Different Brain

I really could stand to have one of those brains where one can completely segment streams of thought.

I thought about using the word 'segregate' in place of segment, but I think it's best to wait until I have a situation in which it would carry more significance.  There's great potential for social commentary-infused humor that mustn't be wasted!

On reflection

I sometimes sadden and frustrate myself with the great multitude of profound regrets I have about how I have lived my life.

A comprehensive list would be the apex of counter-productivity, and I'm conscious of how destructive that could be to one's sense of self worth.  I have the unfortunate habit of keeping some of the more significant missteps in mind, telling myself it's for fear of having not learned something the first time.  "That's why," says my brain (in a smashingly rude Cockney accent), "You're a styoopid wanka'!" 

Now if only my mouth could as perfectly nail all the various British accents my brain has no problem with...

An inevitable consequence of the passage of time. Possibly.

Once upon a time, I most most definitely a sock-sock, shoe-shoe person, but I've somehow become a  sock-shoe, sock-shoe person of late.  I'm thinking it has something to do with me now wanting my otherwise clean socks not to touch the floor before going into my shoes.  Not that my shoes are clean by any measure, but particulate matter in the shoes annoys me more than it used to.

Also, documentaries are the most fascinating things to my brain now.  Among the many films I've seen in the past year, easily the two most transfixing have been the absolutely excellent Blackfish, and Mitt.  I'm typically someone who squirrels about and restlessly fidgets about (to varying degrees, depending on the film), but both these films had me more or less glued to my seat.

I don't think these are purely products of age & acquired maturity, but I can't really tell; it might just be changes that come with the gradual evolving of personhood.

In which I demonstrate my ability to contain multitudes

Yes, I’m a Brony. Let’s get that out of the way. My offspring began watching My Little Pony: Friendship is magic a few years back (wow - it's been multiple years), and I was initially expecting to be as bored as I had been with Horseland, Dora, or those insipid CGI Barbie movies. After first hearing the trickster archetype character say “Okie Dokie Loki!” I started thinking the show had some brains to it. A few catchy songs & some excellent writing later, I’m hooked. A kids’ cartoon it may be, but it’s the best one ever made, imho.

One particular episode - described here and here, and an EXTREMELY catchy song from this one  embedded above - though, is more than just a clever series of optimistic witticisms & non-sequiters from Pinkie Pie. I see this episode as powerfully reflective of both ends of bi-polar spectrum. Not just a reflection, but at times a side-by-side comparison and even a collision between the poles. It’s fascinating and disturbing in ways I cannot describe.

At one end is Pinkie Pie, who’s bubbly optimism and sincere desire to create infectious joy is as energetic as it is endearing. The character is a combination of the trickster archetype and the perpetual child. Indeed, another episode addresses the character’s wild immaturity and seeming incompetence with “adult” tasks. The specific ritual of “meet new person, sing random song, become instant best friends” is something I’ve specifically done on more occasions than I can count. My singing voice as heard by everyone isn’t nearly as good as the singing voice in my head (owing to the embedding of my auditory sensors within a few inches of the sound producing organ), but I do love to sing when possible, and sometimes when not entirely appropriate. More than anything else it’s to entertain myself, but nearly as often it’s to entertain & brighten the day of those around me. In my current cubicle farming job, it’s quite necessary to do whatever to offset the emotional oppression, and I relish those times when I can elicit a laugh or a smile by my well timed non-sequiturs, witty remarks, or mini-musicals.

I'm also a people pleaser at heart, and Pinkie's mission to have everyone smiling is something I share. It will bother me deeply to know that I've grieved someone. I won't mind offending on purpose for a politicial or intellectual point, but to hurt someone's feelings is the opposite of what I'd ever want to do.

At the other pole is Cranky Doodle Donkey (which is pun as simple as it is funny), who is a broken shell of a former er…. man. Yes, they’re anthropomorphized horse creatures, but personhood is implicit. C’mon, they’re talking magical ponies, ok? Don’t over think this.

