concrete steps therapy

I understand that I try to stretch definitions.  If it seems I don't understand, it's often more because I'm acutely aware of conventional understanding, but reject it.  I don't always make that clear.  In my perpetual struggle to get to the point as quickly as possible, I leave out all sorts of things.

Negative thinking is not always wrong, per se.  It's more likely to be accurate and rational than optimism.  Suffering is one promise that life always keeps.  It does in fact often suck.  It's good to be able to face that.  The delusion of negative thinking can be more a matter of focus.  We don't just take improbable risks because we're bad at math.  We can also do it believing that we can handle the likely outcome of life getting worse, just for the chance of having something positive enough happen instead.  Sometimes doing nothing is the worst thing you can do.  Sometimes failure, the best.

All these arbitrary values we assign to everything define the conclusions we draw. How we prioritize, or obsess, which consequences matter, which don't, and in what order.  What we want or fear, how much and why.  Negativity can be an overestimating of harms, a lack of interest in gains, the truth being a matter of interpretation in between, not so easy to pin down with strict logic and reason.

I need to figure out some rather concrete steps, and just found out about VSAC today, which looks like exactly what I was looking for.  Calling them makes me nervous of course, but what a lame reason not to do something.  I'll make an appointment with them first thing tomorrow.  I have to at least wait until I'm not stoned.

I've been trying to figure out what's really been at the heart of this change of mindset, and what mechanisms precipitated it exactly.  A lot's factored into it, but one thing in particular seemed to shift abruptly, and I think it might have been a letting go of this notion that I should be accepting of myself.  A point I've hashed over many times over the years.  This seems concerning, as it provides a sort of safety net, but there is nothing to accept.  No current state of affairs of intrinsic self-nature.  A pointless endeavor, like trying to accept wisps of smoke, exactly as they are.

The unique attributes of nature are no less unique for the fact that it does not stay that way.  A flowering plant will thrive as it sheds it's petals and keeps growing, or it will wither.  There is no staying the way it is.  Excuses for doing too much nothing aren't such a good idea, as I find myself abruptly appalled at the prospect of sloth.  I've been beating around the issue for years, while essentially embracing it as who I am.  Maybe it's not so unusual, as I have made some pretty sharp turns in my life before.  When I realize that I'm wrong ..and goddammit, I think I've been quite wrong.

No self-nature means no static nature to which we're bound: I haven't started reading again because my attention span is better.  Rather, because I realize that if I want to have a better attention span for reading, the obvious solution is to read more.  My mind still wanders, but come on.  It's not that difficult to at least make the effort.  It's not so important that I succeed, only that I keep trying.  It's like I just figured out what learning is.

Now that I've mastered this technique of reading human books, I think I should be able to transition into a higher function adult type person.  Learn Chinese just to visit China, if that's what I feel like doing.  Eventually.  For now, I'm still learning Russian, per my original intent to move to Оймякон.

Jogging when I can, hitting the bag more when I can't, calisthenics and stretching, cooking myself real food but also intermittent fasting, because why not.  Reading books, plural.  Even really boring ones.  Meditating every morning.  and night.  Clambering through the ice and snow into Burlington once or twice a week, and walking that little dog.

At some point, I'd like to be too busy to do all that every day.  Honestly, I'd like to be able to say that I've defeated mental illness, but I might be getting ahead of myself.