Borderline personality disorder is what some might call it. And while a fancy title is better than clinging to the “victim of circumstance” excuse, I like to think I have a little more sense than that. We are all victims and we all experience circumstances, but some, like myself, just choose to dwell in the experience and let it compromise the best of them. Is this a problem? Of course it is, but does overcoming such a problem make the taste of accomplishment that much sweeter? I think so, but at this point the bottom line is vague. Is this just an oversimplification of something extremely complex or is this question an obvious implication of self-defeating, wishful thinking bringing means to whatever end I am attempting to establish? Do rhetorical questions beg a more empathetic response than clever, emphatic statements? This is the way my mind operates.
Stop obsessing and start living: something I have been trying to do for a very long time. Yes, the fact that I have become aware of what stifles me is progress in itself, but while this may be good enough for some, it seems like it will never be good enough for me. I am not going to compare my problems to anyone else, but I will say that I know I, like many others, suffer from a significant disadvantage that impairs my ability to overcome even the simplest of setbacks. This brings us to the title of this entry.
At any given moment, I can identify two distinctly different sets of characteristics within me that battle to present themselves. My ability to recognize this and no signs of memory loss proves I do not have multiple personality disorder, but still suggests my mental state is not entirely healthy nor beneficial to the productivity level I need to maintain for the lifestyle I have chosen. Am I just fishing for excuses to convince the world that my catalog of failures over the past several years are somehow legitimate? Maybe I have somehow induced my mental instability as a result of being exposed to the idea that most of the greatest creative thinkers in history also had cognitive abnormalities? Even if this is the case, though, it means that I would still have to get beyond my lulling around and actually produce something great so people know I exist. As of now, I am just someone doing nothing important.
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I don’t think I’ll ever know what my bottom line is, or what it is supposed to be. I like to “fly by the seat of my pants,” and bullshit the rest.
Agreed, we all experience a myriad (not the typeface) of experience circumstances. I challenge you on calling us “victims,” though. Victims would imply being defeated all the time. What if we were instead, “experience lab rats,” or test dummies. You know how the sayings go. You get better by each failure.
“Stop obsessing and start living.”
Who’s to say that part of your living -is- the obsessing? You’ve got me hooked…
I’m pretty sure the world is waiting, too, for your “something great.” We all know it takes several fuck-ups to finally click and “get it.”
You’ve built yourself a whole hell of a lot of these experiences.
When will we see the fruit of that labor? This lifetime, I hope.
I can’t say much that I haven’t already said in one of our “talk until the sun comes up” extravaganzas, but there’s something I feel I should reiterate.
You’re a mess of a .PSD. You have ridiculous depth. More depth and more layers than anyone could ever hope to make sense of. But that’s one of the biggest reasons I like you so much. Picking your brain never fails to make mine hurt. Call me a masochist.
Anyway, there’s a reason you feel like you’re starting to make excuses. It’s because even good excuses like yours don’t work after a while. You can’t afford to let yourself fall victim to the astronomical amount of calculations you put into the small stuff. Not right now.
It’s not your style and ignoring your instinct to press your eyeballs against the screen will be painful, but at this point you have to churn out what’s needed so you can put all that dedication into the stuff that matters. Job stuff. Money stuff. Rest of your life stuff.
The good news is I’ve seen you demonstrate this school of thought. And recently. It’s only when you start thinking outside of the edges of your monitor that you lose steam. The world is too big. There are too many hot chicks and good bands to think about at any given time. So buckle down, put songs without lyrics on, and get into that work mode that I enjoyed seeing so much.
“You spelled Jalapeño wrong.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you put an E where the second A goes.”
“Oh well.”
Oh well, Matt. Oh well.
The really great things will come later. And people will know you exist. As someone who’s had the benefit of being exposed to how you think (even if it’s still just a fraction of what’s going on up there), I guarantee it’ll happen. Stick with it, man. You’re good at what you do.
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[...] me going around in this vicious, never-ending cycle of self torment. A friend of mine pointed me to this blog entry a few days ago, and it struck some eerily similar tones into how my current state is [...]