Nostalgic Insenstience

Music has always been something of an intense experience for me. Putting on a pair of headphones and turning on nearly any song can instantly summon forth a sometimes overpowering set of emotions that seems to take total control of my 'mood'. I instantly remember all these details about the song- when did it first find it, and why it is significant for me. What did this song mean to me, and why?

I can never seem to forget it. I remember the first time I heard most songs in my library, and exactly how it made me feel. Turning on songs from high school or early years of college is like downloading an entire set of emotions and memories from another time- like restoring a backup into my memory. It's overwhelming, and even today I found myself nearly out of breath when taken off-guard by a particularly poignant song.

Be it a loud dance-oriented beat or something quiet and calm, any sort of song can take its place in my catalog. It's amazing how easy I can sometimes manipulate my emotions and mood into feeling pumped up or sad, just by turning on a particular set of songs. I remember these things so specifically that like ghosts of the past, I can summon them all back without much difficulty.

It feels stupid, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's just something that hits me very hard from time to time- be it a song from the radio when I was little, or a particularly reminiscent from a significant scene in a favorite video game, there are just a lot of songs that bury themselves so deeply beneath my skin that I could never itch nor shake them loose.

Lately, to combat the heavy and unending thoughts of work, I lie down and listen to old music, letting the memories roll over me and carry me like soft tidal waves into slumber. Nostalgia my captain and memory my ship, I sail gently to tomorrow on the current of all my lives wrapped into a single, blue ocean that stretches in all directions.

It may be cheesy and it may be trite, but it's hard to sleep without the song lately.

Separation Anxiety

I've always prided myself on being a hard worker and being very thorough with any sort of project I'm working on. I believe that I commit well to my tasks at hand and have a very strong organizational intelligence that allows me to balance a wide variety of projects/tasks at a time, properly triaging the most urgent and handling everything in a time-sensitive manner.

I'm typically able to accomplish this be expending an enormous amount of psychic energy, completely devoting myself to the task list. It's a great if tiring practice at work where all of the mentioned skills, and more, are required to do my job well. Today, I walked into work and was bombarded by one thing after another that all required my immediate attention, needed to be finished ASAP, and no one else could address it.

I got through the day successfully, meeting my goals and (ideally) pleasing both clients and company. I've reached a point where many of my coworkers have grown comfortable trusting and depending on me to do a very high-quality work, and that makes me extraordinarily proud.

But lying down in bed at 3:30 am, I discover the cost of committing so strongly to my job: I can't leave it behind.

This is an issue that has slowly been creeping up on me lately and I keep brushing it under the rug, but as I laid in bed and listened to some old music from years and years ago, I found my nostalgia interrupted time and time again with visions of work. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch after a long shift and dreamt I was right back at work, back in the trenches, never having left.

It's driving me crazy. I can't seem to leave it behind me. I've memorized account numbers and names of all sorts of people; I could probably do half of my work blind-folded since I seem to have memorized it all so thoroughly. I just want to separate from it, but I can't.

When I was younger and I'd obsess over video games, I'd memorize all sorts of little things from them, to the point that I can comfortably play through same entire games in my head (I've done it, too, on long flights or something). Now that same freaky-weird memory is biting me in the ass because I can't seem to shut down the part of my brain that is 'work'.

How do you do that? How can I 'just say no' to thinking about work when I leave? All I want to do is sleep without worrying and worrying and worrying... I don't even work tomorrow.

How can I cure myself of this daily dose of separation anxiety?

Sharing isn't always Caring

In 2009, I traveled to South Korea for the first time as a part of a really cool trip run by an NGO in DC. I spent a month traveling through the country and meeting some really amazing people, including ambassadors and generals- big, decision-making sorts of people. I made friends who were radically different from me and learned about the world as well as myself; it was a wonderful trip.

