strategies for being

I think a lot about what and how other people think. As far as I can tell, reality is the construction of the external world via other people's ideas, in the most meaningful sense. Not to cast aspersions on an objective material reality that's going to do its thing, no matter what any of us think. That is clearly a thing, but, it isn't a meaningful thing. Meaning is all the nonsense humanity comes up with.

To cast it aside entirely would be nihilism. I can't find a solid argument against that per se, but I'd instead point out that it's just unrealistic. It assumes we're capable of being purely logical, and that's not at all the case. Rather, we form all these values and interpretations, not from pure logic, or cold hard objectivity, but from living our entire lives navigating the swirling chaotic sea of everyone else's ideas.

They say Major Depression effects about 5% of the population. That means 95% of you can't understand why I'd need to exercise every day, just to get a step closer to being a functional human being. Never mind that much of that 5% doesn't really want to hear about exercise, either. Many would prefer to hear it's just an illness they should take meds for. Major Depression itself being a problematic concept in that it's more of a symptom than any particular illness. A symptom of any number of things, sometimes easier to discern than others. In my case, hypopituitarism probably has a lot to do with it.

In recent years, I've been getting better at developing strategies for coping and even overcoming it, and yet, even as they're working, I feel like they're not. I stop doing them. I sink back into depression and don't understand why. I find myself wondering how others could possibly sympathize, when they need no such strategies just to be functional human beings.

It does get difficult to keep plugging away, never getting ahead of depression enough to feel it's worth all the trouble. Strung along by this notion that at some point, life is supposed to be rewarding, but never quite getting there. I try really hard. At what, I'm not sure.

the great reset

I was reminded yesterday that when I crash like this, I've learned to do a sort of reset. I've shown that I can do it, so why not just do that again? It doesn't feel like a matter of agency. Sometimes it just happens. I hit a point and I'm suddenly pulling myself back together. 

We can be doubtful that it isn't a matter of agency, and I find that strange. I can get off in the weeds going on about free will and pratityasamutpada, but there is a truth in between. It's not a simple direct will of good strong bootstraps, but I know there are habits and rituals I can get into that help. I know that I haven't been doing them lately. Getting back on track tends to start with getting back to these basics. A reset of sorts, back to the beginning of the process. 

Exercise, every day. I find this difficult to juggle with the classes I take. It counterintuitive to think I'd still need it. On the days I go, that's plenty of exercise. Almost too much, so I slack off when I don't go. It really needs to be every day. I know that. Otherwise the whole thing unravels, and I'm constantly trying to hold it together.

Diet. I haven't been doing much cooking, which for me, equates to not doing as much eating. I'm eating enough to maintain decent health, but not decent energy levels. What I am eating hasn't been as healthy because I've been lazy about shopping. Depression undermines all of this, but this can also undermine depression. I should be able to start buying proper ingredients and cooking again.

I was making those vegan pizzas, last I was making anything substantial. It was way more wheat flour product than I'm used to consuming. Largely because food like that seems to contribute to me feeling like crap. Maybe all those processed carbs sent me reeling into a depression. I don't know, but it sure didn't help.

My sleep has been lousy, too. Staying up later, sleeping later but not very well. I know that causes problems, but can balk at fixing it, because insomnia sucks. I can't just decide to start sleeping better. I can exercise every day though, and next thing I know, I'm sleeping better. When I'm sleeping better, I have more energy and focus to eat better. When I'm feeling better, because I'm sleeping better, eating better, and getting daily exercise, I get out and around people more, and suddenly, I'm talking about competing in BJJ tournaments again, right?

I don't know if reset is the right term, but it starts with looking at all these causal connections, going back to the first one I've been fucking up, and proceeding from there. Eventually I might find my way back to something better resembling so-called agency.

but why

I blog when I'm doing well, to remember those brief moments when it happens, to remind myself that they do in fact happen, or maybe just to gloat about whatever I can say that I have going for me. I blog when I'm doing badly to help work through it, to put it in perspective, and as if to beg the world for help.

