It has been an interesting Summer so far, has it not?
Perhaps interesting isn’t even the right word. But I’m personally so exhausted of hearing words like “unprecedented” and “challenging” and “troubled” to describe our current moment. Not that I have better words. Things are certainly challenging and troubling and unprecedented.
I’ve written here in the past about my personal grapplings with social anxieties (I’m secretly an introvert, believe it or not!), and with short and longer term depressive episodes. And it’s a fantasy to imagine that these things have taken a backseat amidst so much turmoil on both a macro and micro scale. My emotional state is impacted by my immediate surroundings as well as by the news and global events. Some days just reading the Twitter trends is enough to send my future hopes into the bin for the rest of the day.
I struggle greatly with such present and vitriolic division, and one of the broader ideas that exhausts me and saddens me so much is the depth and seeming permanence of us vs. them rhetoric. I see it do so little good and so much active harm. But day after day, regardless of the subject at hand, there everyone is on Twitter screaming at each other about how the “other side” doesn’t get it.
This isn’t a ‘good people on both sides’ justification, either. Just a remarking on how outside things impact my inside stuff. And how I imagine they must affect yours, too. It’s interesting to me (and my overworked therapist, one imagines) to examine the ways my ego and my body respond to negativity and how that negativity often directly impedes my own progress and success. I can’t even count how many posts don’t get written here, or how many emails don’t get returned because I’ve spend the day reading the Washington Post to the end, and end up clicked off, unable to exert any further energy or time. “What’s the point?” my depressive brain thinks. “Everyone is already mad anyway, so why bother?”
I haven’t had a work project in a few months, which I know is not ideal for my mental health. I do best when I have a thing I care about to point my energy toward. And I haven’t felt safe enough to return to escorting or in person work just yet, so many of my days are spent consuming news, working out, and masturbating. Which sounds ok from afar, but doesn’t feel like any kind of personal advancement, up close.
I guess my point here in talking so much about myself, is that it’s worth taking some time to investigate how things are affecting you. If you don’t think you have the luxury of lots of free time in which to do that, I encourage you to make yourself some time. Maybe just a Tuesday night where you get in the tub alone and really check in with yourself for a couple hours. See what hurts and what is being neglected. Self care can take lots of forms, from spa days to scheduled masturbations.
Self care can feel a bit like a millennial buzzword and is often poorly defined. I had a yoga instructor years ago who spoke endlessly of using a yoga practice to take “inventory” (rather than “self care”) of which parts needed attention and which parts could be pressed further. We don’t all inherently do this kind of inventory well, and end up with parts (physical or emotional) that are crying for care or relief that are ignored for the sake of “going to work anyway” or “have to do/try harder.” I’m not fond of the “sleep when I’m dead” way of living, and I implore you to respect yourself enough to admit what’s hurting.
You are important and deserving of care. But learning how to do that can be a real fukkin challenge now and anytime. I know.
-t
Wow. I’m not surprised to read you’re that impacted by this world-wide current ( continuous ?!) mess: you’re a sensible and decent human and so you should just be. Now, about the depth of that influence on your mental state and general health, among all various self-care techniques you mentionned, the first thing would be to cut the never ending flow of horrors hammered by each and every official media; just like you’d stop pumping poison inside your brain. Whatever the source, it’s voluntary thrown at you to push you even more down the drain. Course we all know we’ve been manipulated since ages, but we just begun – as masses – to realise how much and how precisely; thus now the depth of our hurting in front of the consequences enormity. Difficult task, as we’re litterally “clouded” by the News; but it’s worth a try. After all, we are equipped with enough reason to filter and analyse informations from our immediate surrendings to know enough of what directly concerns us. We’re not all militants and we’re not all fighters: if you can’t go on with your life because They’ve managed to reduce you to your (logical) depression, then retrieve yourself from this deliberate avalanche and focus on you and/or your loved-ones. We’re all currently completely overwhelmed by what’s happening – the end of an Era, to say it politly… – and just to BE is a justifiable – hard enough ! – goal in itself. Works more or less to me since 1999 ( thrown TV away ), with occasional failures ( stopped reading/posting on facebook in 2018 ). You’re right to say we have to think about what hurts and what’s neglected, but it’s going to take more than time: it takes honesty and courage for it implies changing the way we live. But, hey: you’re young and adventurer and you’re very YOU, so there’s quite a wide Freeway ahead ! You just negociate each curve at your own speed – and let the big black cars leave you behind to go crashing far ahead 🙂
These are wise and caring words, my friend. I am glad to know you a bit, and beyond flattered that you read my words and care enough to comment.
You are very special.
-t
Thanks for this. I’m a recent reader, one not prone to communicate by these kinds of means. I’m more into one on one, rather than blogging or commenting.
I relate to your perspective as a loner, introvert, “feeler of things.” And I also think Bruno B. is spot-on in his advice to cut down on the exposure to mainstream media. The info.-stream is by design toxic. Even so-called progressive newsfeeds can drag a person way the hell down. There needs to be moderation in this exposure to all the negativity out there, while (hopefully) not also cutting oneself off altogether. Moderation.
Thank you for what you’re doing here.
Well thank you for taking the time to read and then to comment. I say it often, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important: that matters to me. It’s impossible to truly know where all my words and thoughts go, or how they are received. Direct feedback like this makes my investment feel more worthwhile.
I hope you will make exceptions in future, and continue to engage and comment and share the stuff here you enjoy, even if you’re not usually inclined to do so. Thanks for being around.
-t
Tyler, we havn’t heard from you lately. I hope you might get some rest from the struggle you described. Reading your posting when you said “You are important” I’d like to tell you: You are not only a very sexy man – of course you are – but someone I am eager to read his ideas, being inspired by what he says and how he does it and sharing his fun. So even if you are far, far away you are also important for some who happened to find your blog. And most of all I wish you find someone close to you who gives you the care you deserve.