I haven’t taken the time the past couple of days to sit down and write, but I’ve been thinking of occasionally just blasting out a post of whatever random, disconnected thoughts pop into my head.  So that’s what this is the first of (that’s a roman numeral 1 up there, so be prepared for a II at some point).  This is unlikely to be the most profound thing you’ve ever read or that I’ve ever written, but, take it or leave it… like I always say, what I write here is primarily for me in any case.

Abstaining from Facebook is going pretty well.  I was surprised to realize that my previous break from it was over 2 years ago.  Didn’t seem like it had been so long.  That time for the first week or so I experienced strong urges to log in and would catch myself starting to type in the address or looking for the tab in my browser.  This time around I’ve barely thought about it.  That time I had planned on staying away from it for at least a month, and I think it had worked out to that almost exactly in practice.  This time, I have no planned timeframe, but it will almost certainly be longer than that.  Especially if I continue to not miss it.

The job search continues.  I’m trying to expand my options but my hopes continue to be with BSW.  It took a good while before I heard back from them the first time around, so I’m hoping that’s all that is happening this time…  I think I submitted my application about 3 weeks ago now.  There’s no way to know for sure for the time being.  Otherwise, I have a contingent job offer, but it’s going to take a while for that to go through, so I at least need something temporary in the interim.

I’ve gotten back into playing Final Fantasy XIV after a fairly extensive break.  I’m really enjoying it again, much more so then when I had decided I needed to get away from it for a while.  MMOs can sometimes start to feel like a chore rather than being fun, and when that happens, it’s best to step back.  Expansion is coming in just a few months and I’m excited for it.

I’m hoping to dedicate some more time to writing over the next couple of weeks.  I still haven’t done much work on the novel that I’m wanting to write.  It’s just a matter of setting the time aside.

Now that the weather has been really nice, and I think is going to consistently be getting nicer than it has been overall, I’m looking to do some more active things outdoors as well…  mainly going on some bike rides and running… maybe mix some hikes in there as well.  I’ve done a couple of bike rides already, and went for a run which was enough to realize I need to get my endurance up all over again.  Oh well.  It will come.

Going forward with this blog, I’m going to try to write 2-3 thought out topical posts per week, and 1-2 of these random thought posts to pad it out.  For the first couple months it’ll probably be on the lower side of those ranges.  But, I think it should be doable.

So… look forward to it!  Or don’t.  You know, whatever you want to do.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov

“Transition isn’t pretty, but stagnation is hideous.”
-Nikki Rowe

“When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve: “My dear, we live in an age of transition.””
-Dean William R. Inge

Many times in my life, I have found myself in states of massive transition.  I suspect that I have experienced more of them than most people my age, though, I would also wager there are many who have experienced more than me.  Unfortunately, the last couple times it has felt like my life has come to a screeching halt while the rest of the world moves on around me.  Suffice to say, it’s not a pleasurable state to be in.

I have definitely questioned a lot of the choices I’ve made, and I wonder how things would be different if I had decided different things, or if I had reacted to events differently.   I tend to think that I’d probably at least be in a more stable and established position if I had done so.  But really there’s no way to know what would have happened.  There are many people that I would never have met, and loads of experiences I would never have had.  I can’t help but come back to the Taoist parable that proclaims “Who knows what’s good and what’s bad?”  It may be pointless to even reflect upon, because at this stage, there’s no going back.

So again I am at this crossroads of trying to find somewhere I belong.  The most obvious aspect of this for anyone that I interact with is that of employment.  I need a job that pays decently and that is at least tolerable.  This one is probably also the simplest, while it’s taking long than I would have hoped, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until something works out.

Less obvious might be that I don’t really have a social group that I feel like I really belong in anymore.  Which isn’t to say that I don’t love and appreciate my friends here, it’s certainly not their fault that this is the case.  But I don’t have even one single (as in, not in a couple) friend here.  In the best of cases, it’s limiting.  This is where some of what I wrote about in my previous post comes in…  I need to be better at meeting people.  Even forging one connection with, say, another single dude, could help greatly in connecting with more people.  That said, I feel an itch to be elsewhere, which I suppose may or may not actually be scratched by actually being elsewhere.

