Between Friends and Motivation
note: I think differently from others, it's a disability.
You honor that.
Time Moves Slow
Brian-drain is real. Brain-drain is effective. Our brightest neighbors left us to "do good" "donate money" "satisfy family" and "leave the world better" - read: they have a gambling problem.
Lonliness is endemic, and I've adapted. What I know:
Pinch-zoom, totally a thing! Powerful material underutilized metaphor. Productivity demon sitting in my head and won't go away and not feeding it makes it smaller sees I pinch-zoom into the first 5 minutes of my day until these minutes look the same size as 10 hours [a workday, plus hour commute].
You Were Cool
In those 5 minutes, I think of a katamari ball of all the feelings that are facts I know. And find 1 feeling in that ball that is my friend. I say their name. I find another. Another; another, another.
And name them; so know them. I serve my friends. Five facts I'm friends with. There they are. I give the rest of the balled-up feelings to my dad. And imagine him throwing them into heaven like 10 text messages, all scheduled to be sent at the same tine, each with their own 10mb part of a zip file named feels-final-1 . Deep breath.
I navigate to the next screen. I have 180 seconds to speedrun through the level; and have a katamari ball of all the feelings that are wants I know. I find 1 feeling in that ball that is my friend. I say their name. I find another (another, another; Another).
I name them; so they hit a wall and come into my ears. That I may know them. I serve my friends. Five wants I'm friends with. I give the remainder to my day, who flicks them like 140-watthour booger that is a streamed movie into the ionosphere as [power] plant waste. Deep breath.
Hush
The productivty demon trained into me by school and family for decades - scale-agnostic concept that the demon is - is full. To clock out, I pinch-zoom those five minutes from the 10-hour span back to the five minutes they actually are. It's a hack. But so was the demon.
I get out of bed. The rest of my day, the pressure's off.
My demon's stuffed to the gills; I worked a full day. I am given priveleges to the #fulfilled tag until bed. All the shame of not doing enough, not being enough, not providing enough is absent, has lost privelege.
My brain a school hall after hours: pleasurably liminal, sunset, or a bath, or ...myself. Like I'm not a bad thing. Like "I am grateful I do not have a gambling problem" is not just a feeling that's a fact, but a feeling that's my friend, that's got my back.
My Friend, The Forest
My friend, the fact I'm not a bad thing.
People are users; shame their substance. It's caffeine-like side effects and withdrawl: symptoms. As far as motivators go, shame is the big data company no one can deplatform.
Shame pre-traumatizes us from the cortisol-flooded womb of domestic disputes steming from two people raising child failing to be 118 people 200,000 years of time-honored genes coded the fetus to be able to expect. You are pre-traumatized ground, this fact is your friend.
The other nine friends, I leave as an exercise to the reader. Happy balling.
🎶 Time Moves Slow
🎶 You Were Cool
🎶 Hush
🎶 My Friend, the Forest