Stress

Imagine, if you will, a brushed steel bar about 30 cm long and 6 cm by 6 cm thick square. You have it in your hands. It is heavy. You consider the bar, hefting it in your hands. You hold either end in both hands between thumb and fingers, as one would hold a sandwich.
Slowly, you attempt to bend the bar. You know it's impossible for you to bend the bar, but you do it anyway.

Now. You can see a "heat map" of where the stress is applied, where the iron and carbon atoms at the bend point at the top of the bar are struggling against ripping apart.

I like this definition of stress, that despite the fact that you can see no movement in the bar, there are still forces at work inside the metal, forces that will, given enough energy, tear the bar apart. I'm always fascinated by the thought that without any visual cues, something is falling apart. Like a glacier falling into the sea. Huge chunks of ice gradually, slowly, cracking and breaking apart, until one last, tiny piece of it finally breaks away from the main body and the whole berg collapses into the ocean.

I have been stressed lately. With regular things, I guess. Money is tight. Housemates are getting on my nerves. College work is plentiful. My bike's rear tire went flat during the day, somehow after I got to college, and won't pump back up, so I assume it's burst. How the fuck does that even happen. I have a presentation for my project work tomorrow, the format of which is bothering me: We have to stand beside posters we made up of our work while bigwigs from the national engineering conclave asks us questions about them. I mean, come on. Posters. What are we, 12?
I am in dire need of winding down, I need a good drunken house party with all my mates, I haven't slept properly in days.

I feel like I'm in a spiral and I need to find purchase on the sides and start climbing back up.

Winter Depression

I only twigged it a couple of days ago. but I've realised that I fall into bouts of depression around September. 

The big lapse happened at about this time last year when, after making some changes to my life in order to better it (study, exercise), I found myself still in a pit of despair, helplessness and dread. I felt I had no control over myself or my life, I was powerless to change its direction, despite my attempts to do so.

I had a breakdown in school as well around this time of the year, but that was also partly due to a bullying teacher. Maybe that scarred me to some degree?

I think it's to do with a slight lack of ability to cope with responsibility; I'm back in college and the sheer amount of work to do is, in my mind, staggering. I mean I still haven't got my head around how much work there is to do and I'm afraid I've taken on too much. I'm avoiding work, avoiding research, eating a lot of "comfort food", which I'm beginning to suspect is an oxymoron. My counselor of last year suggested that this is a kind of physical act to avoid dealing with your feelings; you eat chocolate, and swallow, forcing back down the negative emotions, and get a kick out of the sugar. I know it sounds a bit mental, but I thought it was an interesting point.

But of course, I won't be able to get a handle on it until I actually take a stab at it! So, though it's a little late (start of October, yeesh!), I am forcing myself into it, bit by bit. I've set the tone by submitting my first assignment 3 hours late. Which I hate, it's so defeatist. I have a feeling that I subconsciously wanted to submit it late in order to see a physical reflection of the whole situation. I did the assignment, but it's late, but only a little bit, so you can't get mad.

So you can't get mad.

When I am weak, I keep falling back onto the same issues. You know, you see actors and writers and cartoonists joke about their pathetic neuroses on their T.V. shows and Twitter, but I just assumed that they were doing so because they're only discovering them for themselves at the time of writing and they want to communicate it. I never would think that these foibles have plagued them for years.

My own attitude to these types of feelings is that they are invasive, obstructive, and must be resolved. My God, I do not want to be 40 and still feeling like shit, alone, helpless, worried whenever September swings around, although I fear that this is the case with every human being (I'll concede that the time of the dip can be different for everyone. Maybe it's spread out!).

No, I don't expect to be a wizard that can deal with everything life throws at me, but I do want an advanced tool set with which to tackle it. The development of which this blog documents! Wahey!

Anyway, I digress. The plan is: tackle the workload, produce results as are best feasible with the time and ability available. The great rugby player and part-time philosopher Johnny Sexton once wrote:

"Eat nerves, shit results!" 

A noble exercise.


P.S. You may have noticed this post was also an exercise in using italics, emboldening and underling text. You win!

We Are Of No Significance But That Which We Make For Ourselves

Man. I do not know what the heck I am doing. Right now I have a poorly-paid pretty cool electronics-related job and my only real obligation outside of going to the office every day is to study for an exam I've to take in mid-August (which isn't going too well right now).
I keep thinking I have something to say on here, like there's something floating around my brain that needs to be expressed. I think I've mentioned this type of quandary before. Maybe I'm just procrastinating.

I tried ecstasy for the first time a month ago. It was a terrific experience but I took away some true meaning from it: That there is nothing stopping me from feeling this good and this alive all of the time. I still spend a lot of time curbing my actions based on the worry of how people will react, which blunts my perception of who I am and the world I think I live in. I really need to break out of that cycle. I don't do it all the time. I guess hanging around certain people brings out the Me in me, and hanging around other certain people stifles the Me in me. I think this is because I don't think they deserve to know the real me. Weird. But righteous! I'm not Wrong in thinking this, if I don't think someone deserves to know me then so be it. Fuck 'em. "They don't know me!" Aheh.
But yeah. The X was awesome. Just a realisation of peace and love for everyone. And confidence, confidence to say what was on my mind for better or worse. I could still filter my thoughts, I was still in control. It was just sharper, better realised control. Nothing has to change when I sober up. It's a brilliant thought. But not just a thought! A reality!

