heartlessviking

This is probably going to be me screaming into the void again. It was always going to be, I thought about screaming it into the void of my actual life… and the part of me that’s a brand manager wasn’t cool with that. I’ll never be a brand manager for anyone but myself, but I’m the only brand manager I can afford. That might be sadder than what I’m here to talk about. Leaving that right there.

but I could have been more than this. Not a lot more, in fact something so sad and awful I never thought I’d regret not being it. I could […]

Sometimes I wonder if I’m essentially non human, because I enjoy it more and more when I get sick. I’m sick right now, in some way involving my sinuses. It might just be an infection caused by allergies, it might be a bacteria or virus. Most of these pass within a few days.

but I tend to fight against being sick for as long as possible, only fully accepting it when I am too tired to deny it anymore.

To quote Elton John;

“There’s a calm surrender
To the rush of day
When the heat of a rolling wind
Can be turned away
An […]

The problem I run into, more than any is an understanding of how futile specific paths are. I know I’m not going to chase a career to meaning, or a relationship, or even having kids. I feel like those are the big ones that most ordinary people go for.

but it keeps going, the litany of pointless destinations. I’m not going to chase a religious philosophy to meaning, and in fact all of religion is created to give a sense of grasping towards meaning, without actually providing any destination. You’ll run that treadmill for as long as you believe that there’s something at the end of […]

I suspect there’s a third path somewhere, as with so many things a simple binary doesn’t capture the complexity of things

but as I feel ambition surging, never have I hated it as much as now. Ambition has cost me so much, so many years, my youth, people precious to me…. and for what? Definitely this wasn’t an outcome I was expecting. I thought I would have achieved more, be admired more. Instead I learned how terrible those desires can be, and that my need to be loved and to love is stronger still than those.

I was reading someone else’s post, where they talked about the […]

I’m trying to shut it out, the real world, the whole ball of wax….. there’s nothing there for me right now anyway.

I keep getting sucked back in, into the drama, into the dopamine high of watching others hurt….. how sick is that? If there’s anything that makes me doubt intelligent design, it’s how humans handle dopamine. We like pain, mostly causing it but some sick folks like feeling it too…. I’ve been in both positions.

So why can’t I just drop it, all the dirt, all the agony and wailing, why isn’t it easier to look away? I’m trying, for what that’s worth. I’ve closed all […]

Sometimes things give me some perspective, like as feeble and useless as I am, things could be worse.

I have these friends who are about my age, but way sicker physically than I am. They have something I don’t have, the ability to keep pushing when their bodies say no. I’m not sure if I envy that. Point being, they can push themselves to levels of sick that I can only dream of.

I have a lot of empathy for the situation, because I certainly could have kept pushing. This morning the guy had a full meltdown, a confluence of stressors arranged in such a way that […]

This is a unique feeling, finding someone _better read_ than I on the particular matter of philosophy that dominates my issues. I guess I assumed that others who wished not to exist had more success than I have at achieving it.

I’ve read the relevant Camus, Myth of Sisyphus, because it most clearly defines and attempts to solve the philosophic problem of suicide. Deeper still, it discusses the desire not to be, and proposes some alternative ideas like social suicide, where you just drop your existing life and go live a different one. But the Russian literature element, that’s been on my to read list for […]

I had two teeth pulled and two caps put in. The caps aren’t much of an issue, but the extractions….. left holes. Those holes will heal, BUT, until they do, I’m off nicotine. The only way I have thought of that I could have nicotine is if I used the patch, but I used the patch when I was stuck in a no smoking hospital, it’s part of what’s kept me from checking myself in for the last five years. The patch doesn’t provide pleasure, it makes the lacking worse.

On the shy side, 48 hours to go…. that’s the minimum before I can enjoy nicotine…. […]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get this thing out of my head and onto paper (okay, computer screen), for a few days now. It’s about why I am where I am, why I’m depressed, and why I don’t feel understood. It might be kinda ranty, you’ve been warned.

