Life has been a bit strange of late. I've gone from being incredibly happy to depressingly sad. I don't quite have the answers to why that is and I am not really sure I care to find out. I almost feel like its easier to give up than try and work towards some worthwhile conclusion to the problem.
I love going on vacation. I hate coming back from there. Generally, when I get back from vacation, I go through a period of adjustment that starts with the lack of sleep (because I am usually not in the same time zone as my vacation destination was), self-pity and loathing at the state I left my place in, in my hurry to get out of here. It progresses to outright hatred of having to go back to work and dealing with the routine in general. I resolve to find better things to do in life, learn more, improve myself, lose weight etc etc. And eventually, I end up no further than where I was, where I've been for over 2 years. I can find any number of reasons and excuses to make this someone or something else's fault, but that doesn't get me anywhere.
I am not sure quite how to try and fix any of this... so instead, I am going to start growing myself a beard. I'm going to keep it going until I am happy once more or I have to shave it off for some reason (like trying to take a flight or something).
But to try and make some sense of it all, lets see what I did and what I have failed to do.
Lets start with my place. Its a mess. Its a serious mess. Piles of laundered clothes, piles of dirty clothes are everywhere. Piles of paper meant to be shredded and others meant to be recycled are all over. Plastic things, garbage piles, paper bags etc are all over the place. Shoes are everywhere. I added another pair to my collection recently. I think I have over 40 pairs of shoes now. My big clock still doesn't work properly. I had resolved to try and fix it a few months back. I have yet to even take it down to figure out why the small and the large needle get stuck in certain places when they try and cross each other. Books are all over the place. Unread or partially read copies of the Economist lie around the place, showing their age by the thickness of the layer of dust on their exposed corners. My luggage from when I got back in November still hangs out in my living room. Worse, the inflatable bed from when my cousin visited me in May is still hanging out in my living room! Needless to say, I have tried for many evenings and weekends to try and straighten them out and it hasn't worked. I can't remember the last time I vacuumed my place. My aim isn't to gross anyone out... I am just describing the crap that I see around me.
Work sucks. There are far worse words for it, but I am going to stick with sucks. I asked my manager if I could go home and work from there and he said no. There goes that filament of hope. I am beginning to realise that every time I go for a decent amount of time away from work, that I come back and hate it a LOT. Enough to just want to punch people and see if that will get me out of there. But the practical side of me tries to convince the hard headed side that I need money to pay off my debts, to pay rent, to eat, to pay off the car, to get back home, to live in dignity and so forth and thus, I cannot go through with that. Besides, I would be no good at pugilistic activities; I'm more likely to break my own bones in the process. I also feel like I am starting to not learn much at work anymore... I spend more time trying to write stupid things about work to try and live within the rules that the powers that be have set (i.e. blog, go to the library and research, show my work and a few other things that I sometimes wish I could forget by consuming copious amounts of methanol laced alcoholic beverages... but then I might just go blind).
My health is probably not doing too well. Of late, I have been going to the gym. I haven't seen any improvement in my weight loss plans or the pant-fitting plans... you know, those clothes that seem to take up space in your closet that you are sure one day you will fit in again. I think the needy are getting some nice clothes soon, courtesy of yours truly. I have been eating horribly. By that I mean, eating out on an almost daily basis. The amount of food I have in my fridge that I mean to cook is large; lots of veggies, lots of fruit etc. The amount of food that I consume and don't throw out is far smaller. I have things in my fridge from before I went on vacation. Scary.
On to broadening of the mind and so forth. One of my former co-workers is an avid reader and an inspiration. His tally of books read is something I aspire to reach some day, though not quite at that pace. I have no desire to read that many books in so little time, but I genuinely respect that ability and wish I could do a quarter of that. As a child, I was very lucky to have books. I had more books than anything else. Birthdays, Christmas, visits by family all involved me getting books. It used to be simple Enid Blyton books and the classic sorts of books... David Copperfield and the like. I remember for a while, reading books out of the school library and even borrowing books other people had borrowed from the library. Somewhere along the way, I gave that up. I don't know exactly when, but I haven't really read a book from cover to cover for as long as I can remember now. I have finished reading the odd book of late... but with far too many distractions interspersed between chapters. I think the last book I finished reading was Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel. I've been meaning to read Monty's biography, Farley Mowat's version of Silent Spring, Nehru's The Discovery of India and so on. I have Rushdie's last book about a clown sitting about somewhere that I gave up on and I haven't really read any of the books I brought back from India two years ago (save for the Asterix ones). I also have a book about life in the Hebrides that Morrison sent to me as a gift in the mail after he buggered out of here, again, one that I have not really read. And I am looking forward to the second part of Citizen of the World. I once tried to read War and Peace and gave up... some day, I want to sit down and read that.
Anyway, its quite late in the night... and I have been rambling on with a mixture of self-pity and god knows what else. I blame the cold weather for it all. I think I am going to hit the sack and try not to make any more resolutions I manage not to keep. Look at it this way, if I don't try, I dodn't fail. That works with women as well. Or so I tell myself. Until next time...
