M T Rhetoric
I suppose that what I've used this blog for has changed over the years. It has changed for many reasons. Need. It's all about my needs, I guess... or my wants.
So, in so far as this blog is concerned, what are my needs and wants now? What is it that I can do with this blog which I cannot do else where? What is it that I can get out of this blog which I cannot get elsewhere?
Should I use it for venting? Should I use it for storytelling? Should I use it for teaching? Should I use it for displaying my creative writing? Use it for "therapy"? Networking? Killing time?
I used to think that I was doing all of those things. Maybe I was, I don't know. Now though? I don't know what exactly I'm using it for.
I suppose that at the moment, I'm using it to figure out what the hell I want to use it for, and whether or not I really want to use it at all.
...or to chance it using me again.
Ace High
There are times, usually every day, where I just want to start all over again. It makes no sense, really. I know that wherever I go, there I am. I also know that my current situation is just a symptom of life. Sometimes, when the cards are dealt, you get a shitty hand, that's all. Sometimes it's not your own fault. So, do I keep bluffing or do I just fold?
If I knew for sure that there was going to be another hand dealt, I'd be more inclined to just fold. Bluffing is getting tiresome, and it really doesn't seem like the one Ace I was dealt is going to do the trick.
Rocky, Nickster, and all -
to be, or
I'm so damn tired... on too many levels.
I talk to myself... think to myself... try to keep figuring things out. It seems like a waste of brain power sometimes. I dunno... I tell myself...
If you don't learn how to let it all go, life will continue to provide you with those harsh lessons in an attempt to teach you how to do it.
If you continue to collect things, even your own thoughts, you will only end up more burdened than you already are.
In an instant, it can all vanish. All of it. This is the truth of it. Time erases everything, in a universe where time exists.
Learn how to be... be with, and be without.
...I tell myself that.
Why aren't I listening?
Wow!
For the first time in (seemingly) forever, the "Hot Blogs" list actually looks accurate to me!
Maybe tblog really is making more of an effort not to fold than I thought.
Very cool.
Time Served
I think that the whole "therapy" idea is completely stupid. I don't need therapy. Yeah, I have "issues", just like everyone else does, but shoot... at least I know what mine are, and I know how to make sure that people are aware of what they are so as not to inadvertently trigger me.
I've told my life story a zillion times over. There's just not a whole hell of a lot to work through or which anyone can help me out with that's left up there. I cannot change the rest of the world. That's on them, should they choose to change. All I can really do is say, "Ouch!", and hope that people will act respectfully towards me in the future after I do.
No matter what I did or didn't do in my past, I've done more than my share of suffering and repenting because or in spite of it.
I think that I'm going to have to tell David to find another Goliath to play with.
If I could, I would
Sometimes, I think to myself... "C'mon!!! Just one more!!! One last trip!!!" I don't know which part of me is begging for it though. It's dangerous. I fear that there may be... "plans within plans".
The logical, practical part of me knows that it may well kill me... that "one last trip", but the perhaps more human part just doesn't care.
Is sky diving truly suicidal?
...to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and while you're at it... please help me to fake like I give a shit about whatever the fuck the difference is.
I care TOO much.
Often, it's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I fear my saying it will hurt others, thus making me come off as a "heartless" person, despite the fact that I'm not "heartless" in the least.
So, in truth, my silence is a damn LIE. It's FAKE.
but I'M the king of therapy
So, yesterday they sent me over a "shrinkydink". Yes, I took one look at him and did think, "chew toy". I have no clue what I'm going to do with this guy. I know how to interact with guys like him, but I don't think that would be considered appropriate in this instance.
For starters, I'm going to have to come up with a better name for him than "chew toy."
I know it could be worse.
It's not that I don't want to write, I do, it's just that when I sit down and start typing, it seems that I have nothing to say. Maybe it's more that I feel that I've said everything a thousand times already. I don't know.
Lately, for me, life is more about feeling than it is doing. Thinking and feeling. Mostly thinking in circles and feeling sick, but that's neither here nor there.
Watched a show about coma on HBO "on demand". I don't envy people who go through that... not at all. "Traumatic Brain Injury" I'll never say that I feel "lucky" to have MS, but I sure do feel lucky that I've never suffered a brain injury like that.
