Break Your Brain: the shift from manual to automatic

The hardest part of accomplishing anything, whether exercise, communication, eating, or whatever it is that involves obtaining something, is the shift from a relaxed, non-eventful state of mind to one that must give out effort.  That's hard because it literally requires mental and caloric muscle to be moved, and that means we feel some sort of struggle.

Sure, moving sucks.  But, not moving will eventually suck, too.  And I'm betting that not moving is so good right now because we just moved, and we need a break.  The point is that we can condition ourselves to do things, and that those things require rules for a little while until they become automatic.  Because, and here's the deal, you're already automatically (non-eventfully) going down a course of events, but you've been acclimated to them, so you don't notice as much.  Eating a sundae every night for dinner, or drinking a six pack, is easier because it is the norm.  We have a bias for what's here and now.  Any change isn't threatening so much as it requires some effort, and it doesn't make sense to expend energy until we have the knowledge that the expenditure of that energy will yield benefits--but to get that knowledge we have to experience it somehow, or ask someone who we trust has similar judgments and tastes.

Anyway, the point is that a lot of personal growth and insight and the core essential stuff of life, such as it is, comes not from having a lot of money, or from getting the best car or most prestigious job, but from the desire to obtain those things, and the effort we put forth to get them.   To be clear: from not drinking when drinking is easy, from not cheating when cheating is easy, from not eating cake when eating cake is easy, and from not stealing shit when it is available, not out of a need to be involved in a community (though that matters too), but because restriction begets insight, and insight allows us to realize that restriction is important, and eventually, once these two folks get into bed together, well, the genes are right for a well balanced kid, I think, so long as s/he isn't spoiled.

A Year and Four Months

I've been sober for a year and four months straight, no chaser.    I've found a new job, bought an apartment, and gotten married (at city hall), in that time, so, along with getting sober, a lot of other things have changed too.  Maybe the most marked personality change is my profound understanding of my own limitations--that is, my lack of expertise in almost every area imaginable.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  More like a life thing.  Like a recognizing how small we are type of thing. 

Alcohol fuels some levels of self-bias.  It also, unfortunately, helps me to relax, at least in the short term (and without thinking of any long term costs).  So however painful that may be, since my preference is to reduce bias in the longer term, I have to deal with some levels of increased anxiety now.  That's not bad, it just is "who I am" and I'm learning my limitations on a daily basis.  Suffice it to say that I'm not considering going back to drinking anytime soon--so the idea of quitting for a year is nice, but insufficient.

I am not foolish enough to believe that my life is a mirror of sheer will.  I'm also not among those who think that we have no control over our own direction, either.  It may be that we only control 3.59% of the direction of our lives--but I want to be conscious of that aspect, however small, and make informed decisions.

Self-Doubt

Self-Doubt is healthy.  The problem arises only when it paralyzes.  One of the paradoxical ways out of this paralysis to realize our utter, incomprehensible lack of importance.  I think it helps to do this for two reasons.

1) The quick emotional reaction to self-doubt is often, whether internal or the result of a conversation with friend(s), assurance.  Assurances that we're already where we should be might take away the motivating factor that some self-doubt can provide.

2)If we're not important, then doing something perfectly--that is, trying, failing, learning, and trying again, isn't put on a pedestal (given an audience), and we might actually create something--be involved in some project--without first thinking about how it will be received, or whether we're doing it right.

Alcohol Is Safety.

Not because it is easy, because it often isn't, or because it is simple.  Again, no.  But because it is predictable.

It also allows, I think, a convenient way to face death, in whatever machination you want to chose (not necessarily easy, again, but possible).

Sterile dry full fledged non-alcoholic life is almost unbearable, and there's no telling where the fuck it will go, even as it is, from moment to moment, touchable, palpable.

Hardest Things: Guitar and Marriages

Two related thoughts (I assure you): it is hard to realize that you must learn to play the guitar by learning an immense amount of patterns that, if broken, sound bad.

It is also hard to realize that the ideal so often romanticized, that we have a true and singular "meant to be" significant other, is not true.  We don't.  We can't just pick up the guitar and make up the rules, just like we'd like to but can't copy a foreign language without learning it first (and by the way, once you learn it, you lose that damn cool essential foreign aspect, because you know--almost all of a sudden--what people are saying, so it goes from tremendously romantic to tremendously mundane, although still intractably special in a different sense (and I have a lot left to learn, no doubt)).  Every guitar solo follows a pattern.   And every relationship is hard work--worthy hard work, that is, to turn someone into a special someone, although less like a drug, and also hard work to open oneself to that other person.

And even though I haven't changed my guitar strings in years, I was only a little out of tune just now, when I picked the old instrument out of the case and strummed it into merriment and balanced [idiosyncratic] bliss/== my own.