Sooooo I’m unemployed “by choice” as in, I’m a somewhat able bodied American male, and right now not working is better for me than working. It’s a pretty common situation, apparently it’s been a demographic trend for decades only just now reaching a peak (people hope, if they continue with this approach they won’t be […]

Suddenly, the reward is available. I’ve been waiting on it, holding myself back from so much, so much just longing for a taste….

and now I can’t seem to… take it. It’s right there, it isn’t even that big of a thing apart from the darn buildup behind it. That I wanted it enough to be sneaky, to be clever, to be patient, and a little dishonest. But when I have it, will I feel better? Doubt it. Doubt it very much…… all the same, I’m afraid if I don’t grab it, if I wait, it’ll cost me much more. Does that justify giving myself a […]

sidestepping the humorous implications; I am talking about a specific tooth pain, and I’m aware that the teeth are broadly within my head. This is about psychosomatic vs real sensation.

I have a hole in one of my teeth. It’s been there awhile, and most of the time hasn’t bothered me…. but these last two weeks it’s been bugging me. I’ve been taking pain killers, and most of the time they work. Last night it reached a point I actually took enough pain killers to feel “high”…. which I don’t even know how to feel about really

but then this morning, the pain was going in and […]

Objectively, things should be going well. I’m five months out from starting grad school. I have enough to eat, gas for the car, self care items like toothbrush and foot cream.

I just don’t feel it. I don’t feel any of it. I don’t know how to make myself want to get up and go. I just got back from the store, which I did by myself. Upshot I got some things I probably wouldn’t have if I had been accompanied, but I was hoping it would energize me, but it’s draining me. I got myself a strong cup of coffee, but even that is failing […]

Recently two games I’m fond of got updates; Timberborn and Sons of the Forest. I only mention names so our discussion here can be grounded in something. Timberborn is the real star here, Sons of the Forest is after all only a few months into development.

But the devs for this project…. have no right to be as good as they are. The game goes for $25, full price. That is to say you can get it for $10-$15 if you can wait for a sale. I had 300 hours into it before the update, and already I’m up over 400 after the update. That’s how […]

not that it feels like it has any part being here, beside people talking about chronic pain, poverty etc. That’s often the problem, my issues seem silly compared to the problems of others. I guess I’m trying to make peace with being silly…

So the grad program I’m going into did a webinar this evening, an hour of talking about the program and what it’s there for. I get why, well informed is better for them. At the same time, it feels like a sales pitch.  I don’t know if I buy it, the whole “we’ll put you into a fulfilling career”…. yeah, heard it before, […]

I was woken up this morning by my tooth hurting…. so I ended up working on a horror novel I’ve been reading…. in the end it drove me to the edge. A few minutes ago I reached the point I stopped reading the detail, and started skipping about trying to get some answers, only for most of those answers to be out of reach. That’s what appeals to me about horror; often enough there are no answers, or the answers are up for interpretation.

It bugs me that humans as creators of narrative prefer to create a world of happy endings. Happy endings are a lie, […]

I’ve been going to therapy for nearly 30 years at this point, long enough that I’ve done therapy with every modality and philosophical bent. One particular therapist had a pillow on his couch that said; “if it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.” I don’t remember him being particularly Freudian in any other way, so it might have been a joke.

That joke being that in Freudian therapy, it almost always comes back to the mother for young men. I remember when I was covering it in college and I found out that part of why Freud is less taken seriously now is that his approach […]

Around the time I was trying to create an efficient reply to “People don’t magically get better” I got a message that chilled me to the bone. Apparently my former boss at the electrician gig was extending an offer of work to me.

Years of conditioning, as well as my present unpleasant economic reality meant that my gut was to take it. That little rebellious voice in my head said “wait on it, think on it” and though it froze me out of all action the rest of the night…. I succeeded at resisting.

This morning, half awake, I tried to reconcile my issues. What I realized […]

Adjusting parameters is pretty much all I’ve ever done that has challenged me. It’s why I took to programming and software so well, because it follows simple A + B = C or A -B =C. If you know two variables, you know the third one for those a little rusty on their algebra.

Down from the esoteric logic of the process, I’ll explain using the sample of the problem I’m working on right now. Set A = base state (at this point that means medications as prescribe, normal activity levels), and B = stimulant levels, because that’s a very easy to adjust variable that also […]

after years of toxic positivity, I find myself in need of discouragement talks every now and then.

This morning the temptation was rising to go back to electrical work, which on the surface seems innocent. I thought about how I enjoyed solving those problems, and getting the appropriate tools. I thought to myself “maybe it was just that employer”

but my gut knows better. My gut reminded me of how much pain it was, working for incompetent people. It reminded me of the hours doing stupid stuff,  like running metal pipes for wire to go through. It reminded me how I always felt tired and I couldn’t […]