What a difference a day can make

I hit a new low Monday and Tuesday. I was incredibly depressed on Monday and didn't really do anything all day except for smoke, exercise, masturbate, and get dicked around by UPS customer support. My boyfriend went to bed before me because he was exhausted from work, so I got high and then smoked salvia. The increased high (with some hallucination) was interesting, but it was far from the calm, peaceful high I was hoping for. I slept very fitfully that evening, and think I had some pretty intense dreams, but I don't remember any full images from them.

Tuesday brought what seemed like nothing but disappointments. The show I've been working on and performing in got picked up by a conference in Orlando, but the dates overlap the only other gig I've managed to book this Fall, and the conference doesn't seem to be able to pay us (and wouldn't be able to match the money I'm making on this other gig). I'm used to my schedule blissfully falling into place and getting whatever I want.

I was in a horrible mood, and felt really awful about myself. After my intense trip Monday evening, I didn't want to smoke anything. My boyfriend and I had an argument that turned into a heart-to-heart about the difficulties we're going through financially and emotionally. That combined with the book I've been reading, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying made me realize that all the problems I am having in my life are due simply to the negative outlook I've chosen to embrace. I've been working very hard with improving my outlook on athletic pursuits because I've noticed it allows me to perform better, but it hasn't tracked into my day to day life yet.

I went for a run, and what I realized while running is that the voice I hear in my head, the voice I identify as "me" is not my conscience, it is my ego. I—like most others it seems—have allowed my ego to run my life and make my decisions. It's not that I've acted immorally on every decision I've made. Some of the time, I do make the right decision. But most of the time, that decision is compromised by my ego and thus my desires.

I stopped meditating around the time I started to dig myself deep into credit debt. During Thanksgiving break on my first semester of grad school, I went shopping with some of my new friends from CalArts and ended up spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a completely new wardrobe. All this was because a person who I had known for only a few months told me that the way I dressed didn't reflect who I was. So I went out and bought clothes who made me look like who I wanted to be. I didn't fix the problem I intended to, but the correct answer to this impulse is, what does it matter if someone else thinks my clothes do not match "who I am." I've always been uncomfortable with how I looked, and the real irony is that I felt I looked the best I had up to that point. By succumbing to the temptation of solving internal problems with external purchases, I paved over that problem with several that were much worse: debt, lies, and self-loathing. To this day I haven't worn some of those clothes more than a handful of times, and most of them do not fit anymore.

The only way to escape from ego that I have found is meditation. I will write a more in depth post about meditation in the future, but the basic idea is to sit with neutral posture, focus on your breathing, and whenever conscious though arises (i.e. whenever that voice in your head starts talking) identify the though without judgement and let it go by saying the word "thinking" to yourself, and then return your focus to your breath. It is a very difficult practice, but it will create a sense of spaciousness that is freeing.

Try it. It's difficult, but with practice, the ego voice begins to weaken. Unfortunately, ego is clever, and will fight back any chance it gets. And it plays dirty. But take heart: when the ego flares up, identify it with the word "thinking" and let it go.

All the best,

j

Continuing Forward

I'm taking my second real stab at adulthood, the first being in 2005 when I graduated from college. Back then, I had no debt, had a dead end job that I hated, hit a dead-end on one career, and was very lonely. I lived by myself and was out of a relationship for most of that year. I made myself miserable from graduation in May 2005 to March 2006. March 2006 brought around grad school acceptances, touring campuses, and a general uplifting of spirits as I realized that I could leave the awful stagnation I found myself in.

Grad school is now finished, and I find myself back in the same pit. I realize now that I never left—in fact I probably dug a bit deeper. I let the same bad habits I developed during my undergrad years settle in a little deeper, and I mostly stopped doing the things that were helping me at the first sign of discouragement. That includes meditation, careful budgeting, and regular exercise. In retrospect, I can say I was half-assing those things even when I was outside of school for that year.

Now I'm doing a bit better I think. I still masturbate way too much, but I'm working out regularly, am beginning to reign my debt back into my control, and just started practicing the piano regularly. I think I've finally realized that self-improvement is not a one-day affair. Only if I'm disciplined and dedicated will I ever make any improvements in my life.

