When making big life changes, I tend to stagnate. There’s always some side mission I have to get to before finishing the main one. It’s not that I am not making any progress in my life, but it’s not where I need it to be. I go on tangents easy. I go perpendicular from the point. It ties into that superficiality that seems to consume me. I want to be understood, but I am afraid of the acknowledgment, like when you have something to say to someone but are afraid of the consequences.

It seems like it would help to know others are going through problems as well, but it only helps when they solve the problems I am currently going through. If I already solved those problems, I don’t really need alternate solutions. They are nice “what-if’s”, but that’s part of my problem: giving those questions space. Some questions should not be entertained.

Anyways, it feels like we are each on a raft and sometimes it feels better to trade it for a boat. I wonder is it ever worth it to trade a boat for a raft. I mean, they had to on the Titanic didn’t they? It’s a good last resort, so it is good to have both. Being stuck alone in the vast ocean is a death wish, so any way to stay visible is an aid. I might be getting too distant from the original point, but it feels like we are in wars for these rafts and boats. Everyone wants to live in a yacht, but nobody wants to trade up their rafts. We want our boat and our emergency raft too. Who is to blame us?

So if there is this constant battle with the old and the new, it must help to have both. Like Theseus’s ship, maybe the real question of whether the ship is still the same after replacing all the parts is in the blueprints. People with all their problems solved do have the blueprints to their success. Some people sell the blueprints, and some sell the ships. Some own the dock and they must feel so proud of the platform they created. Some built the lighthouse so that the sailors stay safe.

You don’t have to trade up your rafts for a house or vice-versa. You don’t need a boat or a yacht. Fisherman, traders, and military need boats. The rest of us need to learn how to support them instead of always wanting to be supported. That yacht won’t float forever.

Although we may not see those forces of our pasts tethered to us like puppet strings, we cannot deny their hold on us. I can look through that magic mirror and see far back into my past to the times where those words were new to me, and I can still see how I felt and responded to them in real time. It’s easy to judge how things turned out now. At that time, it was not so. There is no magic mirror that lets you see the future, at best it is a crystal ball. The mirror always shows you your old self, and we choose how we feel about it. Being blind to yourself is like disappearing for a while. We wonder where we went when our mind went one place and our soul went another. We can only empathize with those wandering ghosts, and that is the only way to lay them to rest.

Too many times to count, I have made a steady change to something I do and it shifts my life around. Sometimes it is a healthy habit like showering before bed, not smoking after I shower, or trying to go to bed earlier. It seems like my results get worse each time.

I keep telling myself that I have been doing good with a few habits and to keep it up, but I keep resisting. For spending money I like to think that even though I may not immediately pay rent with my paycheck, I will eventually. I like to shower before bed because I know I would bring a lot of dirt into my bed, and I already bring enough from the floor I need to sweep and mop. When my bird poops, I know I should clean it up immediately, or the poop will toughen and harden. I know I should start that business and send that email and talk to that professor and jumpstart my career. The problem is that I know! I just don’t do everything that I know is right.

I wonder who would be at fault here and it has to be me. It’s not like I should expect somebody else to care about everything I care about and then do things for me. I have to do those things myself, like walking, tying my shoes, etc. See it was easy at first when I just wanted to prove everyone wrong. I liked to be capable back then because the real satisfaction came from the conquering of my obstacles. I’ve always been a scaredy cat, now that fear has manifested into anxiety. “I don’t want to be a famous author. I am afraid that if I wrote those books, then I would have to upkeep the attention.” I want the fame, but I don’t. I heard narcissists go through this struggle a lot of wanting to be seen but being afraid of attention. It’s like we know people are going to find out that kryptonite that destroys us.

Superman wouldn’t be super if he kept his kryptonite around, so I have to find away to get mine far away from me. Even still, avoiding my fears only makes them take more control over me. I wish that when clarity makes its way to me, that I acknowledge it and follow through. I wish to have the same confidence I have driving ten miles that I do in one. Sometimes pouring the wine superficially is just a waste as it pours down the sides. Too much conviction and all the wine spills out.

In the balance of willpower to do and to not, there is the needs, wants, and wishes that one day hope to be satisfied. If I want to live fully, I have to dig deep each day to encompass all of me. I have to acknowledge that although I may want something now, I may not want it forever, but it is okay to want. It is worse to not know your wants and have them control you. I may not always like the choices I make, but the better goal is to stick to the choices.

One foot in the boat and one on land will likely leave you in the water between. Taking that step from the platform to the traincab is dangerous, but the safest way to commit is all at once. Give yourself into the wave and surf it. Give yourself into the tide and you drown.

They say when you are down that you just need to lift your spirit. Yup, all I need to do is raise a shot and I feel much better. No, they mean something else. Pick yourself up off the floor. Stop dragging your feet. Lift your chin up. It’s like being someone who not only knows they reached a low, but you gotta be the same person to pull yourself out of it. It’s a lot of responsibility.

