Successful Time Conceptualization

The ability to comprehend and communicate condensed time in a way that is not wholly statistically driven, and one that can bend/flex to a listener's point of view, will aid in the ability to achieve success, whether based on status, influence and/or general attention received.

As I write that, I think that I'm probably wrong, but I'll try to explain myself first.

The ability is general and abstract to start: How what you say and communicate and think condenses the world around you.  To take what is abstract--lived experience--and distill it down in a way that still maintains a semblance of the truth in the original whole.

The reason I'm wrong, of course, is that lived experience varies, that there's more than just one level of distillation.  The second reason I'm wrong is because distillation of lived experience doesn't matter if the receiver of that output doesn't do anything with it, or doesn't care.

Tip For Sobriety 10

Sit in the moment and don't rush to do unimportant things. 

Extinguish procrastination by slowing down.

Saying What You Mean

See, there's a bit of tension about blogging.  I'm almost convinced that you can't write without thinking about audience.  The goal, if you'll indulge me by assuming that the previous statement is correct, then, is to write with an audience in mind, but not because of them, not for them. They shouldn't dictate how you feel, for instance, just how clearly you might spell out what it is you want to say.

(And while it may be appropriate to dictate in parenthesis basic physical reality, like the warm but almost sour tea that you have, or the way the light comes down almost liquid like to cast itself heavily on your eyes, or the more mundane things, like the ebb and flow, the sound of traffic outside, and although it is the essence of how you process reality that is fundamentally interesting, it is not okay to expose reality quite objectively, or to let such an exposition become longer than your main text, on average).

But if you like audience, that is, if you like people reading what you write, then you naturally want to attract them to read more, to linger, and all of the other implied connections that are embedded in this attraction, which is basically an attraction to you, the writer, and who, by the way, doesn't want affirmative type attention?  See, though, the tension exists because there's something about the act of writing itself that is highly and personally rewarding.  It may only be that you, like I have, begin to find a voice, even one you knew that you had, and even one that isn't terribly strong.  It doesn't have to be strong.  It also doesn't have to be hugely provokative.  I'm spelling with a K there because it makes more sense, and because I'm learning Polish, which inherently makes much more sense than English (at least, according to how you might spell things, as in you pronounce everything, all the damn time).

There's something inherently rewarding in writing itself, even when the writing is fully descriptive.  I think part of the reason for that is because it aligns thought patterns by slowing them down.  No matter how fast I write, my writing is always slower than my thoughts.  And that actually allows me to think faster than I would normally think, by which I mean process something. So writing is useful on its own for processing. That's what I'm doing here.  That's the project, if you will, at least for now.  At times I felt internal pressure to always say something alcohol-related.  After all, this is about sobriety.  The funny thing about sobriety, as compared to drunkenness, though, is that it is fundamentally more complicated (the world that you experience is anyway): more subtle and delicate and creative and full of many more topics than you're used to, or have the ability to fully develop and explore, unfortunately (and fortunately). Anyway, that's my pitch for sobriety today.  I'll further craft this pitch and try to deliver succinct points in the future, but I may not be successful.  I'll meander, and go back on my own words.  But I won't be violent or manipulative or aggressive or mean spirited for no good reason.  I won't hit or punch or bite, and I won't be reckless in any way that has consequence.  For what it's worth.

Television

Television is a big part of the American experience.  And shit, there's almost nothing on there at all, either, which itself may or may not reflect the fact that there's nothing really going on in the American experience itself, whatever I mean by it, or that I'm too bored to care (doubly, to care about defining my terms, it seems), or demand too much entertainment value to consume, whatever words might be best aligned to the truth of the matter.  It remains true, though, that I end up talking to the damn television.  Particularly regarding commercials for mood-based/mood-altering prescription drugs. 

