084a – sleepless + abundance mindset + resignation

New neighbor that I have no way of contacting is drumming (it’s the middle of the night) and I can’t sleep. Obviously, sleep has been tough even otherwise but it’s extra tough with this added problem. I have brunch plans for noon so this is quite painful. Not sure if I’ll be able to wake up on time. 

Funnily enough, I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a drum kit since I’ve been learning them for a few months now— and I’ve been super confused between an electronic and a steel kit, and even though I knew acoustic kits can be super loud I was still considering getting one, hoping that maybe since there’s no one around on my floor I could still get by. But now that I know someone is nearby AND is equally annoying as I am— this could go either ways. One thought is that I’ve been pre-given a taste of my own potential medicine, and the opposite possibility is that “hey, we could both annoy each other”.

I’ll write this and then do some reading and just hope that they eventually stop. If there is a god then I’d love to get at least 6 hours of sleep tonight. 

I’ve been having nice conversations with friends lately and I get such a kick out of stimulating conversations that it sometimes feels so dry when you don’t have that going with other people. Where this is coming from is that lately I’d been trying to be more accepting of different kinds of relationships and dynamics in my life, I was trying to spend time with people even for other things apart from conversation— ie good feelings that come from other things like a ton of shared context, shared past, physical affection, and just.. non-words, in general. But I don’t know, when the words are good, that makes everything so much more fun. 

I’ve been thinking about abundance mindset a lot lately. With art, I think I’ve incorporated it a good amount into practice as well. For example, creating “more”, posting/sharing “more”, expressing “more” and with “more” types of people, so that you are not tied to specific things. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they often say. 

With friends also, I’ve gotten better at this. Make more friends (to the extent you can without a quality compromise, of course) for different parts of your life, perhaps. I wouldn’t say this is a cope to “loneliness” necessarily because I don’t think more friends can solve this really, at some point you also do need to be okay with being lonely, etc. However, it’s nice to have different friends for different interests, and different kinds of activities etc, I do believe it results in greater resonance than attempting to mould existing friends for everything. 

It’s been toughest for me with romantic interests and romantic relationships, though I’ve gotten much better at it over the last few years. It’s a hard thing to learn and accept really but at the end of the day you cannot make very few specific people the centres of your universe. And the trick is to not necessarily have to make “your own self” the centre of your universe or whatever, the trick is to really have just MANY centres in your universe. 

Obviously for me that’s consistently been friends, family, animals, nature, music, writing, art, tv, books, philosophy, and a little bit of spirituality for a good amount of time now. But then on some nights (nights like these), I cannot use my usual faculties to feel okay, and that’s when things feel quite tough, I suppose. 

*Sigh*. It is what it is, I guess. I’m going to make something to eat now and then read a bit. Hopefully, I’ll get to sleep soon. 

082b – seriousness

Thinking about meaning and usefulness lately.  

re: meaning 

Lately I’m realising I do like assigning meaning to things. (I mean, I’ve always known this but it’s only lately I’m realising how automatic, strong and frequent this process is for me.) Obviously, this contradicts a little bit with mindfulness, and I’m still not sure how much I must allow myself to extract meaning out of events. Sometimes I think that we do have roles to play in this world, because otherwise there isn’t a point. 

Or if life or sentience is even, simply put, a random occurrence, even then, if assigning meaning to it makes it easier for me— then why not? 

I suppose it is only the “attachment” to the meaning (whatever that is for you) that might make it a problem. I guess, if we can practice connected detachment, then meaning can probably serve as a good guiding star. 

What is the problem, then? I suppose the problem is it’s hard to keep a check on how far you can constantly get lost in the narrative. If you don’t keep your meaning-assigning-parts in check, or if you don’t regularly question them, or put them through scrutiny filters, you might end up away from awareness. 

Okay, where is all this coming from? 

I was having a discussion with some people and someone claimed that “life shouldn’t be too serious” and I think I got somewhat triggered by that statement. I went on a bit of speech on how “life is serious, actually” and how there’s wars happening and how people aren’t being nice and kind to each other and all of that is serious. But now that I recognise that maybe that’s not what that person was claiming at all, I suppose, I need to apologise to them. (Oops) 

But I do feel strongly about how humanity needs to be better. I don’t know what this is exactly but I clearly need to explore this more, otherwise I might get keep getting triggered every time someone says anything along the lines of “life isn’t that serious”. 

Of course, I recently came across this which I’m planning to read soon because it might be helpful for me. And something I read probably from the same essay was that the trick is to “not take your self too seriously but it’s okay to take your work seriously” and that does resonate with me a lot. I’ve now accepted that my work isn’t about me necessarily but I am the vessel that’s doing the work and for me to do it well it makes sense that I would take it seriously. Even if I’m having fun, I tend to be serious about having fun, if that makes any sense at all. And maybe another thing to remember is that people just function differently, maybe “taking things lightly” allows some people to live an easier life— and that’s okay— but for them to generalise this for everyone is what I don’t necessarily like. 

So, I suppose part of the problem is just accepting that I am a serious person and I do take “life” and the world and many things that we have in front of us seriously. Whatever that means, really. 

I’ll talk about usefulness another time, I don’t feel like getting into it at the moment. 

Happy last day of 2023, I hope you don’t resist whatever comes your way 🙂 

080a – better to speak, she said

“Is it better to speak or to die?” I’m starting to think it’s always better to speak. 

I’m realising I’m perhaps not meant for the mainstream world. I know mainstream is a pretty evolving concept and it’s already been evolving from the previous decade or even the previous five years but what it is right now (especially in my environment) is definitely not where I belong. I really need to change my circles and/or my environment and find my people, my tribe.  I definitely don’t belong in the heteronormative world. 

Or is that just the anxiety talking? I don’t know. Sometimes we solve for x when we really need to be solving for y, I don’t know. 

It’s the middle of the night and I have a long day ahead but I’m unable to sleep. Someone told me sleep problems are caused by a lot of suppressed thoughts and feelings in the subconscious, which would.. make sense, except that it’s hard to access suppressed things, they’re obviously suppressed for a reason. 

Thinking about rationality and the heart and the gut a lot today. It can be really nice when they’re all in sync but often they’re not. 

I’ve allowed my heart to run my life a lot lately but I might need to listen to rationality a little bit too. 

What is rationality, really? Not ignoring evidence, I suppose. I suppose the heart can be a bit of a kid sometimes— stubborn, blind, spoilt, pampered, etc. And rationality, then, would be a bit of parent, or an elder sibling, really showing the heart that you don’t always get what you want and that’s okay. Most people in life don’t get what they want. There is no end to want, anyway. 

How do we then make peace with what is? I suppose just facing realities can be a good first step. Acknowledging that what is is what is, even when it’s unpleasant, could be enough. 

I always go back to poetry and music when things are tough but I haven’t been able to do that too much this week, not sure why.  

How will I ever solve sleep? I don’t know. I need to make more action plans. I can’t just keep sitting with my problems, I need to be working towards movement. 

Looking forward to this week though, have a couple of exciting music things lined up, and a couple nice social plans too. Maybe I’ll incorporate some workout too. 

Alright alright, we got this. Gratitude, kindness, authenticity, learning, joy, nature— I can keep coming back to all this when things are tough.