I've been an extrovert for far too long. So long that I have little clue what to do when I do find myself alone. <cue jokes about jilling off> More often than not, I spend my time dilating my pupils and retreating into that passive wonder-world which also, apparently, obeys the economic dictum of the law of diminishing marginal utility.
It's getting difficult to shake off this state, where there are always things to do, but then you always have so many choices - and you know, YOU get to make the right choice for yourself, the overwhelming knowledge of the fact that your freedom is your responsibility - that I get stuck with what Stephen Fry called options paralysis. Truly, I need to spend more time just doing my own thing and getting the hang of it. Not that I didn't, in the past, but really developing it, honing it and making it my own. Even 'doing my thing' feels like a borrowed pastime.
But really, the way to get unstuck from options paralysis is to reject everything. The most peaceful place in your mind is where there is nothing. Try as you might, 'nothing' is an exceedingly difficult state of mind to achieve. So, the next best thing follows, one thing. But to really do that one thing right, and do justice to it, you have to die first. Die completely. Leave your half-hopeful ambitions, your distant dreams and your exotic-for-the-sake-of-it choices. Let go over the cliff, as the zen monk says. And then your own fears and lethargy and false hopes will never deceive you. Maybe I should give it a shot.
Oh, and hat-tip to ol' Prufrock for that line in the title. It's true.
It's getting difficult to shake off this state, where there are always things to do, but then you always have so many choices - and you know, YOU get to make the right choice for yourself, the overwhelming knowledge of the fact that your freedom is your responsibility - that I get stuck with what Stephen Fry called options paralysis. Truly, I need to spend more time just doing my own thing and getting the hang of it. Not that I didn't, in the past, but really developing it, honing it and making it my own. Even 'doing my thing' feels like a borrowed pastime.
But really, the way to get unstuck from options paralysis is to reject everything. The most peaceful place in your mind is where there is nothing. Try as you might, 'nothing' is an exceedingly difficult state of mind to achieve. So, the next best thing follows, one thing. But to really do that one thing right, and do justice to it, you have to die first. Die completely. Leave your half-hopeful ambitions, your distant dreams and your exotic-for-the-sake-of-it choices. Let go over the cliff, as the zen monk says. And then your own fears and lethargy and false hopes will never deceive you. Maybe I should give it a shot.
Oh, and hat-tip to ol' Prufrock for that line in the title. It's true.
are you back?
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