2025-08-07 00:00 UTC
Well probably the most exciting thing that's happened today is that I got a new desk. It's a much needed replacement from my old one that was this stupid L-shaped thing that I had to build myself and I did a really poor job, so it was extremely unstable and at one point even fell apart. It was also unnesecarily large and I ended up putting a bunch of stuff on it that had no business being there. It essentially became a trinket graveyard and I hate how I seem to always be amassing them. But anyways, the new desk I have is a small 3-foot long folding desk, so I didn't have to assemble anything. I just unfolded the legs and it was good to go. The stability that I have now compared to that old desk is life-changing. Also, it's small enough to sit comfortably in the corner of my room, so it looks really nice compared to the old one. Also, the smaller size means that I now have to be more intentional regarding what I want to have laying on here, so that's really helpful. I prefer to keep things minimal despite my tendency to accrue garbage. Whenever I have a bunch of garbage piled up, it's always a great activity to throw it all away en masse. I try to take what I can that's still useable and donate it, of course, but believe me when I say that most of it is trash.
Ergonomics and decluttering aside, I have been pulling teeth just to come here and write today. I enjoy coming here and spewing out whatever garbage I'm thinking about, but it felt like a total chore to come here, open up my text editor, and just write. It's as if I forget that this is what helps keep me sane. I really do enjoy being able to just say whatever comes to mind here, especially considering how many stupid thoughts come into my head during the day. But I've always had trouble with starting tasks. Once I do get started, it's usually not too difficult to follow through and finish when I'm feeling generally normal. But I still deal with a lot of inertia in that regard. I tell myself I'm going to do something, and then I do everything in my power to distract myself until the pain of not starting wells up to the point where my head feels like it's going to explode if I don't start. But like I said, I do okay once I get started. Well, that's true most of the time anyway. Still, I'm not sure why I have a tendency to do that and why there's so much inertia. I can't really consider any reasoning as to why that is at the moment, but maybe I'll figure it out eventually.
Still though, a lot of the "tasks" that I try to do are things that I feel actually don't really matter. I have a hard time switching between ambition and disillusionment. Some days I feel inspired to do a bunch of things that I think might be really impactful or fulfilling, but most days I just don't see the point. I think a big part of that has to do with the experiences that I've had in the past with regard to self-discovery and "spiritual awakening" or whatever. After many psychedelic and non-psychedelic "spiritual" experiences, I came to a stark and painful realization: the deepest part of self-discovery is the void, that at the absolute core of the self-concept, there is literally nothing there. People spend so much of their time occupying their lives with trying to discover their "true selves" or foster a general sense of identity. People will try to tell everyone attributes about themselves that aren't really appendages of their identity. Just about every statement that starts with "I am x" is not really even true. This isn't because x isn't there, but because "I am" isn't there. People try to use material things to give themselves a self-concept, usually. People love to identify themselves with what they have. But people also use immaterial things to bolster that self-concept as well. This usually comes in the form of a belief like "I'm a democrat" or something of that nature. And while those immaterial things can more credulously assert their ontological relevance, the individual can't really do that in the same way. Sure, cults of personality can exist, but there's not really anything that can describe that individual that is specifically unique to it. Really, individual uniqueness only results out of a combination of traits. There's not a single one thing that displays a marker of uniqueness for an individual. All of the combinations of traits that exist to describe a certain individual are based on those false attributes of identity, like material possessions or beliefs or whatever. So with that, there's no such thing as "you" or "me" or "I" or whatever other individualized pronouns there are.
Because I am literally nothing, I don't feel a need to care or worry about ambitions these days. Sure, there are things I'd like to aspire to like being closer to God or gaining more independence, but the truth is that there's no real reason to give a shit about any of that stuff. Now, this is just something that feels more applicable to me because I have fostered my life to the point where I don't really have any external responsibilities. My mileage on this kind of thing is way different for someone who actually has people to be responsible for. An unemployed, single, childless, mentally ill guy is not really going to have the same realities as someone who is a parent or a boss or whatever. People who exist in collectives most likely have a more actualized self-concept because of the collective, but unfortunately for me I don't really have any collectives to be a part of, so I'll just have to deal with being a formless stream of thoughts and perceptions until they eventually stop. Dust unto dust, or something like that.