Ugh

Spent the day blasting my face off with FO4. I talked to Ariadne for an hour and then sat for 6 “playing a game,” which is now officially code for “mindlessly indulging my avoidance impulse.”

I feel fucking terrible. I felt terrible even before I went to A&W and bought the worst $17 burger I’ve ever had. Surprisingly, the food didn’t make me feel physically worse, though I am angry with myself for being surprised that it sucked. Beef and potatoes are literally the two most boring foods on the planet after chicken and white rice.

The Perennial Cycle

I am caught in a loop, an endless loop of indicision.

Step 1: Decide to publish books/music for free; I just want someone to read/hear it and tell me they like it.

Step 2: Stumble across some reminder that it is possible to make money selling books/music, and question Step 1.

Step 3: Decide that I should give it a genuine try and remember the various stores that I have stuff published on already.

Step 4: Remember that Amazon/Spotify is the biggest source of exposure/sales and that they are the two evillest, most explotative companies on the planet and resolve never to give them any of my music because I don’t want them to earn money from my work.

Step 5: Repeat

The Other Loop

The other loop is with writing itself, as commented upon yesterday. Namely the self-headfuck I do in which I convince myself that someone might eventually read this, this my private journal that I have no real intention of publishing, and think poorly of me for it. That is the primary feature of my paranoia, projecting my self-observation outwards onto faceles, nonexistent entities who watch and judge.

What is not true is that I cannot turn it off, or that it doesn’t turn off of itself. But then, I want to contradict myself there. There are very few moments in which I do without being in 3rd person mode. This is what I used to use alcohol for and without it, I have no recourse, nowhere to go. I inhabit the whole of my experience all the time and it is terrible.

There was a time when making things was a part of that self-escape, creative activities that took me out of myself and which felt like I was doing something meaningful and important and that one day would win me the attention I so dearly crave (and yet loathe).

And Yet

With squash, I always play better when I have an audience, when I have someone to impress. So what if I conjure that for myself here, now? What if I conjure the feeling, not of being watched/observed/judged, but of knowing that someone is watching and wanting to impress them, to impress something upon them? What if I rekindle the deisre to make them feel something, to provoke some emotion, to represent the intensity and extremity of emotion that I have (at times) felt (and usually when intoxicated)?

I used to be very (well, maybe quite) narcissistic and untroubled in that narcissism. But at some point, the self-interest became self-scorn, the automatic derision of anyone who wanted attention for themselves.

This Is It

This small-boy-done-bad feeling that I’ve been carrying around all day only happens when I’ve had a good day and allowed myself to act without alltoomuch self-reference, buying lighting etc. at the dollar store, buying a pocket pussy thing at the Stag Shop. Without fail, when I’ve had a day like that I then have a day like this. Fallout feeds into it, and shitty food feeds into it, but I now think I choose that game (and occupations like it, ie youtube watching) and foods like those because they put me in a depressive state and beacuse that depressive state prevents me from doing anything else crazy.

I have nothing to be ashamed of in spending ~$100 on stuff I need or that makes me feel good. I have nothing to be ashamed of in playing Fallout either, though it is a legitimate source of frustration, and I am right in feeling that.

I Did It My Way

The resolution is, yes, to spend more time with other people, talking to other people, asserting my personality with other people and allowing myself to be accepted and challenged by them. But I cannot do it in groups. I can do it one on one, and in twos and threes, but sharing space with many other people is simply uncomfortable.

So, I’ll drive up to Barrie for a weekend, and I’ll drive out to quebec for a weekend, but I need to not exist for anyone if I don’t feel like it.