Buzz buzz..

So, what does the intrepid blogger do when she isn't packing, unpacking, finding herself or losing herself?

Not much ektually... bumped into friends at Tilleys ... topped up the scripts (sigh) at the doc ... pulled up the first zillion of a trillion forget-me-nots .... cooked twice! ... spent time with friends and family trying to re-engage in what I longed for so much - my real life.

This is clearly conceptual: I longed for tangible things, but now I have them I find they are only tangible physically. Robert Dessaix writes (I paraphrase) of the difficulty of travel being 'boredom - the boredom of oneself'. So true. When you are pooped to pieces and you need a big wow to motivate you to do anything, it is not the travel experience which is letting you down, it is your own poor, raddled, incompetent self. I have been reflecting on how much this is true and how much it sucks. MORE things one has to find willpower for!

Or maybe not ... the work I'm doing on anxiety recognition, management, 'control', coping mechanisms, etc, is focussed very much on the 'chatter of the mind' principle. And why, I ask, is the mind such a mean, negative, nit-picking, critical, doom-saying and downright nasty piece of work? Why are we apparently programmed to think only ill of ourselves? Critical, judgemental, adversarial, self-talk you wouldn't find in a bunch of drunk Harleys, all kinds of shit. Easily. Any old time. In fact, difficult, bloody very difficult, to escape. When I find myself struggling to get up and face the day, do I lie thinking "well that's alright; yesterday I weeded and cooked and made my dorter's life wonderful and I didn't murderate anyone or neglect a cat'. Oh no. I lie there thinking 'if I were a better person; a competent, capable reasonable intelligent person I'd just hop out of bed and get on with it, no mulling it over and feeling awful and wondering why and BLAMING MYSELF'.

It's just so ineffective. As a work practice it has all the efficiency of ... a championship delegator who can find and fling, but never fully understand. Never manage, create, contribute, control or complete a task or challenge.

Sheesh.

So, I'm up against it. Arguing with myself is a good game, it can take hours; days out of my life. All completely useless of course, achieving nothing but the semblance of activity of the mind, but only leading to stronger feelings of crapitude, downness and general pointlessness.

What is the antidote? It's very simple, you just let go. Let all this chatter flow right on through, past you and your conscious self and off somewhere, it doesn't matter where. Just be in the now.

An elusive place! Think about it, when was the last time you were sitting somewhere, engaged wholly in your surroundings but not yakking away to yourself in your mind, or dreaming up a list of to-dos, or regretting something, or chivvying yourself to stop all this foolish blobbing around and go and DO something.

I'm working on it. And, sorry, but you haven't achieved now-ness if you are fully engaged in saying 'SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP' to yourself. It's SILENCE in the mind; full engagement in the moment we're looking for. Physical stillness might help but walking or swimming (anything soothing, repetitive and meditative) might do the trick.

How are you doing??

Today, deeply felt, brought to you by a new one: Trussardi's "Inside" (for women; there are two variants). Leathery, intense but not musky, and quite sexy. I think. I hope!