After a quiet morning’s introspection, and a long talk with my girlfriend, I believe I have uncovered the not altogether pleasant face of what might be described as my basal existential rate.
That is, despite being in China, and having countless new opportunities and experiences available to me, I seem to have gathered many of my old habits and customs around me like an old, familiar, yet stifling coat. Is this something ingrained in me? Is it possible that there is a hulking, quasi-depressive and antisocial Internet junkie coded into my DNA?
Yeah… probably not.
But it says something about me, I think, that I can have upended my life to such a degree to get here, only to spend so much of my time with the same deliberately time-wasting occupations as before.
I’ve been taking some time to think about the various ways in which I can develop; while certainly I believe I have the capacity to do so, recently I appear to mostly have cultivated an improbable capacity for careless solitude.
I am reminded of a discussion with my mother not too long ago, when she complained that she was unhappy, but was unsure of how to go about becoming happy. My advice, ironically, was to simply go out and try new things. It doesn’t matter what, I said; go bowling, invite some friends to lunch, talk to a stranger at the store, join a book club.
My hypocrisy struck me in full force today when JJ was telling me, essentially, to stop whining and do the exact same thing. There is an obvious difference in my behavior, she said, compared to when we first met. I am colder, less open to new people and experiences, and less friendly, even to my friends. Simply put, I am just not as interested in the world around me, and consequently — though she is too nice to say this — less interesting.
It is a hard truth to accept, but it is a truth nonetheless, and once voiced it was easy to see. I have slowly wound myself back into a state of general self-indulgence, yet I do not even have the dubious wisdom to indulge in pleasures. I indulge in nullities, small self-manufactured purgatories devoid of substantial thought, but which I can readily control. Minor triumphs in the kitchen, rediscovering the well loved but well-treaded pages of an old book, or the occasional victory in work are all well and good, but they all occur inside a hazy fog that separates me from the larger, brighter world that was so clear to me not long ago.
To examine the whys and hows of this would drag us even farther down that same path, and indeed would be an irrelevant train of thought; suffice it to say, examining the phenomenon is not so important as realizing it exists and taking measures against it. So I’ll just say that I’m taking JJ’s advice.
She also noted that I seem to be most alive when I’m on the move; once I get settled, I tend to slowly sink into a well-beaten path, until I’m uprooted again. I see the truth of this too, but I’m not entirely sure what I can do about it… I think better to try and fix the problem, than try to stay one step ahead of it.
Finally, it’s most likely no coincidence that my happiest times in recent years were spent completely without a computer. So while obviously, given my line of work, there are limits in that regard, I’m cutting my online time as much as possible.
Expect more updates from my phone — which, since it’s such a pain in the ass to type on, I am going to consider generally exempt.
Happy New Year!