Naturally, pictures were an important part of the experience. We all took hundreds and hundreds of pictures, the course of the month filling up harddrives with thousands of photos from our group of just-under-fifty people. Responsible for organizing a publication to memorialize the month, I got to sort through quite a few of those photos, reliving nearly every place we went and every thing we did. It was that beautiful, bittersweet nostalgia that we always so cautiously crave.

There was something that bothered me about it all, though. We spent time at ancient palaces, remnants of cultures and kingdoms that no longer existed, and from a similar period, we traveled to several old and beautiful Buddhist temples. But whereas the palaces were political and tourist traps, the temples remained alive and breathing, and we had the pleasure of witnessing live Buddhist ceremonies. Out of respect, I chose not to take pictures of any part of the temples, but I was alone in the sentiment and even mocked for such silliness. Why not take pictures? Why not use flash?

Now, in 2013, with smart phones everywhere and instagram/twitter/tumblr/facebook/etcetcetc being used by everyone and their mom, the idea of intentionally not taking pictures while doing something interesting or seeing something beautiful seems almost foreign. We all continue moving towards creating a live, never-ending personal news feed and technology does nothing but enable my generation's desire for every person to star in their own personal movie.

Don't get me wrong- I love what technology has to offer. I love that I can take a picture of something silly and send it to a friend that I share an inside joke with, or that I can communicate in real-time with my old pals who live across the world. That's amazing and we should all take advantage of what our technology has to offer.

But sometimes I don't want to share. I don't want every moment of my life to be plastered on the internet.

I remember my time at the temples fondly, and the quiet peace of a ceremony that I know nothing about. I don't regret not taking pictures; I don't feel shorthanded at all. I'm happy that I have that memory to myself, that the images and the smells and the sounds are mine and mine alone, stored away somewhere in the archives of my mind to be taken out and enjoyed when I want it.

Over the past few years, I've grown more and more desirous of these 'selfish' memories. While so many people around move closer to sharing every waking thought and every meal and every sunrise, I find my own memory becoming more and more precious. While I'm amenable to taking pictures for some moments, more often than not, I seem to think "I just want this one for me", and I leave my nice, 8 megapixel cell in my pocket.

And the memories I'm holding in my heart seem sharper than ever. I still take the occasional photos for my records, or for shits and giggles, or to share something particularly poignant, but I like that everyone on my facebook feed doesn't always know what I'm doing or have done. I don't need them to know; I don't want them to know. I know, and I can tell them later, if I want.

Maybe it's just the story-teller nature of my personality, but there's something just aggravating about trying to share an experience with someone and hearing them say "oh yeah, I saw that on your wall" or "I know, I follow you on Twitter." I love the satisfaction of sharing my life with someone directly, of feeling them react and knowing that they know because I like them enough to share my stories with them. It's warm and it's personal, and maybe it's a bit outdated to some people, that's what I like and that's what I choose.

It might be silly; maybe it's even selfish. It's hard for me to say exactly, but there's something very sweet and comforting knowing that my memories can remain precious and rare. I may live my life as if I'm staring in my own personal movie, but I don't really feel the need to share the script with everyone- only the people that matter most.

So. Tired.

I've never had a job that allowed my to take on overtime before, and it's sort of addicting.

Due to some serious staff shortages, my company is basically on approve-all-OT requests at this point, especially for last minute cancellations. Between my financial need and my insatiable need to be everyone's friend, I've been picking up dropped shifts and filling in for gaps that coverage is needed. It's exhausting and frustrating, and I wonder if it won't be long until I'm burnt out.

Yesterday, I worked 8 AM until 12AM- a 16 hour shift. It was intense and a little crazy, and by the end I was ready to get the hell out of there. 10 hour shifts are becoming more and more common as I stay a little later here, come in a little earlier there. I just need the hours badly, especially as my other job seems to be falling flat. There is such a big need, but the job itself is exhausting.

In a lot of ways, it's the opposite of Starbucks. I never see any of the callers or clients in person, and so there is a very strange sense of confinement and almost 'other worldliness' to the call center. It helps to establish a great sense and environment of comradery as we all struggle and handle irate callers, angry people at every turn, and broken accounts that leave us in the lurch. The people I work with make the job doable; with a different crew, I imagine I probably would have quit in anger at some point already.

