So why am I stressed. A number of reasons. Writing is supposed to be therapeutic, right? Hell, I can even work at dialogue or practicing my show not tell. I’m busy. What’s a better way to say I’m busy is that I’ve been working late every night, juggling an online writing class with reading and writing assignments, occasionally taking on contract work, and overall dealing with the fact that by nature I’m a very lazy person. I enjoy days where I have nothing scheduled, where nothing is expected of me, where for long stretches of time I can lie on the floor of my bedroom and stare at the ceiling, should I feel like it, or take long walk with the dog and not worry about what I need to be doing next.
Part of the problem I chalk up to my inability to live in the moment and take it for what it is. A friend of mine who recently returned from a trip to the south of Italy remarked to me how she was glad to return home because of a chance remark someone had made to her while she was there. Apparently there’s not much industry in the south of Italy; the majority of their business is involved in the tourism trade. She had asked this Italian if he had ever considered moving somewhere else, where more was going on, and he had said no, he was happy where he was. She, in turn, was disgusted and asked me, “If you were him, wouldn’t you want to live a more meaningful life?”
But the thing is, I don’t think my life is any more meaningful than that man’s. In fact, I envy this man the ability to be content with his lot in life. I think anybody can be happy with the proper attitude and strength of inner conviction. Look at kids running through the filthy streets of any poverty-ridden community. They don’t know they are dirty. They don’t know that they are poor. They’ve just found a soccer ball lying in the street and all they can think about is how much fun they are going to have with the other street urchins, kicking around a wilting soccer ball, with part of the stitching coming loose.
I read recently about a famous Holocaust survivor, I don’t remember his name and for the purposes of this free-write, I don’t feel like looking him up, but he talked about how he was imprisoned in a concentration camp, forced to deal with death and worse than death every single day, he realized he didn’t have to be there. That the Nazis could only control so much and that though the Nazis could do what they wanted to his physical body, he could control his mind and what was inside. I think the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author also mentions this story. Then I started thinking about all the East Asian mystics, the dudes with long white beards sitting in their mountain retreat with absolutely nothing, spring water and roots, giving up everything and achieving everything. Perhaps it’s just a romantic notion, but part of me really digs the idea that everything you need, you can find within yourself. (Besides sex, ice cream, and Korean dramas).
I get so worked up about things. Past incidents that have no bearing on the present. Irritating people who really, in the scheme of things, are completely irrelevant to my life or anything I do. I also have a really hard time letting go of things. I keep looping events, incidents, conversations and the like over and over in my head sometime. The worse my anxiety gets, the more I do it.
So I sit there and I meditate. The first 10 minutes are always the hardest. Trying to calm my mind, trying to calm my body. I notice that I jerk around a great deal, twitching around the shoulders and the neck. I try and fight the feeling of numbness as my legs and feet fall asleep under me and think of...nothing.
My point is, wanting things, desire, dissatisfaction, worry, fear, anger, and all these sorts of negative emotions make me twitchy, restless. They drive me forward. They make me feel like I need to do all these things, things being taking on more than I can chew, fighting my naturally indolent nature to strive, to achieve, to be somebody, to accomplish something, to be meaningful, significant, impressive to my partner, to my friends, to the world.
What I really crave is the strength of character and mind to derive validation and meaning from myself. To push myself to succeed from somewhere inside, to do things for the sake of doing and not for the sake of fulfilling desire or garnering approval from others. I know that’s how most of the world is, but I envy the samurai that can achieve satori, the Italian man who is perfectly content to live somewhere and enjoy things for what they are, not how they could be, not how they should be, not how they want it to be, but simply to exist and be happy with that.
Is there anything so wrong in that?
Part of the problem I chalk up to my inability to live in the moment and take it for what it is. A friend of mine who recently returned from a trip to the south of Italy remarked to me how she was glad to return home because of a chance remark someone had made to her while she was there. Apparently there’s not much industry in the south of Italy; the majority of their business is involved in the tourism trade. She had asked this Italian if he had ever considered moving somewhere else, where more was going on, and he had said no, he was happy where he was. She, in turn, was disgusted and asked me, “If you were him, wouldn’t you want to live a more meaningful life?”
But the thing is, I don’t think my life is any more meaningful than that man’s. In fact, I envy this man the ability to be content with his lot in life. I think anybody can be happy with the proper attitude and strength of inner conviction. Look at kids running through the filthy streets of any poverty-ridden community. They don’t know they are dirty. They don’t know that they are poor. They’ve just found a soccer ball lying in the street and all they can think about is how much fun they are going to have with the other street urchins, kicking around a wilting soccer ball, with part of the stitching coming loose.
I read recently about a famous Holocaust survivor, I don’t remember his name and for the purposes of this free-write, I don’t feel like looking him up, but he talked about how he was imprisoned in a concentration camp, forced to deal with death and worse than death every single day, he realized he didn’t have to be there. That the Nazis could only control so much and that though the Nazis could do what they wanted to his physical body, he could control his mind and what was inside. I think the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author also mentions this story. Then I started thinking about all the East Asian mystics, the dudes with long white beards sitting in their mountain retreat with absolutely nothing, spring water and roots, giving up everything and achieving everything. Perhaps it’s just a romantic notion, but part of me really digs the idea that everything you need, you can find within yourself. (Besides sex, ice cream, and Korean dramas).
I get so worked up about things. Past incidents that have no bearing on the present. Irritating people who really, in the scheme of things, are completely irrelevant to my life or anything I do. I also have a really hard time letting go of things. I keep looping events, incidents, conversations and the like over and over in my head sometime. The worse my anxiety gets, the more I do it.
So I sit there and I meditate. The first 10 minutes are always the hardest. Trying to calm my mind, trying to calm my body. I notice that I jerk around a great deal, twitching around the shoulders and the neck. I try and fight the feeling of numbness as my legs and feet fall asleep under me and think of...nothing.
My point is, wanting things, desire, dissatisfaction, worry, fear, anger, and all these sorts of negative emotions make me twitchy, restless. They drive me forward. They make me feel like I need to do all these things, things being taking on more than I can chew, fighting my naturally indolent nature to strive, to achieve, to be somebody, to accomplish something, to be meaningful, significant, impressive to my partner, to my friends, to the world.
What I really crave is the strength of character and mind to derive validation and meaning from myself. To push myself to succeed from somewhere inside, to do things for the sake of doing and not for the sake of fulfilling desire or garnering approval from others. I know that’s how most of the world is, but I envy the samurai that can achieve satori, the Italian man who is perfectly content to live somewhere and enjoy things for what they are, not how they could be, not how they should be, not how they want it to be, but simply to exist and be happy with that.
Is there anything so wrong in that?
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