|
under_control
|
» could be zen I burned the day. The whole day today was spent sleeping eating and reading. I ventured out twice. Once to spend an hour playing pool and once to get food. I needed to do this today. I need to do this for a number of days in a row, preferably someplace far away and quiet, as in a vacation. But today was certainly healthy (mentally, although perhaps not physically). I made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning my apartment, which lead to the discovery of some pages of a journal I had torn out, supposedly to use the journal for some more important purpose. Rereading this journal, along with some of my more recent entries here (that's what this is all about, right?) I realized that the last few months have been intensely busy compared to the previous two years. So now I sit in my tiny apartment, with the window open, admitting the occasional sound of an Amtrac passenger train or freight train. The tracks are about 15 blocks from here, along the freeway and just yards from the Bay. I've lived near traintracks throughout my life, and every train sounds the same as it signals its passage through the rare, populated regions of its travel. There are plenty of country songs and bad poems about the mournful wail of the train, so I won't embellish, but I will say that I find it comforting to hear that familiar, melancholic sound. In all the social turmoil of the last 90 days, I've come to realize that I no longer feel lonely when I'm alone. This is not due to the fact that I've grown accustom to being by myself, I think. It seems, rather, that I can at last relax, knowing that I have a good number of friends I can call on when I need company and fun and socializing. Now when I go to see a movie by myself, or eat out alone, or walk through Berkeley unaccompanied, I don't feel akward and freakish, and the object of people's cruel sympathy. Now I know that I could make a phonecall and have any number of people join me, but I prefer the introspection and the freedom from the neccessity for smalltalk. There are many things that I want to do, now that I've finally realized that the only thing keeping us from accomplishing what we daydream about is our own inertia. And these things, for the most part, require time alone to work, concentrate, write, code, whatever. And I'm now going to have to learn the fine art of turning down social invitations so that I can do my own thing. What a decadent lesson to have to learn.
|
|
|
diaryland |