Isn’t it something that you can say something is a metaphor and most people will take it as is, rather than discussing how accurate it is, probably part of why I’m so lonely. I’m big on metaphor, which is more direct than I feel like I should be. Last therapist and I worked on that word a lot “should”… but we never got around to why the way it shouldn’t be… if that makes sense. Even my wife sometimes needs me to explain the meaning of words I use…. how’s that for solitude?
Grant, it is theoretically more alone to not have someone….. but it’s a quite lonely feeling being alone in a crowded room. Worse than actually being alone, I would prefer actual solitude… like in nature.
Anyway I started this off with the premise that I have an apt metaphor for my condition, and I’m getting to it, my roundabout method is part of the demonstration; it’s a dead simple metaphor, it doesn’t need much preamble…. but it’ll take more work to get to it than feels reasonable. You’ll labor at trying to get to the point only to find yourself there and disappointed.
Right, so the metaphor goes like this. I’m building a computer (and what’s more relatable than that (which is me getting the irony) yeah), and the process is relatively straight forward. Obtain parts, install parts, troubleshoot, but the thing is not only can I not figure out what’s wrong with the dang thing, but it feels like I may never reach such nirvana as to see my troubleshooting make sense.
Now this is suicide group, not engineering group so I’m not going to get into the engineering problems. What I’m getting into is how this is what my life feels like. I gather parts, expensive, supposedly “good” parts, and yet despite my gathering of supposedly good parts……. my life doesn’t work.
So when quality is a factor completely lacking, how am I supposed to motivate myself to try? Life should work the same down here with my nose in the dirt as it did when I was sitting back with some success. Which I guess it does, cause seems to fail to lead to effect. It appears that pain and awfulness is just random or bad luck.
I did treatment plan today. Which is why I’m ruminating more, I don’t actually think about how miserable I am on a day to day basis. Don’t want to wallow. But for two hours I had it shoved in my face how much my life doesn’t work, and all my efforts are futile….. and everyone is perfectly okay with that.
Apt metaphor, my broken would be computer. Like my mind on the surface it holds on the inspection stickers indicating quality and skill…….. but the thing won’t turn on, won’t even give me an error code. What’s the point?! WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING ALP KISSING INSANITY IS THE POINT OF THIS ABSURDITY?!
Close on a song, Digging Machine by Logan Whitehurst seems to fit my mood these days
I really wish someone had told me sooner that I’d get right down to the center of the earth and find out that there’s nothing there but dirt. Metaphorically speaking.
4 comments
I find computer assembly/troubleshooting a truly maddening process, to the extent that when I do finally find a solution, I feel compelled to offer a prayer of thanks to whatever supernatural forces have finally favoured me. But (in my limited experience), there has always been a solution, even if you have to swap out every individual part to test it.
Unfortunately, the mind is a far more mysterious machine. The only information we can really get from it is the things it’s willing to tells us, and those are often contradictory or absurd. You could assemble all the parts of a stereotypically happy life, but if they don’t happen to fit with whatever’s going on deep inside, unhappiness can still result.
The problem with metaphors is that the best ones are as complicated as the source, so in order for anyone to get it they have to be experts in the metaphor. There aren’t a whole lot of experts in computer architecture, so you’re right, even though it’s a perfect metaphor it’ll be isolating since no one else can see it any more than they can see your psychological situation.
I guess this is the problem that has afflicted the tortured artist since the first cave painting. The best artists use images or sounds as metaphors for something deeper like their personal struggles or the human condition. But people don’t grasp the metaphor, maybe because they’re not experts in the language of art.
I just saw a classic Japanese movie from the 1940s called Late Spring. It seemed ok, nothing life changing, about a father trying to get his daughter to marry and move out. After the movie I watched some documentaries on the film and DUH the movie is a huge metaphor for the westernization of post-WW2 Japan. I totally didn’t see it, but it’s the perfect metaphor shown masterfully. I’m not stupid, I’m just not familiar with post-WW2 japan so it flew right over my head. And needless to say the movie wasn’t a huge international hit because audiences probably didn’t get the metaphor outside of Japan (where it was a hit).
So yeah thats the problem with perfect metaphors… It’s almost like preaching to the choir.
I do have a cursory background in computer science, just enough to get what you mean, as well as a lifelong background in having a fucked up head. So I’m basically the choir.
Oops I got sidetracked by my own ramble. Forgot to mention that the 1 flaw in your metaphor is that computers don’t repair themselves as you’re trying to do with your own brain. Computers rely on competent, dedicated, expert technicians to fix them. For humans unfortunately there’s no such thing as a competent, dedicated, expert technician… Modern psychologists are like apes banging rocks & smashing buttons on a Cray supercomputer.
If we had psychologist who were as efficient as computer engineers, or alternately if computers had the power to detect, solve and repair their own flaws, then we’d see some interesting parallels. Regarding the latter, I’d go with the Battlestar Galactica prediction (or Terminator for you real old schoolers) that computers given the power and awareness to self-repair would end up turning sociopathic.
So…you’re a lemon? 😛