This most RECENT "Steemit NERVOUS BREAKDOWN" has been ONE HELL of a DESCENT into the ABYSS of EXISTENTIAL DISMAY. It's probably going to take me AT LEAST TWO or THREE more posts to SHAKE this "bad boy" off. In fact, I've had to SUPPLEMENT this writing session with some FINE, TROPICAL cocktails - specifically, one of my all-time FAVORITES, the "Gin Fizz"; a mixture of "Bombay Sapphire" gin, coconut milk, lime, forest honey and seltzer water. It's kind of like the "health-conscious man's BOOZE", and it SURE DOES taste great, with those medium-chain "healthy" fats in the coconut milk enhancing the amount of gin which crosses over the blood-brain barrier for MAXIMUM neurotoxic effect. It's a real "sanity-saver" as I STRIVE to NAVIGATE through the PHYSICAL and SPIRITUAL "JUNGLE" out here in the "developing world".
Tough It Out
What's interesting is that as I proceed through EACH of these consecutive nervous BREAKDOWNS I am actually GETTING BETTER at navigating through them, and coming out a BIT WISER on the other side, each time. It's like we have a kind of "PSYCHIC IMMUNITY" mechanism built into us, which - just like our PHYSICAL immune system - allows us to MORE EASILY ADJUST to each successive "SPIRITUAL BITCH-slap" by which the UNIVERSE THROWS us into EXISTENTIAL DISARRAY, with the ultimate intention of FORCING us to put the PIECES back together into a MORE RESILIENT, and SLIGHTLY REVAMPED, WHOLE. In fact, it seems like the FURTHER I go down DOWN into the ABYSS the HIGHER I RISE once I PULL out of it. It's like some law of Newtonian physics in which "every action has an equally opposing reaction". We can THROW others - or BE THROWN ourselves - into the "FIRE of transformation", in order to COME OUT the other SIDE in a more POLISHED state - hopefully. But is it REALLY as simple as that? Or do we have SOME SORT of "agency" in the whole process? Are we MERELY "PASSIVE OBJECTS" who are acted UPON? Or do we have some PRO-ACTIVE INFLUENCE in the matter?
Seize The Day!
After DEDUCING, in my previous post, that there is ULTIMATELY no such thing as "okay", but that we are all really just striving for various levels of "NOT-okay", I came out of the gates SWINGING. I thought that I had PASSED some sort of MILESTONE in my QUEST for "higher understanding", and that I had TRAVERSED ONE small step CLOSER to the CALCULUS "LIMIT" that is ABSOLUTE "NOT-okayness". I thought that I had perhaps SO ADEQUATELY TURNED these WORDS into my BITCH that I had EARNED my STRIPES, so that when I FINALLY ASCEND into that "DELUXE CRACK-house in the sky" to join JESUS, and SOCRATES, and ELVIS, and the "Shape-Shifting Draconis Reptilian EXTRA-Terrestrials", who are ALL FROLICKING in the BLISS of PERPETUAL "NOT-okayness", I would AT LEAST land myself a "TRANS-DIMENSIONAL high-five" as we all GO FORTH into the "promised land".
Time-Out
But then something UNEXPECTED happened. It just kind of CREPT up on me. I didn't really even know it was happening until it was TOO LATE, and I was KNEE-DEEP in the MUCK. I suddenly found myself SMACKING against the MENTAL form of what runners call "the wall" - that point in a long running session when your body just GIVES OUT and you lose all of your steam. It was as if my REVELATION that there is "no such thing as "okay"" had been CHURNING and BURNING deep down in the BOWELS of my SUBCONSCIOUS MIND; slowly TUGGING at me, and trying to GUIDE me into YET ANOTHER ROUND of CHAOS chased down with a DASH of ILLUMINATION. This all COLLIDED at the CROSSROADS of the VARIOUS MACRO and MICRO-tragedies going on in my daily life.