Seeing Is Not Changing

No matter how clear we can see a personality trait, social problem, or relationship dynamic, whether in ourselves or in other people, actually changing it in some meaningful positive way is much more difficult.  Unfortunately, it is really tempting to think that comprehension is equivalent to conclusion.  It isn't.  And it is frustrating to see a problem clearly and be able to do precisely nothing to stop it. 

Simultaneously, somehow, we need to be careful that we're not deluding ourselves into the trap of clarity, and note that we only see a fraction of any reality in front of us.

Mouth Full of Linen.

Holy shit am I not drinking.  I'm parched dry.  I'm so dry I have my own lift.  I'm so dry I've got a zip code of man-made weather around me.  I'm so dry I haven't even begun to register where day and night recede into each other, or where a year began, or whether it was a day, or where old and new friends faded into nostalgia.  I close my eyes and leaves from autumns of my childhood smell like chimney smoke in my nose, and favorite maroon sweaters paint my nails like tar, and my room-mate from brooklyn wishes me well on my first day of work, and law school professors bear down on damn clammy enema inducing questions, and the vividness of thoughts that I haven't even thunk in fifteen years stand out printed on a mountain side of fatigue and weariness, and I open my eyes and the world around me functions with the minutia and complexity that is startling, and boring, and vast and endless, and I take a dip in the water, and I'm on the toilet now, and the ground swells up, and the tiles break open at their natural seams and I'm gone, man, I'm gone right into the sewer.  And I've had that dream before, a thousand times.  And I can't fucking figure out why everyone is talking that way, or what that lip curl signified socially, until I realize that they're blind with booze, just full of it, and that entire industries center on their continual absorption of the chemical, straight into the lining of the stomach, the large intestine, no matter the bottle shape or the hand pouring it, all the same the next morning, and I make rules for myself these days because I know that I can't trust myself, man, I make decisions before I have to make decisions so I don't have to make decisions that I don't want to make.

Lessons About Quitting Booze.

1. Quitting Booze is really difficult if you've become addicted.  In other words, don't underestimate how addicted you are.    Having said that, quitting booze isn't for everyone.  Therein lies the rub.  If you think you might have a problem, then you probably do.  The best way to check for this is to try to stop for a week and see how easy it is, and how much it impacts who you interact with and how you interact generally.  Another good way to check is to ask whether family members have problems with alcohol. If the answer is yes, then you have to be careful.

2.  Alcoholism is progressive.  If you don't become conscious of it now, your abuse of it will increase--and the consequent high you get off of alcohol will decrease.  And, you'll slowly (or rapidly) do damage to your emotional baseline, i.e. how well you are able to assess information from other people and events, how you process that information, and your views of things generally.

3.  Quitting drinking will change you if you've had problems with drinking so far.  At first it will be really difficult and you'll be horribly irritated.  Seek therapeutic help.  Stay away from other addictive substances.  Try to notice abusive relationships that you might be involved in, especially if you are the abuser, but also notice cycles of unnecessary drama that seem to crop up out of boredom, or worse.  You will have more money.  Eventually, you will be startlingly clearer.  You will probably seek new or different types of relationships with friends/social circles/lovers.  You may realize that you are fundamentally unhappy or unbalanced in other ways that were not as clear as before when you drank.   These are all good things, because they allow you (or me!) to start to process these real issues instead of mask them in cycles of substance abuse.   It is okay to want to be alone, but you should have someone to talk to.

4.  AA is a personal choice.  The most difficult part about not drinking, and about life, I think, is to figure out what your true emotional reactions are, which also means figuring out your assumptions about framing of events, and generally, having some descriptive accuracy.  I quickly realized the world was much larger and more complex than I ever gave it credit for.  Every thought we think is some level of reduction.

5.  Be very careful not to misalign sensitivity with abuse, or to justify your drinking with art/productivity

6.  Start to incorporate non-alcohol related activities into your life.  Hobbies are your friends.  You need not be the best at anything, or even one thing.  Subjective happiness is happiness.  Figuring our what makes you happy, going out to achieve it, shifting what makes you happy, and then trying to achieve that, is the essence of life, so long as we take a little time off and balance our oft-quoted high standards with self-empahthy.

Having said that, I wish you the best.  I like to contemplate my thoughts in words, and put them down in front of me.  It helps me organize myself, and stay sane. Therefore, I'll continue to write occasionally here, but will try to start a new blog, with a new name and everything, to be determined within a day or so.  I've come a long way from blogging about my struggles with alcohol.  Ultimately, the point is not to obsess about drinking OR about not-drinking, without letting one's guard down enough to go out and drink.  Look for a link from me soon about where to read my mutterings.  Best.

Edit: Find a continuation of my ramblings here.

The Mating Game: Ignore it or Not, You still violate rules

Let's not be coy.  A mating game exists out there, and as humans, we are part of it.  We seek partners to couple with, both emotionally and physically, and there's a host of realities that, whether we like it or not, come along for the ride.  For now, I just wanted to point to one dynamic that's problematic.