Noting all this: I really need to get out of my current town and move to the capital. My life here has stagnated somewhat, I knew that this time last year. I have one more year of college and after that, whatever I do, I'm moving out of this town. I'd love to work abroad, somewhere else in Europe.
I'm moving out of this town and away from these people. I'll visit them from time to time, but that's all they get of me anymore. I have thought of how incredible it would be to live with my old friends in the capital, and how I might grow weary of them the way I have of my friends here. Right now, I don't believe that would happen. I understand those people and they understand me. I recall I made a big deal about the fact that myself and my old friends somehow have an innate superlative ability to communicate effectively. I can say that after three years of college and dealing with potentially hundreds of new people, I have not met anyone (our age) that can communicate and connect with strangers as well as I or my old friends can. Yeah, I gave myself Big Ups there. Feels good. I know, I know, there's the thing that if you feel need to tell people you are good at something, it revokes your qualification to make such a statement. I just think it's an astute observation. Me an' me mates. Weeeeey.

I think I'm in the middle of an emotional growth spurt, which I think is why I can't quite think of stuff to write about, even though I feel I have something to say. I can't definitively write about the spurt until I come out the other side of it!

I applied what I learned in my teens to college and I definitely did well there, on the social side of things. Except for the virginity. But I'm working on that, don't you worry! That's another thing about this realisation that I can feel good all the time, I got a lot of confidence out of it. I think I can "do better" on nights out and the like. Just plain talk to everyone who'll listen. Find interesting women. There's lots out there. Heck, I haven't even been looking and several have fallen into my lap! So what happens if I actually look?! Exciting!

Exciting times, guys. As I said: growth spurt. Feels good. Ride the wave.

I love you all.

We Lucky Few

"I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said:

"Grandpa? Were you a hero in the war?" 

Grandpa said "No. . .


But I served in a company of heroes.""


 -- Sergeant Mike Ranney, in a letter sent to Major Richard "Dick" Winters



Martyrdom is a tricky business, and so far as I have found is not restricted to religious extremists. A little martyrdom exists in all of us and in some, more than others. We sacrfice our comfort/peace of mind/sanity in order to make someone elses life easier. I've done it, I've spent most of life doing it.

I want to point out the responsibility that comes with this. Making yourself responsible for someone elses happiness is a big deal. You might think it's a good idea at the time, but in reality, it is not. You severly stunt your personal growth. By taking on someone elses problems, you leave no room to figure out your own.

I guess I'm just worried about my family. Believe it or not, it's only during the past year that I've become concerned for their well-being. I never really considered it to be an issue, but damn. Each of them are as fragile as I am. Well that's not true. I've come to understand that my parents are the two strongest people I know. The shit that they deal with, between work, the trials of their children, volunteerism, health issues, and their ability to deal with it, is fucking monumental, and they've been dealing with it for twenty-four years. They didn't get a break after college to travel, and work on who they were, they went straight to work to support their children (or child, as they case was at the time). They're incredible.

But they're still figuring it out, the same as I am, and at the same level as I am. My opinion is valued, and acted upon by these people. I understand aspects of human beings that they don't understand. I don't know about you, but I was pretty sure they had that kind of thing nailed down, and if you met them you'd know what I'm talking about; they are people persons. But when it comes down to the six of us, them and their four children, there's a barrier.

We, as in all four of us, have only really started talking to our parents in the last three years. Which is quite late. We've never been really close, as noted in one of my previous entries when I mentioned we never said we loved each other and how big a deal that was. We've improved since we started saying it. Whan I'm getting at is that we've never been a great family unit until recently, and I think it's one of the issues that affects my sister.

Ya see, each member of my family has had to deal with depression and the effects of it. We've gone through the same shit as she is going through, except she is more sensitive to it than we were. The result is anxiety, worry, and guilt. These feelings really come from nothing, but the fact that she's a hormone-crazed teenager doesn't help. Couple that with the evil-mindedness of other teenages and you've got a recipie for disaster.

Believe me when I say that I do not even want to clean and bandage her arm again.

This is year three. It's hard to think about it, but I've had the luxury of living away from home so I don't have to deal with her directly. My parents are there every day, and every time she throws a strop, or breaks down in tears. Somehow, they manage to go on. Somehow they see a future. I can't see the future, but I feel in my guts that it's bright. I know it could be denial, but the alternative is unthinkable. I love these people to much to lose them. So I will be there when they need me.

I love that quote from Ranney's letter. It was delivered by an aged Winters, his voice choking over the last few words of the final line. A veteran of World War II, who knew exactly what he meant when he said "heroes".