There's a strong part of my that does not want to get better and create new good habits at the expense of the bad ones. This is a part of me that I have seceded much power to over my lifetime, and it is very hesitant to give back any ground. I think in the Christian world this part of me would be called the Devil. It is definitely a tempting voice, and it very much does not want me to understand its overall goals and reasons.

However, I can say several things for certain:

1. Masturbation is not a skill employers care about
2. Distraction has never finished a project
3. Laziness has never lost weight
4. Spendthrift is never prepared for the future

It takes discipline to mold a personality, and time for that discipline to bear fruit. I need to be more patient with myself and simultaneously be on guard for backsliding.

All the best,

j

The Clouds Part, a bit

I was incredibly down yesterday, mostly because I was refusing to smoke because I was upset about spending money and was trying to deprive myself of anything that I felt was costing me money. Basically, I was making myself miserable for no good reason.

I started thinking about things a little more rationally last evening, and I realized that things aren't as bad as I've been making out. With credit and savings, we have about a two month buffer if neither of us gets any work and I don't manage to sell my motorcycle.

I don't know what will happen over the next few months, and there's no way to predict. However, that doesn't mean I need to deprive myself of the things that keep me sane. We have very few luxuries we're allowing ourselves. I figure that the things I need right now to keep me sane are Netflix, Internet, my boyfriend, regular exercise, and medical marijuana. We're trying to contain our smoking and I believe we're at a reasonable level. The rest of the material things we're holding close come at a flat rate, minus the electricity we need to power things. So all in all, I think we're definitely attempting to live within our means.

I don't think we're living excessively, and I don't think we need to cut very far back on our standard of living. We're only buying two buck Chuck to drink, and no more than two bottles per week. We're slowing the fall to the point of no return. And I don't think that there is anything else we can do in this economic climate.

I also realized that I need to spend more time on my creative endeavors because I've really let that drive slide. I need to force myself to do an hour of composition or sound work every day, and let good habits extend from there.

And everything else I will just have to play by ear.

All the best,

j

Hard to stay positive

I got an interview for one of the many jobs I applied to over the past few weeks. I had to take a test online to qualify for this interview, my resume and degrees were not enough to secure employment. Bear in mind, I have both a B.A. and an M.F.A. in addition to a high school diploma, and I submitted a resume for this position and a cover letter. While this alone does not imply that I am an intelligent person, the lack of spelling and grammar mistakes in my cover letter should indicate that I am.

The test was in two parts. The first was a mini SAT. There were 50 questions that I was to answer in 15 minutes. I got through about 36 of them. I had to answer analogies, choose words to complete sentences, do basic arithmetic, and answer questions that involved multiple percentages and variables. The only thing missing from the test was a reading comprehension section.

The second test was a personality test. I decided to channel a more optimistic version of myself to answer its questions. Basically, I pretended I was high, which tends to dull the pain of the futility of these past few weeks. This test consisted of 30-50 statements that I had to rank based on how closely I identified with each on a scale of 1 (always) to 5 (never).

I must have passed the test, because I received a phone call about an hour after I finished. Now I have to go to the president's house to finish my interview. I received his address (with no name or business information) in an e-mail (that, ironically, included a few misspellings). The address is in the Palisades, which is at minimum over an hour drive.

I am so desperate for work that I must drive well over an hour to interview off-site for a company president who cares enough to interview an entry-level IT worker in person but does not care enough to leave his million dollar home (the property the house is on was sold for $650,000 in 2003 according to public records via Google, so I am assuming it has appreciated with the bubble since then) to go into work. If I do not get the position, I am going to be pissed.

I put my motorcycle on craigslist yesterday. I put two SLR lenses on eBay yesterday and an electronic music computer interface on today that should fetch a few hundred bucks. I finished the household budget, so I now know that even if I get the job, we're still not nearly making enough to survive. We can't figure out what else to cut because the majority of the expenses are going to rent, groceries (I just did comparison shopping between Ralph's and Trader Joe's today to make sure that we were spending close to minimum on food), and vehicle maintenance.

