Been staying home most of the time lately. The weather is turning colder, like typical Nebraska Novembers. We had our first snow a couple days before Halloween. Even though I have essentially been cabin bound for several days, I don’t usually feel that lonely or irritable.
I have made a few changes to my routines. I decided to give up on coffee, again. Even the morning cup that was my standard for over fifteen years too often makes me irritable and twitchy. I am sleeping longer too. I usually go to bed around 9pm, wake up at 2am, work online or read until about 6am and then go back to sleep for another three hours. I also usually nap for an hour in the afternoons. It seems like I am sleeping some at least three times a day. It may make it tough to get a lot done, but it does alleviate anxiety and allows me to declutter my mind. I still sometimes get vivid dreams, but fortunately most are not scary or violent like they were in my early twenties. Most just don’t make sense or they are the ones where I’m naked in public and no one seems to notice. And I often have those dreams where I am back in school and I can’t find my classes or even open my locker. Needless to say when I wake up and realize I’m in my late thirties again, I feel relieved.
Since I fazed out coffee and sleep more, I have found it takes more to make me irritable and distressed. It also seems like I recover from aches and pains faster. And I catch my breath quicker when I get winded now. I don’t feel much for aches and pains when I stand for long periods of time, but I do find it annoying sometimes. One of the reasons I started doing my shopping online was mainly because I got annoyed with standing in line for more than a couple minutes at a time. The worst was when I was at the gas station and needing to pay for a tank of gas and I’d have several people ahead of me buying lottery tickets. It was especially bad on the days of Powerball drawings. I am convinced that lotteries are a tax on people who can’t do math.
I’ve also cut out as much sugar as possible. I didn’t even buy candy for Halloween this year, not even for myself. Then again, I enjoy watching people in costumes more now than I did even as a ten year old when I got to dress up. Sugar was another thing that made me sluggish and occasionally irritable once the sugar rush burned off.
I am making friends with some of my neighbors. I usually hear from them at least once a day. For a small monthly fee, they’ll help me out with my laundry once a week as long as I provide the soap and laundry money. They were also good enough to make dinner for me a few days ago. While I do cook for myself, it’s usually simple things that don’t require a lot of ingredients.
Gotten back into listening to audiobooks on youtube. I also listen to science and tech themed podcasts. I occasionally listen to Joe Rogan if he’s interviewing a scientist or tech person. I still avoid politics. I have enough beliefs across the entire spectrum that is doesn’t qualify me for any traditional camp, party, or tribe. So I catch flack from all sides just because I try to think for myself and am not dogmatic about my politics. I swear politics has become like religion for far too many people.
I don’t post much on facebook anymore. Then again, about the only people I hear from at all anymore are my best friend, a couple cousins, and a couple college instructors. Even the tech groups, with only a few exceptions, have become fear mongers and hopeless these days. Even tech enthusiasts are too often guilty getting their science news more from Hollywood and less from actual scientists. I don’t read most science fiction and I don’t watch any science fiction shows just because they are so dystopic and such doom porn anymore. No wonder most people are filled with fear and dread.
I try to tell people what’s actually going right (and far more is going well than not), but I’m just waisting my breath on everyone it seems. About the only person who doesn’t think I’m a delusional liar is my own mother (and my best friend when she’s been doing well). And even with her, I don’t know if she actually believes what I’m telling her or if she’s just humoring me. And people wonder why I dropped out of society and don’t socialize much outside of close friends and family. What’s the point of socializing if most people just suck the life and positivity out of you? It seems that optimism and empathy are the modern rebellions. It isn’t cool to be an optimist, but that may be just because we are years ahead of the curve.
People think I’m lucky because I’m on disability and don’t have to work a regular job. While having freedom (at least to the extent the pension money doesn’t run out) is amazing, it is also a lonely life. I spend most of my days reading, watching science lectures, lifting weights, listing to podcasts, but not much socializing. It’s like this scholar I sometimes watch on youtube said, “If you seek the truth, the truth will set you free. But it will also make you lonely.” But I’d rather seek wisdom and knowledge than popularity and prestige. I’ve felt this way my entire life.
I believe I now know what my purpose in life should be. It is to be an independent scholar/philosopher. Sure such work will mean I will never live a wealthy life. Then again, some of the smartest and wisest people in history will never be known because they spent their lives in monasteries or libraries or lecture halls and laboratories. And that is only if they were lucky. Many more spent their lives never fitting in, seeing absurdities every where they went, and died frustrated and bankrupt. Fortunately, the internet gives an outlet for people like me, who in previous eras would have had no options other than monasteries or academic life. The true geniuses who drive progress may not be the billionaire entrepreneurs, but the engineers and scientists and instructors making the entrepreneurs visions possible. I suppose people like that do the intellectual grunt work that make modern society possible. Yet most people will never hear of them, much like no one hears of individual master carpenters or plumbers.
A Life Of Mental Illness 