The marketing for prescription drugs that alleviate problem moods consistently perturb me, not because they are so highly contradictory, reading a list of problematic potential symptoms (risk of suicidal thoughts--discontinue use if you find yourself having purposefully expunged your own life) at the same time that they show images of happy active people swinging on swings and smiling extra bright smiles (may increase chance of incontinence), but because they're so insanely out of proportion (if you consider mutilating small rodents when taking this drug, this may represent a rare but serious disorder that can best be alleviated by allowing that rushing feeling of flatulence to spread itself out in a warm pancake around your chair)--as if you become a more active happiness seeker and sprout a family and friends and a beach house when you take them.  Showing someone alone watching television and enjoying it more than they would have otherwise enjoyed it wouldn't be the best marketing tactic (because enjoyment of television isn't something that manifests itself in a highly physical way), but it might be more in line with what's really going to happen.   More successful television, vision.  Have a look at this:

Artificial Drama Not Needed

It isn't odd that we all want the same kinds of emotional items: fulfillment, a sense of self, the ability to love and be loved, and the capacity to be productive and benefit from productivity.

How do you know if you drink too much?

After all, maybe you just went to a wedding on Sunday night, and that's why you're head is hurting on Monday morning, and, then, again, why you had a drink Monday night.  Not six or seven drinks, mind you, just two or three, and just to take the edge off, the brittle edge, sure, but just to drop it out, and no, you didn't even drink on Tuesday, and don't plan to Wednesday, but Thursday through Sunday you'll drink again, in excess,  you know, but that's who you are right now, and you don't have any negative associated emotional issues, nothing derogatory toward yourself, the you, about your relationship with alcohol, nor toward the people you're with when you imbibe.  And so the entire process is really one of neutrality for you, even though, sure, on average, you drink more nights a week than you don't drink and you spend hundreds of dollars a week drinking, though a large chunk of it is on food too, so that's okay.  Really.  And your liver is functioning, and there's nothing abnormal there, enzymes all chugging like they should.

But if I drank like you'd I'd consider myself a drunk.  Then again, I consider myself a drunk anyway.  Still, I'm amazed at the ease with which you order your Sunday morning bloody Marys and the way they turn into three or four strong lagers.  I'm amazed at how cavalier you are with all of this, and jealous too, I'm jealous.  Because I'm not you.  I don't have your attitude, or your nonchalance, and it may be the only thing that separates what our futures could be even when drinking the same amount of booze consistently.

Or, maybe I want to believe that you'll increasingly get worse in your management, and that you are physically impacted by all of this debauchery.  Maybe you'll end of addicted and lonely and anxious and depressed and dead.

Maybe, in other words, it is all about how we think about alcohol, and not our actual practice of consumption, that indicates whether we have a problem with it.

Or have I got it precisely backwards?

Invisibility and Recognition

We just want to blend in, be normal, find a place that fits, etc., and we, simultaneously, want to be recognized, respected, and seen, damnit--we want to be heard and felt and impact stuff.  At least the stuff that comes back to impact us.  And we just don't want to stand out, be excluded, stigmatized, or plagued by the unmeaning of life. 

So we drink. And then we drink again. And get in trouble.

Sobriety and God, and Step 3

Because, those damn 12 steps really do seem to emphasize God, too!  And Step 3 specifically says that we have to turn our care to God, and then adds (I'm sure this was added): as we understood him.  Well, what if he's only been an opaque and diaphanous straw man that stands for the sake of my own moral compass pointing generally due north?  What if I have justified actions that don't deserve justification in my belief in God?

The point here is that we/I/you must make a primary decision to stop drinking, and then deal with the repercussions, even when we're not prepared to deal with them [right now] on our own.  It isn't easy.

God

It is a scary idea to not believe in God.  Or the idea of God, generally.  A lot of mostly secular believing type people maintain a propensity to believe in something grander, or more spiritual, or you know, religious--i.e. beyond human knowledge and beyond the knowable.  There must be something there, says the instinct, over and over, because, well, I just feel it to be true! Obviously there's no direct evidence for something there, which is why faith is so important.  But then again, the people I'm talking about, the casual God believers, do it because, I think, understanding the lack of God changes how they (or I, and yes, I'm maybe a casual God believer, at least right now, so am also examining and criticizing myself) act in the world--what they're culpable of, and importantly, how they hold onto mental/cognitive dissonance, particularly about their own actions and ideas.  Which is to say that, with the idea(l) of God, my moral compass tries to do a cost-benefit analysis of my actions as "Good" on a whole, so as to acquire membership in that wonderfully translucent concept of heaven, or, you know, whatever judgment befalls the casual God believers like me.  So long as we act in our capacity to do more harm than good, and to not intentionally inflict harm for no purpose, well, bingo, we're in.  I.e., we don't have to think about the consequences of our actions beyond a mainly selfish sphere.