He’s lived a long life of optimistically looking for something specific, and has failed. There’s only so much that the episode develops the character, and the implication is that he’s become a bitter hermit, but the emotional trajectory is clear. This guy has spent a long time being ground down by his failure, and his bitterness is a way he defends himself from his sadness. There is a willful defiance of of Pinkie Pie’s cheering efforts. because he believes he cannot be truly happy, and thus wants to avoid feeling the superficial. He’s tired of feeling an optimism that he feels is baseless and pointless. Why be happy when failure is so much more concrete than success?

I am, objectively speaking, a failure in many senses. Eleven semesters of college has resulted in very few marketable skills, and a field of career options that is grossly mismatched to my natural talents. I have had a number of goals that I have set for myself that I have spectacularly failed to meet; a number of work and extra-curricular projects I've undertaken that I somehow came to believe were my ticket to financial/career/etc success, and subsequently failed to lead to anything more and/or failed completely. My writing - something I've come to regard as one of my better skills - has had several opportunities to become even a part time employment, and I've somehow managed to screw them up. There's some aspects of my life that are worth mention in this respect, but aren't quite of a publicly shareable nature; let it just be said that I have made many mistakes in all aspects of my life. I share far more biographical details with Cranky than I care to admit.

Somewhere between those two - the bubbly cloud-cookoolander optimist and the cynical burnout - is me.

Empathy

It's horrifyingly terrible enough, what happened yesterday, but after seeing the list of victims earlier today, a new level of horror was added for me: it was the first grade class, all the child victims being either 6 or 7.

All Thalia's age.

It's as if someone went into my own little girl's class, killed her and all but 2 of her classmates. What little I've read of the victims tells me they're mirror images of kids I see in Thalia's class every week; precious little souls, well enough along to have a strongly defined personality, but still innocent & optimistic enough to brighten the world around them. They were all just like my precious goofyhead, who has come to be the center of a life that isn't even mine any more, it's hers. They were ALL that precious to their parents. The idea that some absolute fucking MONSTER could shoot 20 of them is unfathomable.

I don't know how well I'll be able to sleep for the next few weeks.

Because I will die otherwise

I have long been intending to start writing again, primarily due to more severe depression over the past few years, and what should greet me when I finally get around to opening blogger again but this. I find it highly appropriate, and in a perverse way, encouraging to recognize I haven't always been an emo kid.

But about my return to bloggin'.... Once upon a time, I considered myself a decent writer, even growing delusional to the point of thinking myself the next Great American Writer. Flash forward to now (a somewhat regular run of blogging elsewhere happened in there somewhere), and I've come to recognize this might not necessarily be the case. To no small degree is this related to my difficulty with concentrating; being undisciplined to the point of struggling to finish anything.

And already, I'm rambling...again..... well, practice makes perfect. Practice also killed Moe Zart, but that's beside the point.

Having recently reviewed some of my old blogs, I recognize that there's little value in my writing save this: as a journal, a time capsule of my thoughts. I sorta remember many of the things I made oblique reference to, but I also have a flood of memories that come back upon reading an obfuscation or two.

So I will write for myself, if for no other reason than to be writing, and to hopefully have some measure of success against my depression.

Depression/Attention

I feel strange writing about feeling depressed. I feel more than a little compulsion to not write about it at all, simply because I know that so many people who do so are simply seeking attention (which they think will alleviate their depression, caused by a lack of attention, etc). Being someone who has little interest in thegoth lifestyle, wearing whatever might bring me down like a badge is not something I want to do. But I can't help when feeling depressed (for whatever reasons) that I should let people know that I'm not wanting to deal with anyone, and that I'm not just being passive agressive to anyone person or set of people in particular.

Let it be known then, that I feel less then enthusiastic about the state the universe that I inhabit (as of this date & time), and that I feel no specific animosity toward any one individual or group of persons.