On the other hand, the company suffers from some very serious structural and organizational issues. Communication between customer service and IT is terrible, creating massive inefficiencies in solving client or account-related problems. I work in IT for a few hours on every shift and see no end to that frustration anytime in the near future. Unskilled or lazy workers cause issues for every agent in the company and slow progress down to a grinding halt.

It's definitely not a job that I can see myself staying at for the next ten years. I'm exhausted after even a four hour shift of taking calls, and although the IT work is certainly more interesting, it is no less frustrating. There is a lot of great talent at the company, without a doubt, so at least I can get through day-by-day.

Breath deep, and always keep the goal in sight. Always.

Sabotage

I had an English teacher in High School who once described me as ‘incredibly self-destructive’. She believed that I was an intelligent and capable person who actually was scared of success and performing in life in a way that would lead me towards a great and exciting life/career. She commented occasionally on my tendency to take actions that would directly hurt my ability to achieve my goal, and finally she asked me why I did it.

I never was able to think of a good reason for it, but it is an unfortunate habit, or possibly series of habits, that has carried over into my adulthood far longer than it should have. After living overseas, after a multitude of attempts to try to whip my body or my mind into shape, I manage to often fall back onto the same set of excuses and bad decisions that lead to me failing to achieve whatever I had intended to do.

There’s always something that seems to get in the way- maybe I get busy, maybe I start to date someone, maybe I find a new project or a new TV show to obsess over. Maybe I start to go out more and maybe I start to binge read books or maybe I decide that it’s time for me to pick up that other old habit that I had tossed aside. Maybe I just can’t focus.

Maybe it’s just a lack of discipline. I often chafe at the idea of having a good schedule but the reality is that in the times that I’ve had a good, regular schedule for work and for school, I’ve always managed to balance my eating, sleeping and exercise habits along with many of my personal hobbies. Those times are rare and easily disrupted- that sort of circadian homeostasis is delicate and beautiful. I miss that taste of productivity.

When I first moved back to Columbus, my first week was filled with exercise and writing. I accomplished a great deal even as I applied for jobs, but by the time week two rolled around, I was back into some unhealthy habits- sitting around all day, binge watching TV while attempting to also sort of enjoy playing a video game on my PC. I did it automatically, barely tasting any of the media I consumed and gaining nothing from it other than glad to have something to fill the schedule.

Building up that discipline- setting realistic goals and things to achieve- is difficult. It’s far from easy but especially for someone that has historically been so scared of success, the idea of discipline and an ordered path to personal achievement can be frightening in and of itself. Discipline is a sign of commitment, the desire to achieve something so bad that I control my baser emotions. It’s the subjugation of my distraction and inattention, the willingness to work.

As I’ve gotten older, my natural desire to self-sabotage has certainly attenuated, but now I can’t help but when if that’s because I’ve matured or simply because I’ve stopped taking any real risks. I’ve moved overseas and live there twice, and I recently set myself up for another move and am doing well. I can’t help but wonder, though, if I’ve set my goals a little lower than my capabilities. 

Masculinity

As I get older, I wrestle more and more with what it means to be a man. It’s different from when I was a teenager and full of weird hormones and splattered with acne- rather than questioning what a man is physically, I wonder more and more what it means to be a man in the day-to-day doldrums of life.

I interact with a lot of people from a wide variety of walks of life on a daily basis. People much older than me and people much younger; Americans and foreigners alike. Having spent time overseas only pushed me to question classical American notions of masculinity more than ever, and now that I’m back in the generally conservative Midwest, I find my notions once again challenged.

What is a man?, I ask myself. What does it mean to be a man at 25 years of age, with no family to support and wholly single? When my father was my age, he had three children and another on the way. My grandfather had lived many lives by this time, married the love of his life, bought her a house and began having children after his service in world war 2.

