Day 21: I'm such a tool....

Yesterday was a rough day remembering my camera. Yes, I took a few shots here and there, but I didn't give two shits for any of them. The featured shot, my late night wandering on Facebook, was a last second kind of thing. Just going around on the site, with nothing of a goal or focus in mind, I suddenly was overwhelmed with feelings of being a lame-o. I had spent a wonderful evening with a great friend, but then came home to....to what? Wasn't in the mood for a book, wasn't in the mood for a movie. Parents were on the verge of passing out so conversation with them wasn't an option. I did have a moderately good FB conversation with a friend & mentor, but as I was feeling the impending need for sleep, I didn't feel my usual conversational skills were up to par.

What I'm feeling is necessary is a vacation away from technology. Camping...the ocean...somewhere I can unplug and get some sun. Too often lately I've been passing on my books and other things in favor of the internet and video games. And what do I really do online? Stare at Facebook and try and find entertainment elsewhere online. And this leads me to feeling like the people in those commercials, the ones who just start spouting random information about random facts they've discovered online. And it's not far from the truth! I spend so much time reading random shit - and that's what it really feels like; shit - online that I wonder if I've lost touch with what once I considered my valuable hobbies. Even now, I'm writing this on my computer, on a website designed to write and share. Though I suppose writing is more positive than just doing nothing. Even video games, which are highly wasteful, are preferrable to the almost mindless pointing and clicking of internet surfing. At least with a video games there is a broader sense of being engaged.

How to change, what to change....where do you start with something like this? I'm going to school, so it's not like I can really just up and get out of Dodge. I can't just leave everything behind to find myself again; find that independence from wasteful things.

There is a meditation retreat I have every intention of attending come the warmer months, but I've also intended to go long before now. It's a 10 day long retreat, a silent retreat where most items are prohibited. The only conversation you'll have is a with a teacher here and there. It's free, and the only *cost* is an optional donation. Maybe 10 days of silent introspection and meditation would be good for me; good for my soul and thoughts.

Maybe I'd walk out with a desire to smash electronics and computers and televisions. Maybe I'd walk out with the urge to begin living a minimalist lifestyle. Maybe I'd want to move to a tribal land or somewhere even powerlines have no reach. Maybe....

It's not really anyone's fault but my own, however, and however much I hate on things like Facebook or the television, it's my fault that I chose to give them my time.

Using FB as a replacement for social interaction is a joke. I have been suffering social anxiety in recent years. I often feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable at the thought of getting out with quite a few people. Relaxation does not come easily when I'm face with many social situations. A lack of confidence perhaps, but I think it's more a lack of patterns. In the past seven years, I've picked up a very strong hatred of changes of patterns. Mess with the furniture and I'm uncomfortable. A baby cries, it means there is a breakdown of their comort levels...to me that is another loss of preferred pattern. A desk being messy bothers me. I have so much distaste for my own home because it's not my own and lacks a pattern with which I find comfort. Friendships even....even if it's not my fault, I find so much stress in arguements with friends because of a breakdown of the pattern of how it should be.

God....I'm a wreck....

There are a few things that bring me absolute comfort. Smiles....hugs....Vernicious....doing something cool for friends (which is an odd conundrum because it may cause me to leave my comfort zone which is the beginning of the end mentally)....the list could go on, but I'm starting to feel superficial. "Love" comes to mind, but how to you give one specific example to love?

Jesus....I'm done now. Maybe this will be a series of blogs.

Final thought.....and even now, I'm trying to re-read my blog for errors of pattern, and mentally comparing my words to the works of people I really think are marvelous writers. *siiiiiiiigh*