If I hadn't been taking somatropin these past few years, I wouldn't be able to do this kind of martial arts much at all. Not very well, often, or safely. Because of that, I'm doing so much better than I could be. Still, frequently thwarted by both mental and physical limitations, it can be frustrating and I don't have much else. Taking GH was supposed to help with a lot more than this.

It can feel like a great disappointment. I was hoping to be doing better than this, and it's so easy to forget how much better I am doing than I was. I was a wreck for so long. I had no life at all. It would make sense to be happy about how I'm doing, but mostly I still feel like crap. Forever struggling to keep my head above water.

training blog

Seems odd to me that my blog has mostly been about training lately. It's where my head is at, and where I want to be. I'm either blogging about training, or blogging about how depressed I am that I'm not training. I don't know what else matters anymore, everything I used to go on about.. I'm glad it's there, but I don't feel like going on about it anymore.

I spoke to one of the instructors about competing tonight. We had a good conversation, and I feel like it was the first step towards actually doing it. We talked about finding training partners who I'd be able to do some hard sparring with to work my way up to it. He also offered to be one of those hard sparring partners.

I feel like I got my foot in the door, and the natural trajectory will be to push forward. We'll see. It's a huge problem that I sink back into depression sitting at home, such that my confidence withers and I freak out over what I'm getting myself into.

I can't sleep because I'm laying in bed practicing combos.

struggle

 As soon as I get my head above water, I start thinking maybe I can fly. If I were content swimming, I'd lose the motivation not to drown. I was doing well for a moment there, only to come crashing back down again. Sitting in a heap for a while, recollecting myself, beginning the climb again to get back there, back to what was supposed to be my new baseline.

Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about the low end of the cycle. Or maybe feeling bad is what gets me out of it. Life is so much contradiction and complication, guesses and beliefs. Maybe this, maybe that. Hold onto the hope that maybe I'm getting somewhere, as it's either that or sinking again. Where I am right now, a momentary snapshot of a mirage.

I made it to the gym twice this week. I failed to get there today, but doing better than last week. Maybe I'll do better next week. Maybe get back to that point where I get there five days a week again, before collapsing back into depression again.

survival horror

I'm still playing this silly little game. In fact, I've retreated into it to spend all my time fending off zombies, building barricades, and scavenging for food and weapons. Checking traps and farming, for sustainability when my stockpile of canned food runs out. It's a game about trying to survive a zombie apocalypse that opens with the premise that you absolutely will not:

THESE ARE THE END-TIMES.

THERE WAS NO HOPE FOR SURVIVAL.

THIS IS HOW YOU DIED.

Unlike in real life though, you can survive indefinitely if you're careful, sufficiently fortifying your home base and planning for the months ahead, like the coming winter when crops no longer grow outside. If you spend enough time learning the game, your imaginary character gets to live forever in an imaginary world. Real life is so much more horrific.

I don't know why I'm suddenly a gamer again. I don't think it's healthy, I can't seem to moderate it well, and it seems to make me feel worse overall. It's rewards aren't real and as such, are never quite rewarding. I just keep desperately focusing on its attainable goals and the fight to survive. The game doesn't have any other point. There's no story, and there's no way to win. I find it interesting that the game I find so addictive is all about the struggle for survival and nothing more.

I play as a someone who has no leisure time. It's just constant struggle that I get to escape into, from my life of nothing but leisure time. I'm just passing the time, until it runs out. I've spent hours building a wall around my home to hide from the zombie hordes, only venturing out for supplies. In some ways, it feels an awful lot like my life.

In life though, I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm (not) doing any of it. I have no idea how to deal with the zombie hordes. There is no fight to survive, but that's a good thing, right? There's nothing much motivating me at all. I have to play a game for that. It's not a healthy dynamic, but I find it strange that the goal is to bury ourselves in some kind of work, to mitigate existential angst. That's no a solution, just a better distraction. 

There are no solutions. Life is a sick joke, and the punchline is that we all die. The fight for survival feels like the most indisputable motivation we have, and we will all fail.