I feel like there's no way out of this mess and that I've wasted the past three years of my life getting an MFA that I can't afford to buy a frame for.

j

Mindfulness

I started my day with a short 10 minute meditation session to increase my mindfulness. I have not smoked yet today because the day is in flux and still needs to be fully planned. But yesterday I thought a lot about my situation. I have a bad habit of taking excess leisure time and not focusing on the tasks at hand. I let distraction rule my life.

I am a product of the digital age. I have an iPhone which is set to check my mail every hour and also receive push mail from MobileMe. I have my desktop mail program check every five minutes or so, a news aggregator that refreshes a list of 40 or so news feeds every hour, and a twitter client that pulls from 20 twitter feeds. I pretty much invite distraction into my routine with no filters.

Mindfulness—what is it?

In psychological terms, I would equate the eastern idea of "mindfulness" with the western idea of the "super-ego." This is the portion of the mind that oversees and directs actions. Mindfulness is something that needs to be exercised, or else it ceases to function. Excess masturbation tends to be a problem for me because the drive to masturbate (which would be focused in the id) is more powerful than my super-ego's desire to moderate it.

This is something I'm working on changing. I noticed yesterday that my mindfulness had gotten a bit stronger for reasons I don't quite understand. What I mean by this is I was able to notice when my drive to masturbate was about to engage, short-circuit it, and then take a step back and look at what triggered that instinct.

So far, I have been able to recognize that a lot of the time I want to masturbate I'm not even horny. I want to masturbate when I am bored, lonely, feel inadequate, or feel jealous of someone else and their life or accomplishments. Masturbation seems to be my go-to state to distract myself from anything that makes me feel uncomfortable about myself. Oddly I also want to masturbate while listening to a really romantic song by a male artist. I don't remember the particular details of the track data, but I remember that I was trying to quash my romantic response to the song with masturbation. I guess I really am a romantic at heart when I let myself be.

How to Increase Mindfulness

I'm working on this right now. The first thing it takes is an honest decision to take any path that seems like a valid way to approach greater concentration. This is a recognition that paths that lead to change may be very uncomfortable. It's also a recognition that I am choosing paths without knowing whether that path will be beneficial, but I am going to stick with the path for as long as I can t see what change happens along the way. I know I can always backtrack if I need to, but the path to true change is going to require taking some steps that may need to be permanent modifications of my behavior.

The first thing I've done is broken my day up into definite sections. There is a "morning routine" section in which I wake up, stretch, do some yoga, meditate, and prepare breakfast. While eating breakfast, I sit at the computer and connect to all my distractions. I allow all the news for the day and e-mails pour into my computer, and as I eat, I go through all of them. I take care of all next actions that arise out of the news: I read all articles, watch videos, click on any links that interest me, and apply to any jobs and gigs that appear.

Then I turn it all off. I close the twitter feeds and news aggregator, log out of facebook, turn off e-mail checking on my phone, and take my mail client offline. This becomes a time for me to create and focus on tasks without distraction. I am accepting that I will not be the first applicant for any jobs that come in, I will not know about any news, and I will not be distracted by any friends. My cell phone is still on, so I can receive phone calls. I am also still connected to the Internet, so any active research I want to do is available. The important thing is that I have disabled all passive gathering of information. Nothing (except a phone call) can come into my world to distract me unless I allow it. The world will be there when I want it.

It's that easy

But it's not: this is just the point I'm at today. I really want to make this change. There is a large part of my being fighting against this at the moment, but I am not letting it take the reigns today. I am planning to alternate between well-defined periods of taking in information from the world and creating new things will give me the focus I need in my unstructured unemployment. Hopefully this will satiate the part of myself that hungers for information and distraction while giving me the space to create and accomplish the things I want to.

It's working so far, and it's almost noon. Only twelve more hours to go!

