Tag: word-vomit

038b – therapy, addiction and therapy

Decided to do an old-school journaling-style word-vomit this time. Was prompted by advice from Phil Stutz from this documentary called Stutz that’s come out a few days ago. Randomly discovered it on my Netflix suggestions but it’s safe to say it’s one of the best, most emotionally intense things I’ve watched on TV since a while. 

Suddenly gained massive respect for Jonah Hill for bringing this to the world. It’s a very vulnerable and open look into some aspects of his life, his relationship with his therapist (Phil Stutz) and Phil Stutz’s life itself. And of course, the therapeutic process.

I especially loved what Phil said about the life force. He says that even in the times when you’re directionless or lost, you can always be working on your “life force”, and you’ll find things to be improving or the path forming by itself. The life force itself consists of three tiers ie your relationship with your (physical) body, your relationship with other people, and finally your relationship with your “self”. For the last one, he recommends writing. Or journaling. Of course, we know this a little bit, but it’s good to be reminded of it.

I want to talk about my addictions again, since I haven’t for a while. I’ve decided to commit to quitting smoking. I’m on my day 4 (and while I’m still not completely cutting out all nicotine, ie still using a vape) I think it’s still a worthwhile endeavour. For the first time in a year, I’m confident that I can take this somewhere this time.

The second addiction I’ll eventually start working on (again), although it’s a daily process really, is the staying up late and waking up (or getting out of bed) late. Of course, late and early is relative, but suffice to say that my current sleep schedule is a big problem for me. It’s the reason I get much less sunlight than I want to be getting in a day, and it’s the reason I just feel super weird and lethargic on many days.

The third I want to think about a little more before decided what to do with it is the phone and social media addiction. Since I currently use instagram a lot as a “creative space” I’m not sure if I want to just completely cut it off for a while. But maybe.. it’s worth experimenting with. Maybe there’s other ways or places where I can share the things I want to. Let’s see.

Therapy’s finally gotten more useful, I completed 4 sessions with my new therapist and the last two sessions have been really great. I’ve been engaging with music as a form of expression so much more in the last two weeks than I did over the whole of October. (Which is okay too since October was me experimenting with painting), but since I was getting a little frustrated and worried about whether I was going to lose my interest in music, it’s been good to realise that I’m not. (Or haven’t at least right now.) My blockers were mainly getting triggered about not being good enough and some weird social media related things. 

Anyyyway, that’s all for tonight. Happy tuesday y’all!

033b – monday blues

Today feels like the perfect Sunday to try writing a little bit. I have a couple drafts waiting to be released but I’ve been unable to bring the word-count up, so a fresh attempt this will be. The last few weeks have been terribly busy, both actually and mentally. Had internal interviews, had a small public-ish music thing (yes!! more on that in this post, hopefully), had multiple Diwali parties to go to for the first time in a while, and on top of all this I’m making travel plans and god that shit is incredibly time-consuming. 

I do feel a little hungover from yesterday night though, so I’m not sure how coherent I might end up being. Forgive me if not very. Smoking has gone up from the last time I might have written anything, so today I’m trying this new thing where every time I feel like smoking, I’m just going to clean up a bit of my surroundings instead. 

I’ve been feeling very free ever since Friday went by, though now that Monday’s approaching again I’m thinking about some of the work that I didn’t do on Friday. Probably going to go do that right now and come back to this in a bit. 

— 

Well, I didn’t pick this up yesterday, but I’m back here now. It’s hard to sit still and write. Today’s been an anxious day again. The sun didn’t come out, and I find that completely kills my productivity. It’s 4pm now and I would like to do things before the light goes away. (Daylight savings sucks, it really does). I really want to restart working out a bit, I’ve completely given it up since the last few months. 

Lately, I’ve also been struggling to make emotional space for dating. Not sure what it is, in some ways I feel quite emotionally independent. Which I always thought would be a great thing, but I’m not sure anymore.  

Ah, my thoughts are all over the place right now. How does one manage this? Todo lists etc also get old. I keep making new ones every time I have a bunch of new tasks on my radar. Maybe I’m over-stimulated. That’s a thing, right? Maybe I should meditate a bit after this is done. Provided that ever happens. 

Work’s been a little annoying, there’s a bunch of vague things I need to get done. It’s not super stressful but most of the stuff isn’t well-defined.. which was rarely a problem for me before but I think today is just not a good day for me, perhaps. I should also cut myself some slack, my “move” problem takes up a lot of space in my head, without me being able to account for it. Guess I should wrap that up by the end of this week. 

Alright well, this really was just a brain dump. My apologies, folks. I’ll hopefully have something interesting to talk about soon enough, and I’ll make time and space to make it a coherent read for you. 

032b – how to say art 


Content creation (and sharing) is so hard. It’s incredibly rewarding and addictive, obviously. But everything that comes up as soon as you post something, that can get pretty hard. So much vulnerability, so much self-doubt when something doesn’t go well right away. And yet, there’s something crazy about the dopamine (or whatever) that makes you want to keep going, again and again. 

I guess it gets somewhat easier the more you do it, but I’m still for from a place where it doesn’t bother me at all. Wherein I’m detached from the art as soon as it’s out there. I think the trick would be to move on to the next thing as soon as possible. And then look at the past shares and how they did only when you’re ready to take feedback from them for the next thing. Feedback just to feel or inform your own opinion of your art seems useless. Your opinion was whatever it last was before you put it out into the world. 
Maybe it’d be useful to record that opinion before I share the thing. 

Anyway, it’s still hard to call my writings or music or pictures “art”. I don’t know, multiple layers of judgement and ridicule from my own self when I do so. (This is probably worth exploring in a future post.) 

Things have randomly gotten hard otherwise. Friendships have suddenly gotten a little complicated. I suppose it’s inevitable. But I don’t know how to make much sense of it, or whether I want to resolve it. It’s hard to want to resolve things when you’re the only one who seems to want it. I suppose I can let time do its thing, and maybe we’ll settle into a new normal, or whatever. I’m aware this is quite vague for you, the reader, but I also don’t feel like changing it. My apologies. 

Work’s been good though, my sleep schedule has been pretty decent too. 

I really want to write 200 words more but I feel so exhausted right now. It’s a good thing, I know. As soon as I’m done with this I’m going to hop into bed. I have a long Friday ahead of me tomorrow, and I don’t want to be super drained tomorrow. Part of me wants to stop now and continue this later but I also know that won’t happen, and worse – I won’t feel like posting this useless word vomit out there. The only way I can post it is if I write it in a single stretch. Of course, I’m cheating right now with all the meta writing, but eh, I’m okay with that. 

Welp, I smoked a little bit of weed. What a shift in mood. I’ve always wanted to write when high. Somehow never feel like writing when I’m high though. All I feel like doing is talking to people. Or listening to music. Or watching good content. I’ve always wanted to execute and lean into creativity when high, but execution is so hard for me in that state. I absolutely love talking to people when I’m in this state though. Okay, I think I need more ways of saying “when I’m high” / “when I’m in this state”. This paragraph is terribly tedious. 


Alright folks, there’s my 500 words, have a great Friday!