I am not as good at problem solving as I used to be. I have changed the way I approach life. One of the things that changes is I no longer take in every bit of information I can and map out all possible paths. This supposedly has released a lot of energy to be used elsewhere.

One result of this change is that I used to be really good in emergencies and problem solving. I already had a lot of the answers because I had pre-loaded the options. Now I find that I keep going down dead ends and need to turn back and repeat steps. It drives me nuts. I am so used to knowing what I am doing that I start to do it and then find out I didn’t take everything into account. I guess I need to learn not to trust my automatic instincts because they are based on a different paradigm.

I don’t like it. I feel stupid and slow. People have thought I was really smart and think super fast. My reply to that is that I look smarter than I am because of how I process information. Now I am finding out how true that is.

I doubt if anyone who knows me has noticed yet. If I make the right choice and go down paths with no obstacles, then I look as smart as I ever did. If I make a poor choice and go down a path that I have to work my way back out of, then I look like I really am.

It isn’t much fun to get used to a new paradigm that makes things harder than before.

I have an issue when it comes to going to events. I really want to go and then, when I am preparing to actually go, I dread it and really don’t want to go. For no real reason. It isn’t like I think I will be shunned or have a bad time or anything. I used to be able to blame the feelings on these sorts of things but they are more formless than that. There is a little around going into the unknown but I don’t think that is it either.

I try to turn my thinking off and just follow the automatic pilot I programmed in earlier when I was excited. Lately that hasn’t been working. I will get into a holding pattern and not move and not know why. Today I missed an event because it was hard to get me started and by the time I was ready it was a little late and then I stayed stuck in that circle when all I needed to to was literally walk out the door until it was too late. Part of me really didn’t want to go but wasn’t telling me why.

I think I have always been like this but as part of my work on myself I have gotten rid of some of the things that I was able to use to get me past the blockage and have a great time. What I am using now is friends. I totally own my flakiness and inability to do things sometimes and I arrange to have someone pick me up or poke me or just insist that I be there. I do lots of things for other people that I don’t do for myself. I will try but I also try to set up a backup plan with someone else in case I fail (which I do more often than I succeed, but I keep trying).

Turns out that large events when I am not actually going with anyone just aren’t happening. It doesn’t matter that there are people there I want to see and I have been really looking forward to it. In fact, the more I am looking forward to it, the more likely I won’t make it.

I did a online tarot card reading around this social anxiety. For Current Situation: The Lovers; Action To Take: 10 swords; Expected Outcome: Page of Wands. At first I saw the Lovers as me using others to pry me out of my hole, that I can only face these things holding someone else’s hand.

The reading from the site explains the Lovers as being whole and complete and that in this position, I feel broken and want to be loved. It then says that if you don’t love yourself then no one else will. All very true. I don’t love myself, I don’t feel lovable, I do feel broken and I want to fix myself. I want to supply what is missing so that I stop hurting myself. Thing is I KNOW that it isn’t coming from the outside. I don’t expect anyone from the outside to actually help. I would like it if I had some help finding what I am looking for but I have to find it,I have to be the one that provides/discovers what I am missing or change so that there isn’t anything missing. I don’t feel like I have much help along the path which is sad but I also don’t expect it any longer. Frankly, I expect everyone is tired of me and my quest, I know I am. Life is a journey and you need to enjoy the steps because there is no “there” to go to. I am in a bog and I wish I could enjoy the moss and water and mud and beauty that is here, I know it has to be here but I am still holding my breath trying to get to the other side where I can get some traction under my feet again and build. I think I am slowly building now but I have a hard time seeing it or believing in it.

So, yeah, 100% The Lovers fits (I think it is reversed in this position the way the site works).

Next is 10 Swords. Reaching your mind beyond its capacity, thinking something to death. It is time to stop and move on. Yup, I can see this one. I think on things. I am doing this because it is a way to condemnate things and try to understand so I can fix it. I wouldn’t be surprised if my thinking is what is keeping me in the bog. I feel that if I let the thinking go that something will get forgotten or I will get lost in the bog or I will lose ground and go back the way I came and my forward momentum will be lost and a lot of hard work will be wasted. (So says the part of me that thinks and is crying out not to be let go). I guess this card is telling me to move from thinking to just doing. I used to DO. I have been trying to learn to BE. Both are propelled forward by THINKING, that is my engine. I have found when I try to stop thinking I stall out. I am guessing that me involving other people in my plans is my way of setting up a back up for if the automatic pilot stalls out. This feels true. I have been looking for some spiritual practice I can turn myself over to so that I can stop thinking and start following a tradition. But nothing I have looked into has stuck. Anything I have come up with is a me alone sort of thing and depends on me motivating myself to move, which doesn’t work. I don’t have anything that on its own motivates me. I find if someone needs or wants something from me, that motivates me. Being called into work provides motivation. Having someone to eat with motivates me. Having someone to go to an event with motivates me. Having someone needing help or wanting to see me motivates me. I would like to switch to DO but I have run out of ideas on how to make this work. Well, I can try to stop thinking about things some more and see what happens.