All the best,

j

Depression

Today is a day I would have relished a few months ago. I have very little that needs to be done and the rest of the day is open time that I can spend on my projects. I can't seem to get my spirits up (I haven't smoked yet today, so that, unfortunately, may be why).

When I first went to get my medical marijuana card, I did it because I wanted to have easy, legal access to high-quality weed. I felt like I was gaming the system. When I got into the doctor's office (who specialized in giving out the marijuana prescriptions) and I filled out the checklist of my symptoms, I began to realize that I wasn't lying and I did use it as a medication even in the past. I have a diagnosed history of depression, and undiagnosed issues with anxiety.

While on the road trip at the beginning July, I met a lot of my boyfriend's friends. He mentioned that I had a card, and they all wanted to hear about how I got it and what it was like to go to a dispensary. I told the story with bravado, highlighting that I marked down depression and anxiety as the reasons I got the card. Of course, since I was high while telling the story, I had no symptoms for either of these issues, and the story comes off like I gamed the system. On the second or third retelling, it suddenly struck me that the depression and anxiety was absolutely not a lie, and I was legitimately using the marijuana for medicating those particular problems.

To anyone who implies (or just states) that marijuana is addictive, has no medicinal benefit, or produces slackers who do not contribute to society, I say this: Marijuana helps me feel normal. It helps me go out into society. I always exercise high because it helps my focus and removes my social anxiety and my anxiety about gyms. I have quit smoking cold turkey for weeks at a time with no side effects, so I do not believe I am addicted. I have been doing my job hunt high some of the time because that is the only way I have been able to set aside my perceived self-worth and just fill out the application for a jobs I am overqualified for or uninterested in (and I have received not a single offer in the past few weeks).

So let's hear it for California and medical marijuana. I cannot afford (nor do I want) psychiatric treatment or medication right now, so I would be at the mercy of my depression and anxiety if it wasn't for weed. Marijuana isn't for everyone, but it sure is for me.

j

A good list of things to do to jump-start creativity

This great list of ways to get your creative motor running (and more efficiently too) is from Zenhabits. I've found that my trouble is making the decision to begin creative output. For some reason in me there is a psychological hurdle there still. I have no idea why.

Guess I have more issues to excavate.

j

Cary Tennis: Advice to 20-somethings who feel lost in the world

I'm an on and off fan of Cary's. I tend to only read his column when the byline in my newsreader catches my eye. When I read an opinion of his, I usually wholeheartedly agree. Today's column was one of the gems because I feel it spoke to my exact situation (and also functions as advice for my entire generation.

Here's the portion of his article that resonates with me the most:

If I were you, I might be a little angry that my culture neglected to tell me the truth about these things, that my education did not prepare me for adversity. I might be upset that I had not gained an understanding of economic forces, of class forces, of the way power is wielded in hidden ways in the workplace, how we are led to believe that things will be easy when they are actually hard. I might be angry that I did not study how advertising and popular culture portray a world in which problems can be solved instantly, by making certain purchases or wearing certain clothes.

I am angry at my culture. I feel the implicit and explicit promises of success, well-being, and comfortable excess have poisoned my generation. As I look at my enormous debt, I'm realizing that this wasn't a promise, this was a devil's bargain.

When a student leaves home and heads for college, he or she is bombarded with the world without a filter, in many cases for the first time. A fortunate student has been taught by his family and teachers to be smart, buckle down and study, manage finances, and avoid debt wherever possible. But there are other teacher's in this student's life: mass media and television. They teach us that the spoiled, bratty people are the winners because they have the life we can only imagine. Consumption, greed, inflated self-importance—these are the things that are held on a pedestal for our entertainment. And then comes the commercial break, where we are shown the products that will help us get to this state of consumer bliss.

I do not blame the entertainment industry solely for this: the banks are a larger part of the problem. The banks show you that credit is easy to obtain as long as you fit within a certain class of society: middle class city dweller. The cost is a mountain of debt which locks you into indentured servitude. Bankruptcy is no longer an easy option thanks to the Bush regime. The banks are no longer on the hook for their own decisions, the "blame" and penalties for credit abuse are shifted to the consumer's shoulders.

