Patri's been reading me excerpts from a book about psychosis. I've appreciated all of the bits Patri has told me about: they fit with my model of reality.

One that is key for me is this notion of "fearful perplexity." Basically, the strong sense that something bad is happening, without it being tied to reality.

I'm aware of experiencing this on several occasions. And I think it actually happens to me all the time: I just usually find something to attribute the sensation to. Ie: my brain feels the sensation and then makes shit up to have it makes sense. Very plausible shit, I typically buy into my own story: its only because of a lot of self analysis and experience that I come to consciousness on occasion that my reality isn't what it seems to be. And everything is shades of gray of course, hence the believability.

The article refers to "fearful perplexity" as a form of delirium. It claims that distractible attention probably the first cognitive deficit to emerge with delirium. I've been diagnosed ADD, and my concentration has been getting worse over time. The article suggests that sleep disorders are probably correlated, so who knows, maybe the sleep study I'll be doing might shed some light, although I expect to be disappointed with a diagnosis of "no, you just sleep a lot."

( Here's a link to the book, and the excerpt that Patri pulled out for me )

Today Patri and I had a nice long lunch overlooking the canal and admiring the giant ships. All of the ones we saw were built Panamax: exactly the largest possible width to fit through the canal. They're building another canal right now that will be able to fit larger ships.

Going to a museum is much more fun with Patri than by myself. I usually gloss through a museum kind of bored, hence the not liking them very much. Patri on the other hand excitedly and animatedly reads the text on the exhibits out loud to me, and adds his own set of facts and extrapolations.

Something I've been noticing lately is that when I read to myself, the voice in my head is generally pretty flat. I'm hypothesizing that this may be related to why I don't like to read much anymore. I asked Patri, and he confirmed that his internal voice is like his speaking voice. No wonder he likes to read so much!

My writing voice is pretty animated. Maybe that's why I like to write so much :)

Yesterday I was telling a friend about how much I love my life.

Today I was telling my coach about how overwhelmed and stressed out I am by all of the balls I'm trying to keep up in the air.

My coach tried perspective work with me, but I couldn't see past "overwhelmed." She made a point about it being a choice, and said that choosing not to change perspectives from overwhelmed is a fine choice to make that she would support, as much as she would like for me to have a different perspective. The important part according to her is to see taking a perspective as a choice.

In the car I started listening to Learned Optimism, talking about how pessimists see negative patterns as persisting and optimists see them as passing.

I unconsciously changed my mantra of "overwhelmed by my crazy life" to "having a bad day."

I'm pretty happy with that. Life is a balancing act that I'm keeping up by sheer force of will these days, but if a ball or two fall, that's okay, and I'm not going to drop the whole lot of them.

A bad day is passing. I was seeing overwhelmed as stretching out as far as the eye can see. My crazy schedule does stretch out as far as my eye can see, but its doable, and even fun ;)

It occurred to me just now to notice a big difference between typing and writing.

I have a much longer lag time when writing with a pen than with typing. I'd been irritated by it when doing my morning pages. Before I'm done with writing one thought I'm on to ten more. This morning I took a more positive perspective: perhaps this time lag is beneficial: it gives me more time to actually consider what I'm saying, rather than just rushing from one thought to the next.

First off, it was really weird attending a conference where the people at the door were two of my best friends, and most people there I either knew, knew of, or knew by their lj usernames. This seasteading stuff is pretty cool ;)

I was having an interesting conversation with a guy at the conference. I was turning on the "level 2" listening, where I was hard focusing on him and asking thought provoking questions. I ended up posing the question "Who are you on a fundamental level?" After he grappled with it for awhile and came up with something good, he flipped it back on me "Who are you on a fundamental level?"

Boy is that hard to answer!!! Perhaps one thing that made it so jarring was that I didn't have any buildup to it. When I asked him there was a lot of context, discussion of what is or isn't true about people, which lead up to the question. Whereas when I was posed it, I had been hard focused on him and not at all leading up in my own thought processes.

Then again, it is just a f*ing hard question.

Something that I came up with while fishing around is a way in which I'm changing.

( My response to the question )

( This is really cool!!!  )

roundrockronin has been talking paths with me in my other post, and I wanted to share a piece I wrote which amused me:

I agree on finding ones own path, in a sense, and not in another. In one sense, I feel that I am ignorant and not capable of knowing a good path. In another, I am on some path whether I want to be or not, so it would be good to either choose a given one or to trust my own wisdom even in ignorance to create my own.

Buddhism talks a lot about being on "the path," which is where this metaphor comes into play a lot for me. I have a really hard time with being able to combine many paths to make my own. I have a hard time even contemplating on that level. Concretely, it is what I do, even though I'm not comfortable with it and it causes me a fair bit of dissonance. I would like to smooth out that dissonance, by accepting that I am creating my own path, and validating my own strength and wisdom. It seems like there are other possibilities, but in practice, that is the only one I can see which I think would actually work for me.

I've realized that as much as I've liked to think of myself as a faithless atheist, I'm not. I am on a rational level, but emotionally and perhaps intuitively I'm quite confused.

It shows up in areas like Buddhism. I really enjoy Tibetan Buddhism on many levels.

And, it bothers me that I'll never become enlightened. I don't believe in reincarnation, and I don't think I'm going to hit it in this lifetime. And, I suppose I don't really believe in enlightenment.

But damn it, I want to win that race ;)

I want to win all races that I start in. Or even that I observe. I feel a need to be the best at everything. I don't understand this need. Actually succeeding brings me little joy. When I beat others in a game, the are often sad, or at least left in the wanting and not having phase, which is a type of failure for me.

I want everything. To win, to be happy, and having those near me happy is part of my happiness.

I'm so confused. Ah the lovely irony of landing where Buddhism says I would.

I guess, my nilhism is getting to me. I'm wondering why I'm bothering with trying to become more empathetic and in touch to be "on the path" when I don't even believe in the path.

I do believe that that sort of stuff makes me more of the type of human being that I want to be, but the end of the path keeps nagging me. I'm on a path I don't believe in. To a place I don't believe exists. In a world where I feel nothing matters. And where I act as though everything is important. And I'm drawn both directions at once, caring and feeling worthless and feeling everything is worthless and everything is important.

In other words, I'm stuck. Practically immobilized. At least if I choose to believe in the optimism that things do matter. And if they don't, that could be unsticking too. Then at least I could let go of this crushing load of responsibility I've amassed and just have fun.

A watched pot boils.

I just spent 45 minutes doing a repetitive punching exercise while watching the clock. Normally I actively try not to watch the clock. This time, I decided not to try to stop myself very much. It wasn't worse than not watching the clock. It was in fact rather refreshing. I'm glad to give up the fight to trick time.

I suppose the watched pot wisdom perhaps came from the notion that one should do other things with their time than watch a pot, or a clock, which in excess I can see. In a sense, watching and not watching can be the same thing.

I was feeling a bit depressed these past few days, but am feeling warmer now, having just gone on a date to see Enchanted with Patri. I love the trend of modern fairy tales. The Rand, modern psych, and Buddhist references were amusing and interesting.

What was also interesting was a new spin I saw on the holidays this evening gave me. I recall back in childhood hearing that a lot of people get depressed during the holidays, and thinking holidays were causation. It occurred to me tonight, that causation is probably the other way around.

The holidays are humanity's way of making it through the cold and often depressing winter. They add a center of warmth and light to the nippy cold.