I love going on vacation. I hate coming back from there. Generally, when I get back from vacation, I go through a period of adjustment that starts with the lack of sleep (because I am usually not in the same time zone as my vacation destination was), self-pity and loathing at the state I left my place in, in my hurry to get out of here. It progresses to outright hatred of having to go back to work and dealing with the routine in general. I resolve to find better things to do in life, learn more, improve myself, lose weight etc etc. And eventually, I end up no further than where I was, where I've been for over 2 years. I can find any number of reasons and excuses to make this someone or something else's fault, but that doesn't get me anywhere.
I am not sure quite how to try and fix any of this... so instead, I am going to start growing myself a beard. I'm going to keep it going until I am happy once more or I have to shave it off for some reason (like trying to take a flight or something).
But to try and make some sense of it all, lets see what I did and what I have failed to do.
Lets start with my place. Its a mess. Its a serious mess. Piles of laundered clothes, piles of dirty clothes are everywhere. Piles of paper meant to be shredded and others meant to be recycled are all over. Plastic things, garbage piles, paper bags etc are all over the place. Shoes are everywhere. I added another pair to my collection recently. I think I have over 40 pairs of shoes now. My big clock still doesn't work properly. I had resolved to try and fix it a few months back. I have yet to even take it down to figure out why the small and the large needle get stuck in certain places when they try and cross each other. Books are all over the place. Unread or partially read copies of the Economist lie around the place, showing their age by the thickness of the layer of dust on their exposed corners. My luggage from when I got back in November still hangs out in my living room. Worse, the inflatable bed from when my cousin visited me in May is still hanging out in my living room! Needless to say, I have tried for many evenings and weekends to try and straighten them out and it hasn't worked. I can't remember the last time I vacuumed my place. My aim isn't to gross anyone out... I am just describing the crap that I see around me.
Work sucks. There are far worse words for it, but I am going to stick with sucks. I asked my manager if I could go home and work from there and he said no. There goes that filament of hope. I am beginning to realise that every time I go for a decent amount of time away from work, that I come back and hate it a LOT. Enough to just want to punch people and see if that will get me out of there. But the practical side of me tries to convince the hard headed side that I need money to pay off my debts, to pay rent, to eat, to pay off the car, to get back home, to live in dignity and so forth and thus, I cannot go through with that. Besides, I would be no good at pugilistic activities; I'm more likely to break my own bones in the process. I also feel like I am starting to not learn much at work anymore... I spend more time trying to write stupid things about work to try and live within the rules that the powers that be have set (i.e. blog, go to the library and research, show my work and a few other things that I sometimes wish I could forget by consuming copious amounts of methanol laced alcoholic beverages... but then I might just go blind).
My health is probably not doing too well. Of late, I have been going to the gym. I haven't seen any improvement in my weight loss plans or the pant-fitting plans... you know, those clothes that seem to take up space in your closet that you are sure one day you will fit in again. I think the needy are getting some nice clothes soon, courtesy of yours truly. I have been eating horribly. By that I mean, eating out on an almost daily basis. The amount of food I have in my fridge that I mean to cook is large; lots of veggies, lots of fruit etc. The amount of food that I consume and don't throw out is far smaller. I have things in my fridge from before I went on vacation. Scary.
On to broadening of the mind and so forth. One of my former co-workers is an avid reader and an inspiration. His tally of books read is something I aspire to reach some day, though not quite at that pace. I have no desire to read that many books in so little time, but I genuinely respect that ability and wish I could do a quarter of that. As a child, I was very lucky to have books. I had more books than anything else. Birthdays, Christmas, visits by family all involved me getting books. It used to be simple Enid Blyton books and the classic sorts of books... David Copperfield and the like. I remember for a while, reading books out of the school library and even borrowing books other people had borrowed from the library. Somewhere along the way, I gave that up. I don't know exactly when, but I haven't really read a book from cover to cover for as long as I can remember now. I have finished reading the odd book of late... but with far too many distractions interspersed between chapters. I think the last book I finished reading was Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel. I've been meaning to read Monty's biography, Farley Mowat's version of Silent Spring, Nehru's The Discovery of India and so on. I have Rushdie's last book about a clown sitting about somewhere that I gave up on and I haven't really read any of the books I brought back from India two years ago (save for the Asterix ones). I also have a book about life in the Hebrides that Morrison sent to me as a gift in the mail after he buggered out of here, again, one that I have not really read. And I am looking forward to the second part of Citizen of the World. I once tried to read War and Peace and gave up... some day, I want to sit down and read that.
Anyway, its quite late in the night... and I have been rambling on with a mixture of self-pity and god knows what else. I blame the cold weather for it all. I think I am going to hit the sack and try not to make any more resolutions I manage not to keep. Look at it this way, if I don't try, I dodn't fail. That works with women as well. Or so I tell myself. Until next time...
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