I try to wax poetic, but I don’t think I’ve had enough coffee. Maybe it’s lack of coffee, maybe it’s a lack of motivation, but it doesn’t really matter because the results are the same. I just can’t put together anything more than a regular ol sentence.
This has been going on for weeks, and I don’t see an end in sight. My writing has collapsed, videos, various art projects, all fallen to the wayside as I’m enveloped in a general malaise. I know a lot of people would consider this depression, but I’ve been through that so many times that I know this is different. This is circumstantial. This is the world pressing in around me. Rather than be crushed, I’ve dropped what’s in my hands to hold the weight.
The fucking weight. The weight of adulthood, of business ownership, fatherhood, navigating a pandemic, and a hundred other tiny factors, combining and compounding, pushing down on my shoulders. I feel like Atlas. Well, a shorter, fatter version of Atlas. Juggling day to day existence in our modern landscape is more mentally taxing than anything I’ve dealt with. How many bowling pins and chainsaws is life going to throw in the mix until I drop it all?
Jesus Christ, I know I just sound like I’m bitching, but I swear I’m not. It’s more like voicing it in the hopes that someone hears. I’ve written and deleted a dozen entries in the past month. Nothing feels right. It’s all forced and lackluster, and void of merit. And I don’t know if I want to be heard to help others, or to help myself.
The pressure we’ve been under in America, and the world in general, has been enough to inconvenience and stress us out, but not enough to force a reset. Enough to shake things a little, but not enough to topple them. It’s created the laziest and most disappointing apocalypse. It’s been like an uncomfortable movie that builds to nothing. The worst Wes Anderson movie ever made.
I’m not worried much about the future. It’ll be what it is, and I’ll take it as it comes. I worry more about the present, and how every day is the same, over and over. It’s basically Groundhog Day, but the clock is ticking. It will eventually run out, and I don’t want that to happen without having done anything. Because right now? Right now I’m doing nothing. I’m in stasis, unable to move. Like a cornered animal, irrational and unpredictable.
It would bring me comfort to know that other people feel the same way through all of this. I know that’s a little fucked up, hoping others are struggling, but I don’t want to be alone. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be alone. Camaraderie and commiseration are primal instincts, and to know others understand us in some way validates our experience.
Steph told me I just can’t push myself like I used to, because I’m older and my life has changed. Both of those things are true, but I’m having a real hard time reconciling that with the ambitions I’ve clung to for so many years. If she’s right, then I’ll have to let go of a lot of things, and I’m not ready to do that. I’m not ready to say I won’t write a book, or give a talk, or to say I’ll never open a brick and mortar vintage store. But the goalpost keeps getting shifted, and I end up with more of the same, day in and day out.
Life has put me on standby, and that’s a terrible place to be for a man like me. I can’t just swim in circles. Without the steady steps forward, it’s all just fruit withered on the vine. Without the steady steps forward, I inevitably fall backwards. And falling is dangerous. I just hope I can regroup and push back hard enough to break through before the damage takes it’s toll.
It’s a bitch to be in mental prison. Meanwhile life moves forward with you or without you. Some days you do what you can and some days you swim in the circles. What the hell is motivation? Does that mean I “feel” like doing something productive? I may NEVER feel like doing something productive. (Most days I don’t) But I do productive things everyday. I am not trapped into thinking a do nothing day puts me behind… each moment is what it is and life evolves regardless of my input. Do I have to satisfy my “self” in order to “feel” a sense of worth? My satisfaction of self is reading a good book, eating a good meal, listening to some good tunes or watching video that encapsulates me… that helps no one but I am satisfied! But Life is good.
If your hopes are that someone heard..I hear you. I appreciate you,your work and your plight, my thoughts and prayers are with you.