You know, when I tell people that I live on a MOUNTAIN BIKE in the "developing world", most people don't REALLY UNDERSTAND what that means. I told one of my Steemit contacts about my recent experience staying in a rural guesthouse in Laos, where the owner didn't actually have KEYS to the rooms, and when I attempted to go out to the market to buy the day's food, and locked the door, I turned the doorknob to discover that the door just SWUNG RIGHT OPEN! But that's NOT EVEN the WORST part, because when I asked the owner if he could fix the door he just said something to the effect of, "Don't worry. Just go out." It's like WTF??? You have SECURITY BARS all over the windows because this ONE-HORSE rural town is TEEMING with METHAMPHETAMINE ADDICTS, and you want me to leave basically EVERYTHING I OWN in the room with NO LOCK at all??? And this is just the TIP of the ICEBERG, folks. I have more INSANE stories than the FRIGGIN' BIBLE about the MYRIAD of daily, and ONE-OFF, DYSFUNCTIONS I deal with on a regular basis out here in "the jungle".
You think it's REALLY a FUN ADVENTURE to NAVIGATE in perpetual "survival mode" through some of the poorest, and most DYSFUNCTIONAL, countries in the world? Do you REALLY think it's like all of those FLUFFY travel posters you see on the internet or on "the BRAINWASHER"? The travel industry MARKETING people perpetually PUMP OUT the "fluffy" ILLUSION that you can "Travel and see the world! Meet interesting people! See interesting things!", and MANY PEOPLE buy right into it. They're just happy to have ANY sort of SHORT RESPITE from their CRAPPY JOBS slaving for the "corporate man" of the "developed world", trying to pay off those EXTORTIONATE student loans - and/or OTHER forms of "debt bondage" - so that they can live the "high life" hooked up to "the brainwasher" and/or their various OTHER mind-control DEVICES. They go to "EXOTIC" places where their FIAT CURRENCY is "King". They LAUGH and FROLIC with "the locals", and FULFILL their DEEP DESIRES to be "change agents" who help the DOWNTRODDEN MASSES of the world ASCEND from the PIT of GENERATIONAL poverty, and/or SUBJUGATION by autocratic rulers, and/or the FORM of "neocolonialism" which ARISES from a COMBINATION of NOT being able to get your SHIT together, and/or a lack of INTERNATIONALLY VALUABLE natural and/or human resources.
ALL around the WORLD those TOURISTS ROAM. They BITCH and TWITCH with their DEVICES, trying to catch that SHORT FIX of "meaningfulness" before they return to their DRAB lives in the VORTEX that is the "modern world", where many of them BARELY SCRAPE BY on "corporate TIT" and BOW to their CORPORATE MASTERS, and the "TV Gods" who feed them an INCESSANT FEAST of "Intellectual FAST FOOD" which keep them MOTIVATED to even bother waking up in the morning.
And so it WAS that I found myself STUCK. I had "hit the WALL" in my philosophical ATTEMPT to find some SENSE of things. My BODY and MIND just started SHUTTING DOWN. For nearly a WEEK I went into a sort of PARTIAL COMA. I would turn on the computer, but just simply COULDN'T PROCESS anything. I tried to write or consume. I tried to listen to music, and meditation - to NO AVAIL. I EVEN tried just laying in bed looking up at the ceiling for HOURS upon HOURS - but NOTHING. The world seemed to have DEVOLVED into a "torture chamber" of sights and sounds whose ONLY RESPITE lie in DETACHMENT. Nothing made SENSE. Nothing felt REAL. Nothing WORKED. I thought that the ONLY solution would be to JUST STOP... But that's when I came to my NEXT MAJOR revelation, which is that JUST as their is NO SUCH THING as "okay", there is ALSO NO SUCH THING as "stopping".
Huh?
Now, I know this sounds a bit TRITE, but the ULTIMATE ILLUSION of stopping is NO SMALL philosophical CONUNDRUM. In fact, it FLOWS quite NATURALLY out of the previous AXIOM that there is no such thing as "okay" - but merely UNLIMITED SHADES of "NOT-okay". I mean, we're all REALLY just a bunch of "FLESH-covered ROBOTS" flying through space on a GIGANTIC CHUNK of STAR-DUST at a speed which NONE of us can really COMPREHEND in our more localized sense of 3D time-space. Our bodies form at birth, and we begin the SLOW and STEADY process of DECAY until we finally end up "six feet under" the SAME ROCK we were SPAWNED out of. We LOCOMOTE, we EAT, we FUCK and we FIGHT - but in the end we've all got a ONE-WAY ticket on the "EXPRESS train to the grave", and it's a NON-STOP ride.