Life can be very, very cruel.
Sad, but true.
I'm glad that tblog is moving quickly, but the downtime happened for me at the wrong moment.
I had just deleted my MyShpace account that (the other) day, potentially losing touch with a few dozen "friends" and I left my blog address as the place for them to find me. Yeah. oops.
I'm beyond overwhelmed. I can write the occasional entry here, but above and beyond that, what I can do online has become less and less. I think back to when I first started this online journey. 1999. Within a month or two, I was screaming about not being able to handle e-mail. I tried, but a lot of people's feelings were hurt because I really could not deal with it. I'd manage to keep up for a while, but then I'd snap... and I just... couldn't keep it up.
Many people took it personally, despite the fact that it wasn't personal at all.
Until tblog is done, I'll be blogging here. It may be sporadic, it may be more constant, but I won't be starting another blog like this elsewhere.
I hope that the people who get something out of reading my blog will keep coming back.
I can't follow anyone anymore.
Comment on. Comment off.
I've been thinking on it for quite a while, and I think that what I'm going to have to do is turn off the ability for non-tblog people to comment when I need to be offline. So, the ability for people without tblog accounts to comment will be sporadic, but it will be there pretty often.
It has to be this way until tblog again allows people to open accounts here. I simply cannot deal with the stress of worrying about whether or not some psycho will crash up my blog while I'm trying to sleep or rest. I have enough trouble with that as it is.
Thanks for sticking with me through all of this. It does mean a lot to me.
Just an experiment
I reserve the right to be myself, and to fail to give others the time or attention I wish to give to them.
I reserve the right to love at my own pace.
must have
I think that if I thought they might come up with a cure, maybe I'd do a little better in accomplishing the more psychologically affected tasks in my everyday life. I suppose that it's all about "hope" though, and it's rare that I can get there. I really don't believe that this disease will be cured in my lifetime, and it's sort of tough to even get out of bed in the morning feeling that way.
When I try to look ahead, especially after taking a quick look back, all I see is more of the same journey along the same increasingly more grueling path. It's a progression in a direction... sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but it's all going from bad to worse, every day... bit by bit... what I can do becomes what I used to be able to do. Yes, that happens in life. It's called "aging", but as I've said, living with MS is like "turbo-life". My quality of life is not what it should be for a guy my age. It's more like it is for the majority of guys twice my age.
If, as compensation for having MS, you'll get to live a life which will be twice as intense as the one which you would have lived without it, would you accept the disease?
I guess I must have said, "Yes."
I guess that I must have thought that living this way was necessary for some reason.
It just sucks
It really sucks when you care about people and can't show them that you do in much of a tangible way. It sucks that with the exception of one, all of my friends only exist to me online. It sucks that I can rarely handle phone conversations. It sucks that my eyes aren't what they used to be. It sucks that I'm in pain all of the time.
It all just sucks.
Not communal
When I first started blogging, I really didn't think that it was going to be anything "community" oriented. I wasn't looking for a community, just a place online where I could express myself honestly, without the responsibilities of being involved in a community. After the first entry though, I suddenly realized that the whole blog thing was not necessarily like an online journal. I went with it anyway though, and I think that I got a little good from doing so.
Today, it's "Independence Day". I have to chuckle at that. Independence. It's pretty overrated, from where I sit today. "Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose."" Then, I suppose that there's a difference between being on your own because you want it that way, and being on your own because you were forced to be.
Just because someone doesn't want to live under an abusive dictator doesn't necessarily mean that they want to be left alone entirely.
I didn't want to be told what to do, I wanted to be supported. I wanted a "safety net" so that I could do without fear.
Independence.
I think that I understand very well what that means.
Used to be.
There's a lot I miss about the "old" tblog, but too, there's a lot I miss about my life the way it was when I first started blogging. It's hard to know where the line is sometimes. I tend to idealize things, the further away from them in time I get, and I often end up screwing myself in all the wrong ways because of that tendency.
Even looking back at my old colors... the way my blog used to look... it makes me feel more relaxed doing that. It's not as harsh on the eyes, or something.
Now, if I can just remember what exactly it was I thought that I was going to get out of blogging in the first place... and believe in it again...