The last is Page of Wands: Enthusiasm, faithfulness, unquestioning readiness to leap head first into any situation. The site says this card in this position means I will soon embrace adventure, that maybe I was held back by fear but now I am ready to dive into life with shear abandon. No matter what I do, I will have some serious fun. This sounds like who I think I normally am. I can be Enthusiasm embodied. It burns out quickly but it burns bright. This is the side of me that makes it so confusing that I don’t make it to events. This side of me wouldn’t have any problem with not knowing exactly how things will work out or who will be there or what will happen. This is the side of me that will take someone’s idea and promote it until it becomes reality. This is the side of me that comes out when someone else is having social anxiety issues. I become the cheerleader. Again, it requires someone else.

I don’t want to need someone else. I know (oh god do I know)) that I am in this on my own and if there are others around, that is just a bonus that could go away at any time. I need to be able to support and provide for myself. In some ways I am still learning how to let others be the bonuses that they can be. Anytime I have looked to others for actual support, I get hit with the Universe Clue Stick that I need to appreciate their support but not count on it. For a good chunk of my life, that meant not being open to others at all. While that may have been the only way to make it through my life, I think that has cost me dearly. I still don’t trust but I am trying to try.

To sum up, the cards say that I feel broken, that I need to switch from thinking to doing and that things will be great in the future. Seems like again I am told to do what I have been doing and I will get where I want to go. The only real change will be to try to think less, which I try to do but could do more.

I keep seeing these readings as support for the path I am on. How much of that is a set of personal rose colored glasses and how much of that is because I really am on the path I should be on for where I am trying to go? People have been pointing out that what I am doing hasn’t been working and I agree. But I also know that sometimes when building a new foundations, things don’t work for awhile so they can work so much better afterwards. Am I building for a better future or am I stuck in something that will never work? I can tell you that previously, I was functional but that wasn’t really working either. It was just barely survivable. Not a way that is worth living. Now is no better but it is very different. My real hope is to built to a point where life is worth living rather than less than tolerable.

Total Liquid intake:
I had my breakfast shake (liquid pretend chocolate), filled a regular siZe bottled water bottle when I arrived at work at 9am, filled it again for lunch at 1pm, filled it again before leaving work at 6pm, had a 10 oz bottle of apple juice.

Solid food intake:
Lunch – french dip sandwich with au ju. Snack – small bag of peanuts (with the apple juice). Dinner – 6″ ham and cheese and tomato sandwich from Subway. Snack – probably more popcorn than I should eat, some honeydew mellon, grapes, strawberry.

cut for mild TMI

Well, I managed to get 3 hours of sleep then I got sick. Total so far is at least 16 hrs sleep, 24 hours awake, 3 hrs sleep. I have been planning on going into the City 4-5am to catch pre-dawn at the Palace of Fine Arts to take pictures. I don’t know if that is going to happen.

cut for TMI

ReTweet Dali Lama

One of the most effective ways to overcome anxiety is to try to shift the focus of attention away from self and toward others.

I try to do this but find I have a lack of “others” to focus on. I think this is where helping others helps myself comes from.

Here is an article on Lifehacker about what to do to get your online ducks in a row in case you died.

While I think these are good suggestions, I don’t feel they apply to me. Awhile ago (at least a couple of years ago)I wrote out a sheet of what passwords I have in case something happens to me (it does need to be updated). They aren’t the actual passwords but clues and who would know the answers so that if someone didn’t know me, the piece of paper would be close to worthless for them. I would like to say it is filed under D for Death but that would imply a filing system. It is stuck with all the important papers.

The lifehacker article includes making lists of what you wouldn’t want your kids, your parents, your friends to see. Far as I am concerned, I see no reason not to have whoever is taking care of cleaning up my online stuff have full access to everything I have. I will be dead. While I am alive, yes, I need my privacy. But after I am gone, I can’t think of anything that would need to be kept private. One of their examples is a digg account where you make snarky comments. If I had an account where I made snarky comments, I would want whoever wanted to see those to see them. Hell, with my friends, I would want them to be able to poke at them all they wanted. I would want everything to be seen so that people could see me as I really was, not as some highlighted censored version. I would expect people to speak ill of this dead because that is what is real, both good and bad. Laughing at me is expected as well.

I keep my “weird” life separate from my “professional” life for job reasons. I manage peoples’ knowledge and expectations of me so that I can deal with them and maintain boundaries that work for me. I don’t think I have anything that would shock anyone that really knew me. Once I am no more and don’t have to deal with any consequences, I think all this is moot. What would I want kept under wraps after I was gone?

My biggest concern about my after death affairs is how it the hell whoever is going to take charge of it all will get rid of all my crap. I would love it if my door was opened and all of my friends descended upon my stuff like vultures and took things they wanted. That would make me very happy. The people that are closest to me get first dibs and after that it is open season. Take stuff to a con and let the membership walk away with anything. I want the people that want it the most to have it. Take things to shelters or communities or any place supporting people getting together and helping each other out. I would put people wanting money out of it at the bottom of the list but even that is good.

A bonfire of crap would be great. A way to release me. Others could throw things in of their own that they want to release.

