great depression of the mind
In my never ending question to optimize my wasted time, I've cotemplated what activities would allow me to be as productive, and comfortable as possible, I've done some work on it lately. Early this year I had intorduced some new furniture items to my bedroom to give myself more space. I was finding that I was too often bumping into things or running out of walking room and that this was fairly constantly raising my stress levels. The new layout position is quite nice, it looks a lot like a futurists bedroom. The reorganization and decoration definitely give it a different ambiance which is a welcome change.
I've also adopted a view of my life as going in expansions and contractions. Basically, during periods of expansion, I rapidly take on new items, experiences, and ideas. During periods of contraction, I digest and integrate these new things into my existing world view and state of existence. I scale back a little bit from the myriad of ventures currently engaged in to have the energy to solidify a base so I can reach out again. The general goal is that this way one can continue to grow while not accumulating things in disjoint layers that would allow it to fall apart.
Integration is key.
But all in all, I feel intergration has it's own course, it needs to jump past the occasional state of genuine fear that powerfully effects our own identities significantly. FDR once said "only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was referring to Great Depression economics, but we'll ignore that part and take it with its general cultural usage.
One method of treating fear and phobias is to expose a person to the object of their fear and when they see that in spite of the exposure, nothing bad happens, they can begin to decouple the fear and the object in their mind and eventually the fear or phobia is gone or reduced to manageable levels.
In contemplating how to overcome some of my fear-laden inhibitions, I've thought sometimes that if I just exposed myself to whatever it is then I could treat myself that way. Then I realized why this plan has never really been actualized to conquer any of my fears.... I'm afraid of fear itself. I've had enough anxiety and paranoia before to know that there certainly is a physiological correlate to anxiety/fear.
I'm terribly jealous of life and afraid of death (don't worry, I won't try to conquer that one via exposure). Whenever I think about exposing myself to some of my other fears to conquer them, my thoughts fixate on the anxiety and fear that will be generated from this exposure. Approaching exposure of various items has confirmed to me that the anxiety and fear will be present. Each step closer brings me closer to the moment of truth. Either I will reach the peak and see that nothing too bad happened and I will begin recover or my heart rate and blood pressure will soar and every capillary in my body will simultaneously explode. Okay, okay, that's an exaggeration, but my mind still thinks of the of the death it all as a real possibility. So, I guess the real question is: is it worth risking death to subjectively truly live?
I've also adopted a view of my life as going in expansions and contractions. Basically, during periods of expansion, I rapidly take on new items, experiences, and ideas. During periods of contraction, I digest and integrate these new things into my existing world view and state of existence. I scale back a little bit from the myriad of ventures currently engaged in to have the energy to solidify a base so I can reach out again. The general goal is that this way one can continue to grow while not accumulating things in disjoint layers that would allow it to fall apart.
Integration is key.
But all in all, I feel intergration has it's own course, it needs to jump past the occasional state of genuine fear that powerfully effects our own identities significantly. FDR once said "only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was referring to Great Depression economics, but we'll ignore that part and take it with its general cultural usage.
One method of treating fear and phobias is to expose a person to the object of their fear and when they see that in spite of the exposure, nothing bad happens, they can begin to decouple the fear and the object in their mind and eventually the fear or phobia is gone or reduced to manageable levels.
In contemplating how to overcome some of my fear-laden inhibitions, I've thought sometimes that if I just exposed myself to whatever it is then I could treat myself that way. Then I realized why this plan has never really been actualized to conquer any of my fears.... I'm afraid of fear itself. I've had enough anxiety and paranoia before to know that there certainly is a physiological correlate to anxiety/fear.
I'm terribly jealous of life and afraid of death (don't worry, I won't try to conquer that one via exposure). Whenever I think about exposing myself to some of my other fears to conquer them, my thoughts fixate on the anxiety and fear that will be generated from this exposure. Approaching exposure of various items has confirmed to me that the anxiety and fear will be present. Each step closer brings me closer to the moment of truth. Either I will reach the peak and see that nothing too bad happened and I will begin recover or my heart rate and blood pressure will soar and every capillary in my body will simultaneously explode. Okay, okay, that's an exaggeration, but my mind still thinks of the of the death it all as a real possibility. So, I guess the real question is: is it worth risking death to subjectively truly live?
posted by daneatkinson at 15.8.06
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