Insecurity most likely plays a part in my questioning. I look around me to those that I care about and inevitably measure myself up against them. It’s natural that I’ll pay closest attention to those things that I’m already aware that I’m failing in- if failing is even the right word. It’s all so gray and cloudy that I barely even know how to put the search for a satisfying answer into words.

As a gay man, especially, it’s difficult to answer the question sometimes. I’m comfortable with my sexual orientation, though not everyone is, and somehow their discomfort is something that works to make me feel bad, insecure, and inadequate as a man. Logically, I recognize that as bullshit, but of course I can’t help but feel bad at times. I know how I sound when I talk, and even if I’m not running around with make-up and tights on like a stereotype out of Hollywood, I still get called ma’am on the phone, and the knee-jerk is always to just feel… sour.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the mannerisms are natural and how many are accidentally manufactured. I’m gay, sure, but I don’t meet a lot of the other stereotypes. Mostly, I’m a skinny nerd who likes to read and play video games, eat a lot and drink beer with my friends. But still I can’t shake this feeling that I’m not butch enough, I’m not man enough, and I just begin to feel awkward as hell around people that ARE butch enough- according to some strange and Byzantine standards that should be irrelevant, but somehow aren’t.

It’s not something I spend hours agonizing over every day, or every week. It’s just a question that runs through my head from time to time- something that I want to understand about myself and my society. Especially as I try to prepare myself for the future, I can’t help but want to know where I am so I can build a good path to where I want to be.

But that’s a whole different story.

Everything

Everything is a very big word. It means all of it, without exception. Each and every one of those things, minus none. Everything.

It’s not uncommon for me, and others I’m sure, to use this word liberally. I’m a story-teller by nature and I like to pepper my language with strong and vivid language. I like to embellish and exaggerate, to paint a picture for my conversational partners and the word ‘everything’ is indeed a strong word. Every single thing.

But there is an unfortunately common usage of the word that , for the very first time, seems at once both alien and categorically untrue.

“Everything is going good.”
“Everything is going bad.”

There is, of course, the negative form of this (simply replace ‘everything’ with ‘nothing’) but let’s stick with this for now.

I used to use this sort of language a lot. Very often, even. It’s a very easy picture to paint; a very clear and easily comprehended black and white. Everything or nothing, all at once, without reservation. My entire life’s energy is somehow, all at once, entirely positive or negative. It’s all good or it’s all bad, and never anything in between.

Time and possibly even some maturation leads me to wonder if maybe my penchant for using such strong and extremist language is helping to contribute to a very alarming personality trait that worries me for my future. I love to devote myself to things and commit great amounts of energy to my projects and passions, but I often get such an extreme case of tunnel vision that I can only really focus on a single track, and the second my eyesight wanders, it becomes abandoned as I focus on a new road.

It’s a common behavior in teenagers, but that’s not what I am anymore, or who I want to be. Balance and self-administration are very important and attractive qualities. They do not exclude or stultify passion- rather, they direct and guide that wonderfully positive energy that otherwise is wasted when the path is eventually abandoned for something new. I’ve worked hard in recent years to practice more discipline with this.

Similarly, I should apply the same ‘grayification’ of my tendency to overuse everything. It’s over-reaching and creates damaging simplifications of complex issues. Sure I sprained my ankle a few days ago, but I also managed to get a ton of cleaning done at home. Today, I may have been extremely productive before I went in for work, but then I was in a bad mood at work all day from a few bad callers.

I guess my point is that rather than wrapping myself up in a mood that can create depressions (‘everything is so bad right now…’) or prepare me for to be crushed after crashing from an unrealistic high, I should seek a form of restraint in my thoughts. When things are good, acknowledge it- but use realistic language. “Things are going great for me” is reality; “everything is going great for me” is fantasy, at best.

By managing a balance of thoughts, I believe I can increase my overall satisfaction and productivity in life. It may take a while, but it can all begin with a simple change in the way that I communicate, both externally and internally.