My compulsions have surpassed mere survival instinct and basic evolutionary heuristics. I am now hooked on higher level bullshit, keeping me from seeing things clearly and any kind of concentrated, purposeful action. These daily inter/actions may even seem useful, good; I know they are not, for they are only a way to deplete the day’s time. That way I don’t think about it, and so I don’t do anything about it. My brain chooses to be in autopilot mode, as has it been for more than 3 years now. What do?

In rare moments of clarity, I understand the rut I’m in - honestly, it’s obvious from the outside. Still, I default to staying there. Sometimes, with outside pressure, amphetamines, or pure luck, I manage to focus my attention and be purposeful for an hour or two. It’s a very high-effort mental state, after which I am drained, and during which I am constantly reminded of the dopamine anticipation of the following indulgencies. I am restless.

It doesn’t help that I see this kind of struggle in basically everyone I know. Few shining examples have overcome this, to great success in some or most aspects of their lives. What made them break the cycle, where most of us failed? It seems to always be some great difficulty in life, happening precisely in the moment they believed they had nothing to lose. This difficulty pushed them to do things they considered impossible, while at the same time making them realize the insignificance of the loss they suffered. Seems to be the winning combination.

I never really lost at anything in this life. I would always win handsomely, or at least be above the cut-off for failure. Mostly latter. It was an early realization that going for the university was the last “programmed” path in my life journey, and that after it nothing would be certain. I spent 6 years pondering it, and did nothing to prevent the inevitable downfall caused by indecision. It’s been 3 years now since the end of that, and I’m still nothing, and nowhere. I was always like this, though. I was never quite certain about anything, I would always put off decisions, I always felt that optionality was worth more than security. Theorizing about all the possible paths I could take made me feel like I had a tiny piece of all those possibilities already, and that was a greater immediate reward than striving for one path consistently. Writing this, I realize that the things I do to make time pass away, like reading and watching non-fiction, is a consequence of this mental cycle that was developed at an early age. The worst kind of theorizing though, was theorizing about concrete action. I would actually start some thing, thinking yes, this is the thing I will focus on immensely, I will reap the rewards for going through with this, once and for all – only to abandon the whole project at the first difficulty. The list of these I had during the years is huge. Maybe it would be therapeutic to try and actually write it, or maybe it would reinforce the behavior even more. Whatever.

Since it is not nearly the first time I am thinking about this, or that I tried to solve this, now I will just settle on recognizing it, whenever and wherever it comes up as the dominant mental process. I stopped fighting against it, as it is futile. I will try to create a high-resolution image of this process, in all the ways it manifests itself. Then we’ll see.