"Stopping" is an illusion. We are ULTIMATELY in a CONSTANT state of MOVEMENT. Sure, we can INTENTIONALLY "apply the BRAKES" through various means such as meditation, philosophical inquiry, sleep, or the use of MIND-ALTERING SUBSTANCES to either ACCELERATE or SQUELCH the activities of our MINDS and/or BODIES, but in EACH of these cases we are STILL MOVING. We are STILL SPINNING through SPACE as we sleep. We are STILL HURLING THROUGH SPACE as we ATTEMPT to "stop the mind" through meditation. We are STILL FLYING THROUGH SPACE when we LIE UNCONSCIOUS, and BRUISED, and HALF-naked, in the DUMPSTER on the wrong side of town, with our BRAINS on "temporary LOCKDOWN" at the NADIR of a week-long BENDER of HARD LIQUOR and/or CRACK-cocaine.
Damn
So it is that we CAN'T ESCAPE this EXISTENTIAL "prison cell", but can merely CONTINUE MOVING. We can take in ALL SORTS of information BOTH ON and OFF of Steemit. Sometimes we HEAR and SEE "stuff" that makes us FEEL GOOD, and/or gives us a SENSE that we have a HIGHER UNDERSTANDING of some thing or idea. OTHER TIMES we feel OVERWHELMED and CONFUSED by the "mixed signals" or "distorted data" in the SIGHTS and SOUNDS we perceive, and we may feel that the ONLY thing we can do to cope is to WITHDRAW. We may try to ignore them, to DRUG them out of our minds, or to SHUT DOWN our minds so that these PERCEPTIONS can't "get at us", but that's IMPOSSIBLE. Just like you can't "UN-meet" people, you can't "UN-do" experience. It is THERE, and it ALWAYS WILL be. Therefore, the ONLY thing we can REALLY do is take a "TIME OUT" to allow our MIND and BODY some TIME and SPACE to "SHAKE ourselves loose" of the IMMEDIATE HOLD these perceptions have on us, and to MAKE ROOM for ADDITIONAL perceptions to COME IN and TRANSFORM those "older" perceptions into a "new light".
Shake It Off
There is no such thing as "stopping". There is ONLY "movement". This BIG, BAD UNIVERSE is merely a SEA of PERPETUALLY GYRATING energy. IT doesn't stop, and neither do we. We simple CONTINUE MOVING into different DYNAMIC STATES of experience as we process new information during our MIGRATION through TIME-SPACE. "Movement" is the VEHICLE through which we can START moving out of the FIREY DEPTHS of "SEVERELY "NOT-okayness" UP into the "higher realm" where things are MORE "MILDY "NOT-okay".
Today's Dreaded Homework Task
So it is that time, once again, to take out our pen and paper. Spend 10-15 minutes each day this week CONTEMPLATING the various (sensory) experiences you've had BOTH ON and OFF of Steemit. Perhaps you read a post on Steemit which just didn't quite "sit well" with you for some UNKNOWN - or KNOWN - reason. Perhaps you saw an INCONSISTENCY in the behavior - or information put out - by someone you had BELIEVED had things "figured out" -- or at least MORE figured out than you believed YOU did. Write down all of those experiences that you had this week which "threw you off" of your CENTER a bit. Then, take a few minutes of "time out" time to ACCEPT that those experiences happened, but to then visualize yourself taking those experiences and SHAKING THEM OFF, just like the way that a dog shakes of water when it gets wet. In other words, begin to DETACH from the experiences to a DEGREE which you can CO-EXIST with them, but also ALLOW ROOM to let OTHER information in to TRANSFORM your UNDERSTANDING of those experience/perceptions into the future. By not creating this SPACE which allows these experiences to EVENTUALLY be TRANSFORMED we enable them to IMPRISON us in a "mental space" which is VOID of movement. The KEY to EVOLVING through experience (BOTH "positive" AND negative") is to CREATE SPACE to MOVE PAST it. One way to create this space is to DETACH from the experiences and ALLOW ROOM to move past them.
Try this out, and see if it NOTICEABLY HELPS you to move forward in your life, BOTH ON and OFF of Steemit. As usual, feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, challenges, insults, threats, etcetera, and as WE ALL continue moving ONWARDS and UPWARDS on this WARPED ladder of EVOLUTION - climbing each step CLOSER and CLOSER towards that MYTHICAL STATE of "okay", but NEVER actually quite GETTING there - just ENSURE that you achieve SOME sort of small SPURTS of "progress" by PERPETUALLY striving to take life (both ON and OFF Steemit)...
"One nervous breakdown at a time"