So what am I struggling with here anyway?  Only that our actions, how we think about those actions as they relate to our identities, and those consequent identities, are in much more flux than we allow--not because they move around a lot, but because they might be radically different than we're telling ourselves.  And, if we get rid of the God idea, even the casual "I-don't-really-want-to-think-about-it" God idea, that radical difference presents itself rather rapidly, starting with your, or my, current behavior, which all of a sudden doesn't stand so straight and clean.  

Oh Right: Four Months of Sobriety

Yes, I've been sober since June 25, 2010.  That's this year. That's four months ago, if you're counting like me. 

That's 2 months shy of the 2009 6 month (to the second) record. 

Anxiety and Alcohol

These Monday mornings look the same to a lot of people.  That's what it seems to be like, anyway, from this coffee shop.  Not that I'm' drinking coffee, just that I'm watching a lot of human beings walk by with the same set Monday morning type look to their faces.  It is a mix between stress, consternation, and habit.  There's minor stress (or major, depending) because many of the people are on their way to a locale that doesn't make inherent sense for them and that they didn't exactly choose to go to. 

(As an aside, I'm frustrated because the version of microsoft word I have (the older version) just somehow simultaneously opened with the newer trial version causing a type of slow motion electronic crash.)

Some of these people are a little stoned on booze.  Not many of them, but not all of them look like we expect.  They wear high heels.  And they assert themselves.  And, they might feel so sensitive about the transition to Monday morning activities that they decide to make a little compromise to themselves.  Something along the lines of letting the juices of the weekend flow into the morning coffee.  Something that placates unease and relaxes.  A glimpse of a moment, wherein it goes down and makes the morning possible.  That's what we're talking about, where: drinking makes living possible.  That's because, I think, a lot of anxiety embeds itself in the brain of a heavy drinker. And, given the short term nastiness of dealing with anxiety as compared to the relative ease of pouring some vodka down your throat, at times, the vodka wins out.  With increasingly frequency, it wins out.

Boredom in the Time of Agony

It may seem stupid, or inane, or foolish. It does seem that way.  And it is, too.  To some degree.  (No, not the way I'm writing in fragments).  But writing down thoughts generally.  It immediately makes me think about whether I'm being accurate, and whether what I say has relevance.  Or whether it is coherent.  I'm not talking about audience here. I'm talking about the immediate shift that writing something down allows as compared to solely thinking it--and then trying to evaluate it, whatever that evaluation process entails.  For whatever reason, it is dramatically harder to write something than to just think it.  At least for me it is.  True, there are times when this isn't the case--or when my thoughts just go down plunky-like, not lacking problems or body, what-have-you. 

I don't have anything to report from the land of sobriety, except that it exists.  I'm here.  Okay?  I think there should be a disclaimer, you know?  Life can be boring.  And when you have become convinced that this is true, watch out, because it might get even more boring.  It doesn't have to be that way, okay?  I know.  And I'm not trying to take away from other feelings, feelings that have worth on their own.  But for a moment, let's consider the idea that boredom exists and that we, generally, dislike it.  We become motivated by it to do stuff that we might not otherwise do.  Which is kind of a tautology of idiocy.  But, we do!  Stupid unhealthy stuff. Just to be not bored.  I wish I was telling you about something specific, but I'm not.  For what it's worth, boredom may be useful if I can accept it and not run away.  I think I can.  I think I can.  Just that, it always happens just at the moment when the restrictions of time come back into focus (i.e. maybe one of the key elements for boredom in the first place has evaporated and I am now motivated).  And maybe feeling bored is endemic to needed rest.  Either way. Both ways.  More drama soon, I'm sure.