Having recently lost a group friend, I realize it isn’t that easy. But from where I am sitting now, I can think it is and put it out there as what I would like. If I were still around. Which I wouldn’t be. You know, if I were dead.

I have been getting an itch to do some photography. Been hanging out with too many people who have that interest. I started looking for interesting architecture in SF and finding a lot I want to take pictures of with a zoom lens.

Why?

What will I do with these pictures? I am not good enough to even come close to art. My main product is documentation type of photos. Ones that show you what is there, all of it, not ones that evoke an emotion or mood. One I have taken these photos, in whatever artistic form I might get near, then what? I have no use for this sort of thing. I would love to have a class assignment to complete. Or a friend that has a need or desire that I could pass them onto. But I don’t.

I have enjoyed creating art but have never done it for the sake of just doing it. My creations, my maker tendencies are focused on creating something I have a use for, something I want. I am not really a fan of the process but really like the end product. That is usually what gets me to finish things.

Maybe my focus on making things for the end product is based entirely on my idea that there has to be a use for whatever is created, or there is no reason to create.

I can enjoy other people’s creations, not my own. Sort of like trying to tickle yourself, it just doesn’t work.

It has been a little while. I have managed to be awake during the day and asleep during the night but that didn’t work today.

I went to bed around 10 last might with something approaching a migraine. I was awake I think around 8am. I had a great dream about flying (different winglike shapes for different parts of the world, found out by accident and ended up going all the way around the world, introducing more people to the idea. Had an entire group of us that would essentially catch the wind and glide from one place to another. Finally turned into us going from planet to planet (outerspace didn’t exist in this reality) and solving eco type problems. I loved it). I woke up drenched. Swapped out sheets and night clothes and went back to sleep. Had deep involved dreams again which included telling friends about my flying dream. Woke again drenched. Didn’t move this time because it wasn’t as bad and to move would make me cold. Kept working on the dreams and the meaning of the dreams and kept getting more dreams onto the pile.

Finally woke up enough to be awake and realize I was sleeping the day away and need to really be awake around 4pm. I had processed most of the things from the dreams and was busy explaining to the priest at church who had put me on the spot for closing my eyes during service how everything was more with my eyes closed and how he was trying to publicly humiliate me into “staying awake” during service instead of finding out what was really going on. I then proceeded to instruct him on how to accomplish what he says he is trying to accomplish and how he is being taken down to size in public because he made a poor assumption and chose to start this conversation in front of everyone. I was conscious for all of this. In fact, I am pretty sure that the instructions I was giving to the flight crew earlier were out loud and I was asleep for that one. I sort of wish I had a recording of my talking to hear if I really said what I think I said and if it was really good ideas or just dream good ideas.

Now I am awake and it is hot in my apartment. i think that means it was hot during the day. I suspect I am going to be awake all night long and not able to sleep until daybreak tomorrow.

They were great dreams. I did not gorge on sugar before bed but I did have sugar during the day. I missed my meds yesterday so that may have been a factor. Recording this for future reference.

This is a reply that poured out of my fingers in response to someone commenting that “Fructose is bad for everyoe” on miss_missy’s sucrulose post. They don’t deserve me jumping down their throat so I am putting it in my journal instead and giving them a much shorter summary.

Sorry, I have a strong kneejerk reaction to your statement of fructose being bad for everyone. I am hearing that a lot and it is just wrong.

Fructose has its bad sides and its good sides and like everything is good in moderation. Many people are making fructose out to be a villian because it has had such a positive rep before this.

For me, regular sugar affects me like alcohol. I get drunk on it, and I don’t mean figuratively but literally. There is something about the way my body processes it that can mess me up. And there is a crash afterwards that seems to be realated to insulin and how my body deals with that. The doctors don’t know what is up.

I do ok with fructose (and not necessarily just found in fruits but also the addititive). I have found out lately that it is processed by the liver instead of the small intestine. I think that might be why I can handle it. It produces fat cells. So do a lot of other things. It is something to watch for but in not an inherantly bad thing. It reduces the feeling of hunger being satisfied. This isn’t a problem for me. Hunger and needing to eat have been detatched for me for about 20 years. I get massively hungry at the end of a good meal because it tasted so good I want more.

In all things moderation, yes. Fructose works really well for me and I am someone ergo “Fructose is bad for everyone” is a false statement. It has frustrated me so much because it gets thrown out there and details aren’t given which has led to me needing to spend so much time digging and digging to find information to figure out why it is actually good for me while not so good for others.

Instead of listing what fructose does and doesn’t do, people just default to “it is bad” and until recently I haven’t been able to find out why it works for me and what I might be facing as consequences. Turns out that due to how I am wired, the consequences don’t actually affect me. They fill in where other things are absent.

So for me, fructose is good. As good meat, veggies, dairy, and grains. I am someone, ergo fructose is not bad for everyone. Over the years, it seems like many more people are finding they have some of the same issues I do and they are someones too. It is just something that people could use an education on and be allowed to make an informed choice.

I can’t decide if I actually like They Might Be Giants or just want to like them. They are playing at Stern Grove (free summer concerts) and I am debating if I want to go or not.