If you decide to overtly notice that there's a mating game going on, a market of sorts, and play accordingly, by broadening those to whom you're exposed, for instance, and increasing your perceived status as attractive (whether through physical or other means), and, importantly, you talk about the mating market itself explicitly, you may be seen as too cold and calculating, and lesson your status (ahem, price point?) on the market.  So, advice for those people who are extroardinarily calculating and trying to find a good catch: don't be too explicit about it.  People want to feel that they're unique and subjectively interesting.

Now, the flip side.  Suppose you abhor the mating market, and don't like all the usual bars and clubs and whatnot, where "normal" people meet each other, because, for various reasons, it mostly makes you uncomfortable.  Well, then you'll also be selecting out a variety of possible mates many of which, sure, wouldn't be your type, but some of which might have been, and you'll never know.  You'll also be taking yourself down a notch in status/price point if you don't dress "up" yourself.  Maybe you don't want the type of person who doesn't love the "real" you, but the news flash is that you still have to get over yourself, even when you go out of the house looking like a sloppy rag.  Because you're not exempt.  I'm not exempt.  Nobody, until they are "off" of the market is exempt (and even then....).  I do believe that a lot of young people want to come to cities not only because they are exciting, but because it increases their exposure to high quality mates.

Okay, this is NOT a topic of discussion for the office, by the way.  People do not like to talk about this topic in such overt terms.  My point is only that when we aren't overt, we lose descriptive reality, and when we are overt, we should be careful to realize that other people aren't always.  So there's a fine needle to thread here, and obviously, lots of pricked fingers along the way.

ADDITION: Now that I think about it, the point is that how you choose to see the mating market will in part determine who you mate with.

Judging Happiness

One of the perplexing parts regarding measuring one's own happiness is the fact that it cannot necessarily be measured solely by one's own standards. 

In other words, your happiness is slightly but partially dependent on how happy other people think you are, unless you are so totally disconnected from other people, and their immediate reations to you, so as to render you schizophrenic.  Even schizophrenics seem to respond to what other people think about them.

As such, you can't just "live by your own standards" even if you want to, or, maybe more importantly, even if you think you do. 

Fantasy and Reality

It makes sense that we can indulge ourselves in fantasy.  After all, the ability to think abstractly, that is, to conjure alternate realities that share some essential qualities to our current state, is fundamental to survival.  We're very good at asking the question: What would happen if?  If that tiger jumped there?  If I could distract him with some steak?  If we cooperated?  If not?  Those that cooperated in our evolutionary history seemed to have survived much better than others, though we can't rule out free-riders completely, even though we don't like them.  Anyway, the point is this: it is very easy to imagine a reality that so closely mimics current reality that we convince ourselves that it is the current reality and we believe in it as if it were real.  But it isn't.  But our belief is sincere, and is often the difference between living and dying.  If I'm convinced of a danger, x, and my conviction is exaggerated 10% over reality, then I will suffer some opportunity cost in my caution, true--I could have been doing something else besides spending my time/energy on my inflated worry.  However, as compared to someone that underestimated the danger by 10%, I win, in that I'm not maimed or dead.  The balance, you're mind is probably screaming at you, is to find a way to maximize energy output on useful goals, or, stated more accurately, to minimize the extent to which we frivolously worry or expend useless energy.  And that's where modern life comes in.  We've automated a lot of our survival, made it more efficient (think of your next food source), so we have more time to indulge.  We have more time to be preoccupied with our fantasy, with unreality and it poses less risk than previously [in human history, on average].  That's pretty remarkable.  It allows great reward and great risk.

Death: Stop It Already!

I'm sick and tierd of people who speak of death as if they'll know when they die.  They won't.  We won't.  We'll be dead!  There is no "When I die, I hope that I lived my life according to xyz . . ." - No.  I'm sorry, but we won't die and then somehow still be alive to be able to have a meta-view of our own lives once we're dead.  Dead means that our consciousness will be cease to exist.   It isn't pretty.  What's less pretty is that life is all we've got.  What's simultaneously pretty is that life is all we've got.  This is it.  Here, now, in front of us.  And it is neither universally good or bad or good or evil, and almost nobody can be sliced into these labels with complete accuracy, because these labels exist to justify our emotional responses to situations, to judge risk, and to justify our behavior, largely, rather than to descriptively link to objective reality in a way that can aid our navigation of it. 

Now, here's something really scary.  We're so convicned that we, individually, won't die, that it is really difficult to dislodge the notion that we'll be able to evaluate our lives from some state beyond the purview of our lives....from the grave.  If we accept that we'll die in a rational way, we'll likely be much more accurate about our chances for certain goals, and we'll also be more depressed.  I'm not justifying depression.  I'm not even sure what the best way to live is.  We struggle and struggle and struggle, and we would hate to know that our struggling is not for anything in particular, except to continue living as long as possible.  We've got a strong biological imperative to ignore death, on par with our sex drive.