All in all, I would say that at present I feel profoundly unfulfilled.  I have few local friendships, and virtually none of those are terribly active, I have no romantic prospects, ever since my contracted at BSW ended I’ve lacked fulfillment in a job as well, and now have plenty of time to think about all that lack of fulfillment.

I recently decided to start working on a novel.  It’s not a format that I’ve done very much writing in, but I want to give it a try at least.  It seems like a good creative outlet for me for the moment at least.  Hopefully it will provide at least a modicum of creative fulfillment once it really gets going.

Anyway, I have to figure things out and find my way to a point where I’m at least partially, and hopefully mostly, fulfilled.  It’ll probably take some time and some effort… but I’m sure I’ll get there.

Sorry for the depressing post, I promise it gets better from here!

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
-Dr. Seuss

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
-Timothy Ferriss

It’s insecurity that is always chasing you and standing in the way of your dreams.
-Vin Diesel

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it’s shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it’s a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It’s truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.
-Tom Hooper

I spent a while trying to come up with a word to describe what this post is about for the title in order to keep with usual modus operandi of simple one word titles, but I really couldn’t think of or find one, so it’s two posts in a row with multiple word titles.

If you’re reading this, chances are you are familiar with the fact that I recently decided I was going to deactivate my Facebook account and take a break for awhile, and then enacted that deactivation just prior to posting this.  I didn’t want to post about any of the reasons why on Facebook, but if you bothered to come here perhaps you are interested, and even if you aren’t, I consider this blog to be more for myself than for any of the very small number of people who read it.  Truthfully there are a lot of reasons, but I am only going to talk about one of them, at least for this post.  You’re probably not going to see the connection to Facebook at least at first…  but maybe you will by the time I’m done trying to explain it, if we’re lucky.

I’ve never been what I would describe as a self-confident person.  I would say that most if not all of the negative aspects of me probably derive from that fact.  One of the most negative aspects of me, in my opinion, is that I am dreadfully terrible at meeting new people.  The main reason for that is that I am terribly uncomfortable around people when I don’t know how they are going to react to me.  And for some reason, I tend to believe that they are going to react negatively to me.  I’m sure this is probably rooted in some childhood experience and is a behavior I’ve never managed to unlearn, but I would really like to.  But more so, I want to reach a point where it doesn’t matter as much to me whether they like me or not.  Not feeling that need to be validated (or really I guess not feeling the need to not be invalidated) would take the pressure off of me when dealing with people I don’t know.  If I am dealing with just one new person, or just a few among a group of friends, I can handle it much better than I can when thrown into a large group of unknowns.

The problem mostly dissipates on the individual level as I get to know a person.  I feel like I can safely assume that once I know someone really well, I don’t need to worry about that anymore.  Although I can’t give voice to why I should be worrying about it in the first place… not being liked/validated by someone shouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.  However, I often find myself moderating some of my thoughts around people who I know disagree with me about things because I have grown to like them, and I fear that they will not like me if I give voice to my contrary opinions.  This is one of the key areas where I feel like Facebook has been problematic for me.

Additionally, I think that for someone such as myself who struggles with many social situations, Facebook can become kind of a social crutch.  Although it might be more accurate to re-appropriate the immortal words of Mitch Hedberg and say that Facebook isn’t a crutch…  “a crutch helps you walk, [Facebook] is like a step I didn’t see.”  Facebook is all about the illusion of social connections and it makes you kind of sort of feel connected to people when you really aren’t.  That’s problematic for me.

Even as I write this, part of me feels that I shouldn’t post it.  Some part of my brain is telling me that I’m running the risk of being invalidated and that is something that should be avoided.  But that is why I need to post this.  Maybe someone will think it’s pathetic… I mean, hey, that’s cool, I actually think it’s kind of pathetic too.  Who goes through as much of life as I have and is still this bad at interacting with people?

If/When (I assume I probably will, but I’m not committed to the proposition) I return to Facebook, I want for 2 things to be true.  First, I don’t want it to be a social crutch any more, preventing me from obtaining and maintaining more real relationships.  Second, I want to no longer fear receiving invalidation or hope for validation based on whatever I decide to post.

So hopefully this is the start of a path to becoming a better human being.