Hello, step into my mind. It lives in a beige house, on a beige street, where it talks about the weather to all the beige people it meets. Sometimes I wonder if small talk is the lowest acceptable means to maintaining the minimum social balance. It's the sawdust in your favourite fast food burgers.
I'm so bored right now. Critically understimulated, perhaps. Sure, there are some freelance projects to work on. I'm also employed by an estate to handle affairs, and there's an unlimited supply of paperwork to sort through. For as many folders, labels, and paperclips this particular deceased had amassed, they were utterly terrible at being organized. Imagine devoting a lifetime of collecting and cultivating orange trees while simultaneously appearing as a cover model for Scurvy Monthly. My teeth aren't that great, but at least it has nothing to do Vitamin C.
There's so much to do, and so little I want to do. This could be the general malaise of COVID-flavoured lockdown - there are a few articles online that detail the general 'fog' that people have been trapped in as a result. That's what I'll chalk my dwindling mental horsepower to at least. When an MRI declines to open up an avenue for your fears to run down, it helps to have another street to turn onto. Even if the street name is just the title of an article you didn't really bother to read in the first place.
But what about this general unrest? Yes, I'm sure it'd help to have a more open world to go and be exposed to for a bit. As fun as it is for my face mask to go sauntering around with my shuffling body strapped in for the ride, the whole symbiotic partnership is getting a bit old-hat. The mask itself isn't the issue, but the what-ifs that it signifies. What if I only sanitize my hands after removing the mask? Will I get it then? What if I make just one extra stop today, will that increase my general exposure? At what point do we start inserting more shells into this chamber of mundane and tedious version Russian-roulette?
I'm sitting here at my desk on a Friday night. I have a Lego Porsche kit sitting on the dining room table, 2/3 of the way to completion. What happens after I finish it, give in the customary inspection, and set it nicely on the shelf never to be touched again? I can't take it apart and rebuild it - that's just not what grownups do.
There are many games I could be playing just for the sake of it. A few new ones I could purchase too - I'm slowly realizing that, as a bona-fide grownup, I can afford to buy the games I want, when I want them. Sometimes it's just better to try something new than retread ground on a game (or whatever) that's just so-so, in order to whittle away the hours. Perhaps there's a different sort of price to be paid for spending your time on something that is neither stimulating, satisfactory, or enjoyable. The monetary price for a new game could very well be less expensive. I wonder what the conversion is on that exchange.
But what happens when that shiny glow of consumerist magic gives way to a patina of 'been there, done that'? Is this what life is reduced to, just paying in $50 increments to entertain yourself through life, one title at a time? I owned Flight Simulator 2004 as a teenager, and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I only used it to toodle around the area where I lived. The entire world at my fingertips, and I was perfectly content to just stroll around my yard a couple times before losing enthusiasm and going back inside and look to the next thing to amuse myself. Entertain me, peasants!
This winter I bought a decent joystick and throttle setup this winter so that I could play the new Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR. It's wonderful. A game-changing experience that's helped me realize just how much potential VR can have. A rich experience and attention to detail draped over, quite literally, the entire world. And yet I set out to fly across Canada and have lost not fuel, but steam, by the time I reached the Great Lakes. Here I am repeating the same ambivalent crimes of my youth.
What really bothers me, deep down, is my lack of desire to want anything. "Ah, yes," you say as you adjust your glasses and softly stroke your chin, "this would be a classic symptom of depression." Yes, of course, but it doesn't make it any less horrifying. And at the same time underwhelming, because, well, depression.
I had to pause and do a solid Ctrl+F on my blog for "depression". I was worried I had covered this exact reader-as-patronizing-therapist bit before, but I don't think I have. That illuminates one of the darker corners of this whole ordeal, though; I feel like I've been here before. Whether it's the COVID fog or not, I'm worried that I've been travelling in circles along this particular forest path. A path of total, all-encompassing lack of enthusiasm. I'd be making more progress if I were to be folded up into a half-assed little paper boat and set in a gutter. At least when the rains come I know I'd be headed away from where I am now.
Do you know what the difference is between speed and velocity? Speed is measured as the amount of distance covered in a unit of time. Velocity is the measured displacement covered in a unit of time. Displacement, as in distance from the point of origin. You can be pushing along at a violent speed for hours and hours, but if you come to a stop exactly where you started you will have achieved a velocity of 0km/h. Or 0 mph, for the depressed population to the South. At least the conversion would be non-zero if speed/velocity was measured in units of temperature (Farenheit is a messed up unit of measurement, man).
Friday night. It's Friday night. Even as a metaphorical card-carrying introvert, I used to look forward to Friday nights. Scarf down some dinner and curl up to game my face off until 1am or 2am. Nothing but pure entertainment indulgence fueled by the knowledge I could sleep in. Then I'd wake up the day after, do some chores, and game s'more. If there weren't any any freelance deadlines breathing down my neck, I'd game during the week after work.
We are truly blessed to live in the golden age of distraction. Tired of gaming? Take a break by watching a movie. Or browsing the internet; I hear that thing is pretty popular these days. I had a teacher in high school that tried to get us to call it "The Information Superhighway". A much more dignified title, wouldn't you say? If that name had stuck I wonder if we'd treat it with more respect and reverence.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go re-check my RSS feeds and open up Reddit for the 14th time today. I bet there are some new cat photos or cringey stories I can binge on until bed time gets off its ass and shows up. It's Daylight Savings Time this weekend, so we're already losing an hour. I wouldn't mind losing a couple more while we're at it. Lord knows I don't have anything better to be doing.
-Cril
Dave Brubeck - Unsquare Dance
