such issuances when I really need to put em down.. also when things are going well in my life I'm less introspective about things and hence less prone to needing to write much.)

In sum: yay for journaling, archiving information and having an ability to keep track of what you've been up to..
Is it really possible to avoid that blurred together feeling? I haven't been unblurred for years, and when I was, I now think it was an illusion, like when a soft focus photo appears to be really sharp. Maybe this isn't the kind of post I should be responding to at 4 AM.
posted by Obscure Reference 19 September | 03:24
Yeah I think the blur is natural so it's about the emotional response to that.. it can be a draining blur or you can have a neutral or good feeling about it. I guess keeping one's nose to the grindstone helps if there's too much space to mull about it in a negative way
posted by Firas 19 September | 06:33
I don't have a good feeling about the blur. I have a non-so-neutral feeling that I'm stuck with it so accepting it is all I can do. Along with it is the experience that time has accelerated (it's a motion blur, not a focus blur) but then I think that time moves slowly when everything is new and unique, and rushes past when it's structured and routine and similar events are almost interchangeable and what used to be foreground becomes background and that I need to find my way back to the immediate present.
posted by Obscure Reference 19 September | 08:10
Something I just figured out that rationalizes around my unease with the blur is that if I've been at this restaurant fifty times before, this dude working here has been around just as long--if I've been in this room watching this TV show before the person hosting it has been at it at least as long--so there's nothing wrong with choppy familiarity in itself. Some people optimize for that kinda stability in fact. Maybe it's also just part of transitioning into full adulthood to understand that what seems like a huge amount of time isn't really that huge an amount of time and that segueing in and out of scenes, things, phases doesn't mean having to figure out what you were doing in the meanwhile; you're doing your thing, that place, community or person is up to theirs, sometimes you intersect and meanwhile you maintain your different continuous existences.

I suppose somewhat of an understanding of the issue is that it's not a 'rut' unless it's coupled with an actual claustrophobic feeling or desire for change and it's not a 'loss' that you weren't involved with it continuously unless you really want to commit to persistently engaging with whatever it is.

Some of this leans into Ecclesiastes territory with the musing about how things hover somewhere between permanence and fleetingness so it's hardly a unique anxiety or one that needs actual resolution I suppose..
posted by Firas 19 September | 15:26
Facebook weirdness. || Synecdoche, New York (no spoilers please)

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