Credit greases the wheels of an infernal machine. The naïve college student, fresh faced to the world, cannot immediately see the dangers of the banking industry. I have fallen victim to its siren call on more than one occasion. But I feel this is the last time. In my adult life, I have lived under moderate debt while a student, debt-free while out of school, and now in crushing debt while out of school. With the possible exception of educational loans (as soon as I get a job, I'll clear them of complicity), debt is something to avoid at all turns if humanly possible.

Cary ends his article with this insight:

You are beginning to see that much of what you have assumed to be true is false. That is a good thing. Now you must begin to replace your assumptions with a more balanced view.

That takes a lifetime.

I feel like my finally finishing school, most likely permanently, and coming face to face with my life problems is changing me and making me an adult. At 27, I'm finally coming of age. This seems extremely late to me, but for my generation, the realization that life is difficult, offers huge challenges, and that the ache from unfulfillment cannot be soothed with material goods is one that is learned much later in life—too late by many standards. But it is a lesson that is necessary for a person to take the reigns and be fully responsible for himself or herself.

j

Gives Me Hope

I'm a big fan of sites that let people post quick blurbs about the interesting things they encounter during the day. I'm thinking about sites like FMyLife and Not Always Right. However, I came across another site called Gives Me Hope that is about the things people do that gave a person hope in... well, that's not really clear. Humanity? Kindness? Common decency? It doesn't really matter, because all the posts make you feel good about you and your life. Check if out, it'll cheer you up.

j

Trying to decide what to make of this

Sorry for not posting for a few days. By my recollection, they've been mostly busy, a bit up and down, mostly on track but some of them have been far off. During the past few days, I have started to successfully avoid most porn and hookup sites with only the occasional slip-up (and as a net result, I'm wasting a lot less time masturbating than I have before this week). The boyfriend and I have had some amazing sex and some shouting matches. The stress in the household is high and I think it's just going to be that way until I get some work again.

On the employment front, I have sent out resumes every single day for work even remotely related to my field. I have reapplied for a position at a well-known electronics retail and service chain, so we'll see if any leads come from that. So far, nobody has sent so much as a reply e-mail or a single response. That's the hardest part of this: I feel like a complete failure, even though I know this is just a temporary situation. I'm having a lot of trouble getting past the idea that, I've made a major mistake in my life that I am paying for now. So I've resolved to write and post things in this blog that motivate me and keep me going, while keeping in touch with the desire to keep a pulse on my own progress along the way.

I'm going to try a new model that involves shorter, but more frequent post, so pretty much at any point I feel I have something to share, I'm going to put it on here. I will also check in every few days with a personal post specifically about my own struggles, failures, and successes.

Wish me luck, and I will wish you the best on your journey as well. I am very well aware I have no readership at this point, but I'm hoping that at some point my writing will provide some comfort to others out there who are struggling. And if you have a point of self-recognition with an impulse to share, please don't hesitate to post a comment. It will brighten my day, I promise you, and I will try to respond as much as possible.

All the best,

j

Finally, a focused day

Today has been a great day so far. First of all, it's a day off from working out. I actually did seven days straight because Friday was my day off last week. So this is a guilt-free way for me to enjoy the fact that I've worked out hard in the gym for three weeks, only taking one day off each week. That's an achievement since I have only worked out steadily for a month before this routine.

Secondly, today has been a day of no porn. I woke up a few hours before my boyfriend, and I actually spent the time working on projects that are on my to do list and applied for another gig. Since I leave to see a show in about a half hour, I know today is going to be a porn-free day. I even got some shower action from my boyfriend, which was a nice change of pace. It's funny that I shy away from that kind of affection a lot of the time, but I was all for it today. Maybe not going to the hookup sites is already bringing an improvement?

Today ended up being very good because I started the day by looking at my list of things to do instead of looking at porn and hookup sites. Blocking them is starting to pay off, and it's only the second or third day. At least something seems to be looking up.

Now I'm off to eat a snack and get ready to see show tonight (comped tickets because the boyfriend is working it).

All the best,

j