Brain babble

So normally these are supposed to be about something, and I generally have soapboxes aplenty ready to go, but this time I got zip.  Nothing.  

Today it's more a matter of knowing I'm too all over the place to get my head into the space it needs to be for work but desperately needing an outlet of some sort so I thought "Eh, what the hell.  Start a new blog, see where that takes you."  So right now I'm literally just writing whatever spews out of this brain of mine.  Heh.  Have fun with that.

But seriously, what are you supposed to do when nothing seems to be happening the way want it to or how you'd planned, and perhaps most of the time you just make adjustments accordingly , but today, for some reason, you just can't get your brain to do that?  

Sit like a lump and sulk?  It's certainly easier to do that.  

Make a concerted effort to force your mind to do what you think it should be doing?   I gotta admit, that's generally what I do, but it's not always the best idea in the world.  sometimes it works, and sometimes it was just stupid.

I suppose you could also whine and complain to a sympathetic (or not) listener but that can be less than helpful too.

So this time we're trying something new as a vent.   Who knows, maybe I'll say something wise or deep. (I doubt it.  This looks more like brain babbling than anything else.)  Maybe I'll finally pick a soapbox.  Or maybe this'll be just enough to get the juices flowing and the brain working.  That would be good.  

Still, it's an interesting thing to ponder.  How often do you end up sitting and stewing in your own nervous energy with no particular outlet for it?  How often does it interfere with what you should be doing, or what you'd prefer to be doing?  Why do you have that buzz in the first place?  Is there a root cause that can be dealt with?  

In this particular instance I may know what the problem is, but unfortunately I can't fix it.  And there is something I'd prefer to be doing which makes it worse.  But other times I haven't figured out what the problem was until well after the fact, and sometimes not at all.  The only thing I can say for sure is that ignoring it entirely only makes it worse.  And while it may be possible to do one's work through or around it, it's generally sub-par and you get half as much done as you would have otherwise.

Beating yourself up about it is silly too.  Sure, the things ticking you off may be irrational, silly, normally not a problem, but telling yourself you're being stupid and to stop it, while sometimes helpful and occasionally wise, can often just exacerbate it.  If you can't talk yourself down fairly quickly than finding ways to avoid venting on to other people is probably a better use of one's energies.

One thing that can be most useful in this is being aware of one's boundaries.  If you don't mind a piece of unsolicited advice, if you don't yet have a clear idea of your comfort zone or boundaries I would recommend you begin to start poking at them and experimenting with them.  Because more often than not, they lie somewhere at the edge of the discomfort.  

When I say boundaries I mean all of them.  Physical, moral, mental, emotional.  They're all important.  Sometimes it's good to know where they are so you can stretch them a little bit.  Sometimes so you know where your personal line in the sand is.  And exploring them can be interesting.  You can discover you're more conservative or liberal than you thought, which, depending on the person can be an uncomfortable discovery.  You may discover places where you'd like to stretch them a bit or widen your understanding of a matter.  And better knowledge of one's self can be invaluable.

A tricky part of all this is that many of us are very sure we do, in fact, know what our boundaries are when we actually don't.  Society teaches us where it thinks our boundaries should be, and then we play along and feel bad because we're uncomfortable with where they've been put.  A lot of us never move them from those socially acceptable placements, and a great many more take decades to realise that they don't really think that placement is right, thanks very much.

Finding out about yourself is incredibly scary and enlightening at one and the same time.  It can also be fun, but that tends to come in spurts and greatly depends on the person.  It takes a hell of a lot of work and it's probably never going to be over completely, but you can come out in the middle of it a much fuller person.  Sometimes it'll break you.  I've watched that happen.  But if the pieces are looked after and rearranged and put back where they maybe should have been in the first place, the end result can be stronger, more resilient, and in the grand scheme of things healthier.  It can also be beautiful.

Life isn't comfortable.  It was never meant to be.  Some of us have more to deal with in life than is fair, some less.  But we should still deal with it.   It's not often pretty, it's not always fun, but if we really want to live?  Change is life, stagnation death.  We should never be afraid to stretch our wings, and we should strive for the courage to face ourselves.