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A Better Way of Living My Life
Dec. 23rd, 2006 08:16 amMaybe it's my screwed-up sense of Christmas spirit, but I was thinking yesterday ... if I were to die today, what would my obituary say? If people were to sift through the debris in my apartment, what would they make of it? And well, the sad truth is that none of it -- not my shitty job, not my collection of Doctor Who Magazines, not my endless amount of DVDs -- would reflect a damn thing about how I see myself inside. My entire life, with very few exceptions, is so far from how I choose to define myself.
Now, really there are two choices here, aren't there? Both actually involve me being less geeky. There's the option that gets said by most people (not just stock characters in some simplistic Hallmark special but real people), and that is to just give up my dreams, and accept my life as it is. To fall into some comfortable pattern and routine. Not stressing about my job and just accepting that it pays the bills, and take comfort in the small pleasures of life. I know people who have made that choice. And perhaps up until now, I've made that choice too. Purely by default.
But that kind of thinking is the living equivalent of junk food. It's like the lifestyle reason for why I got so damn fat. I picked cheap enjoyment - chips and chocolate and french fries, just for the momentary pleasure/escape that the food gave me. And well, look at the huge disconnect of that pleasure diet with the effect it was having on my health. Not only all the cancer, diabetes, heart attack risks which came with the eating. But there was the slow, brainless lethargy that came with being overweight. Now that I've lost nearly 100 pounds in the last year, all my emotions have come back, much stronger than they were for a long time. And while sometimes I think my increased anger is dangerous, at least I feel truly alive.
And yet, in my non-dietary choices, I am still just consuming junk food. Going to a crappy job, vegging out with crappy television. My position is "Administrative Support Clerk". Who the fuck wants to be that? And if this job were just paying the bills as I engaged in major artistic endeavours, well that would be okay. But to support a lifestyle of crappy DVDs and even crappier websites (I refer to the ones I visit, not the one I created)... well it's a gigantic self-destructive waste.
Still, I could choose to accept that. To change my self-image to be someone who lives in the "real world". Someone who is a decent administrative support clerk, or even when I do move on, a decent library technician. A person who has friends and enjoys certain TV shows. I could choose that life.
But I'm not going to. Not anymore.
I have seen what happens to people who have chosen that lifestyle. I've seen people who used to talk so passionately about the possibilities of art, who used to want to create art, now just talk about the most mundane, dreary job imaginable. People who used to compare every movie they saw to great works of silent film, now singing the praises of the most half-assed, corporate pop entertainment. And these people have just surrendered the vast potential they have.
So, what is this other choice of speak of? To scale back all the geeky stuff. To work hard and passionately in learning. To reconnect with my creative spark. To learn again to be honest. I don't mean with others. I mean to find out exactly how I view life without all the blinkers of wanting to be liked, and to express it. To find my sense of truth and express it without fear of what others think.
There are quite a few things I can't change in this world. I can't get people to treat each other better. I can't get Canadian voters to chose someone other than Stephen Harper. But when it comes to myself, there are things that I can change. I lost nearly a 100 pounds, about 13 inches off my waist -- and if I can do that. Well, what can't I accomplish?
So, to the people who tell me just to accept things as they are, to enjoy an ordinary life, to find momentary pleasure rather than live up to my potential? To sit back and enjoy rather than strive? (And you truly are legion.) To those people, I say this: fuck you! I'm not buying what you're selling.
2006 - I reclaimed my body (and I'm still working on that.) 2007? I reclaim everything else.
Allen
Now, really there are two choices here, aren't there? Both actually involve me being less geeky. There's the option that gets said by most people (not just stock characters in some simplistic Hallmark special but real people), and that is to just give up my dreams, and accept my life as it is. To fall into some comfortable pattern and routine. Not stressing about my job and just accepting that it pays the bills, and take comfort in the small pleasures of life. I know people who have made that choice. And perhaps up until now, I've made that choice too. Purely by default.
But that kind of thinking is the living equivalent of junk food. It's like the lifestyle reason for why I got so damn fat. I picked cheap enjoyment - chips and chocolate and french fries, just for the momentary pleasure/escape that the food gave me. And well, look at the huge disconnect of that pleasure diet with the effect it was having on my health. Not only all the cancer, diabetes, heart attack risks which came with the eating. But there was the slow, brainless lethargy that came with being overweight. Now that I've lost nearly 100 pounds in the last year, all my emotions have come back, much stronger than they were for a long time. And while sometimes I think my increased anger is dangerous, at least I feel truly alive.
And yet, in my non-dietary choices, I am still just consuming junk food. Going to a crappy job, vegging out with crappy television. My position is "Administrative Support Clerk". Who the fuck wants to be that? And if this job were just paying the bills as I engaged in major artistic endeavours, well that would be okay. But to support a lifestyle of crappy DVDs and even crappier websites (I refer to the ones I visit, not the one I created)... well it's a gigantic self-destructive waste.
Still, I could choose to accept that. To change my self-image to be someone who lives in the "real world". Someone who is a decent administrative support clerk, or even when I do move on, a decent library technician. A person who has friends and enjoys certain TV shows. I could choose that life.
But I'm not going to. Not anymore.
I have seen what happens to people who have chosen that lifestyle. I've seen people who used to talk so passionately about the possibilities of art, who used to want to create art, now just talk about the most mundane, dreary job imaginable. People who used to compare every movie they saw to great works of silent film, now singing the praises of the most half-assed, corporate pop entertainment. And these people have just surrendered the vast potential they have.
So, what is this other choice of speak of? To scale back all the geeky stuff. To work hard and passionately in learning. To reconnect with my creative spark. To learn again to be honest. I don't mean with others. I mean to find out exactly how I view life without all the blinkers of wanting to be liked, and to express it. To find my sense of truth and express it without fear of what others think.
There are quite a few things I can't change in this world. I can't get people to treat each other better. I can't get Canadian voters to chose someone other than Stephen Harper. But when it comes to myself, there are things that I can change. I lost nearly a 100 pounds, about 13 inches off my waist -- and if I can do that. Well, what can't I accomplish?
So, to the people who tell me just to accept things as they are, to enjoy an ordinary life, to find momentary pleasure rather than live up to my potential? To sit back and enjoy rather than strive? (And you truly are legion.) To those people, I say this: fuck you! I'm not buying what you're selling.
2006 - I reclaimed my body (and I'm still working on that.) 2007? I reclaim everything else.
Allen