If you want to wallow in your misery, there’s always a place for it. Like imagine, you’re sad and tired. So sad. So tired. If only you could be asleep, but you’re so tired you’d rather be permanently asleep. You’re too sad to be permanently asleep,then you can’t get any sleep. No sleep for a sleepyhead like you. You must be so sad and tired.

See, wallowing is pitiful at best. No point in stating the obvious, so might as well just get to doing things that make you happy. Just don’t get carried away. Don’t smoke every time you are sad, and don’t sleep every time you are tired. Your body gives you signals and cravings, but not all of them are in your best interest. Just look at how most relationships go, lead through the mist into a hall of smoke and mirrors, or at least that’s how it went with my ex (haha).

So yeah, don’t lift that glass tonight. Lift that soul inside your chest. Tell ’em what you came here for. Give them a show. Evoke the change you want to see. Sow your dreams into the soil, and don’t let the plants wilt. Be the sunshine that lights up the world.

Spring has brought the trees something to wear again: pinkish white petals that litter the concrete. You don’t see too many in the air, but it still looks covered in petals like polka-dots. The rain has been in often too. I like thinking about where the rain goes as it seeps into the ground. Maybe that’s how worms know when it is raining, the moisture calls to them.

Birds keep singing all through the night. I hear them when I go singing at three in the morning. I wonder why they decide to chirp so late, and if they get good sleep. I always wondered why we all need to sleep. Why the trees lose their leaves. Why some do things others wouldn’t. I feel like at least with the leaves part, it would feel less emotional to let go and more like the relaxation required to excrete waste. Maybe it is like a haircut.

Feeling what it’s like to be a plant has got to be a novel experience we have not been able to replicate. I bought the Plantwave once and I feel like it was such a waste. I thought the technology would have some pizazz, but it only played random sounds from a certain list of sounds when voltage was felt above a threshold. It did not measure or respond to varying levels of voltage, so it felt like a scam. Nonetheless, it is interesting that they do have that sort of sensation. Sing to your plants, I heard birdsong makes plants grow.

I was thinking about the thoughts we come up with first thing in the morning. There’s been nobody to tell us new information since the last we woke up, but we still may have new ideas. Some of those ideas may be no good. Our mind is so powerful, it may even overpower ourselves.

Our thoughts may be simmering in our brain juices over night so then it gives it more flavor. Our dreams that we wake up from must be the timer that tells us when we are all done. It may be what tells us we can’t sleep anymore and if we did, our brain is going to overcook.

I was also thinking about health bars like in video games. Do we each have a hidden health percentage, like am I 100% healthy right now or is the fact that my nose gets congested when I sit up a certain way a sign that I am at least 99% or below. Maybe if I was fully well, then nothing would stop me from doing my humanly activities. It could be the limit of our potential hidden from us until we feel sick, and we know that we could feel better. It could also be a sign that we need to take care of ourselves or seek some assistance.

Many sick people don’t turn to others for help. It’s not too bad a strategy considering that’s how sickness spreads. Maybe that’s how it feels with mental illness too, don’t want to spread it to others. Does that mean that depression and sour moods are more contagious than something like autism? Autism and other variations may just be evidence of other kinds of human formats. There’s the tall kinds, the wide kinds, and even the stupid smart kinds. When we fall out of shape, our body tries to reform itself. It subconsciously knows you better than you know yourself. That’s why you have to listen to your body sometimes, and if it says to sleep in another ten minutes, you should get that sleep.

Don’t always listen to your body. We all can imagine some time or another that it went wrong. For me, ten more minutes of sleep probably felt like it saved my life, but it wouldn’t save my job. Plus, ten minutes is not enough. It is like cooking, my body is a different wattage than the suggested instructions, so my cooking/sleeping times are different.

Maybe there’s a trend between certain health factors and how much sleep you get. We know it works in reverse where how much sleep you get can lead to health conditions, but don’t those maladies also lead to a shift in sleep?

Perhaps my addictions themselves may not lead to a lack of sleep, because for some caffeine or THC lead to better sleep. For me, it is the complete opposite. I stay up until the late hours of morning, past all the birdsong. They give me a burst of energy that makes me ignore anything my body craves. Addiction is a strong force, and it glues you past the substance, it glues you to yourself. What worse torture than that?

Ego-crushing. You may already know what this word I made up means, but for those who don’t know, it is when someone (usually a guy) has a crush on someone because it could go well, but they deny the love because of their inflated ego. It is like an undeserved rejection, because they would be great together if one of them wasn’t such a prick. Sometimes the crush progresses though, and others fade away. What doesn’t change is the habit.

What is the habit? It is the repeated excuse-making for not getting together. It’s like cheating before even getting together. They can’t imagine having their cake and eating it too. Happiness is unheard of to them. They will try to find love, sure. It can’t be with their crush, because then it acknowledges what they deny. It is funny, because the crush will even make it obvious they may or may not like them too, but the folly is in the ego as it needs outright confirmation. This is yet another excuse protested by the egomaniac.

The cure? Put that boldness where your mouth is, or stare down into the abyss. Either way, you have to face yourself some day.

-H. Crow