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What do you do when...?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:36 / 07.06.02

I'm bereft of my usual techniques for dealing with total confusion. I can't leave town and wander, 'cos I have to be here. I don't currently have a mentor character in my life, because I sacked the last one for being incompetent. I haven't been to Tai Chi in over a year, and I'm almost embarrassed - scratch almost - to go back.

What do you guys do to get some space to think?

09:04 / 07.06.02

Read Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine (or, in a pinch, Terry Pratchett). The prose is *just* engaging enough, and the politics are certainly vile enough, to engage most of your brain in the white-noise of following the plot and most of your fuddled emotions in the white-hot-anger provoked by her idiocy. That fools your 'spare' emotional/intellectual energy into attaching itself to the book, and then when you put the book down your head is cleared out, rather like a hairbrush after you've rid it of all the old dead hairs.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:05 / 07.06.02

Umm. Well, if you're deskbound, this exercise is a good'un:

Pick an everyday item, say a paperclip, and try to come up with at least ten uses for it, not counting that for which it was intended. Do this with a a few items and you start feeling like a Martian.

In a good way, I mean.

09:57 / 07.06.02

Go for a walk.

10:31 / 07.06.02

well in a 'bigger picture' sense i physically get space. right now i'm barely seeing anyone, going for walks alone in the local park or cemetary. i'm learning a lot about myself.

The Apple-Picker

11:10 / 07.06.02

This is a great thread. I need inspiration here, too.

Because I usually drive. (But am without car now.)

Or run. (But have been ill--walking is painful.)

Find something to laugh at. Mm, yes, this one is reliable. You can ask Flux for some Tom Scharpling links.

Those three things usually get enough endorphins flowing through me that I calm down and look at things differently. Or more clearly. Or just somehow better.

11:34 / 07.06.02

when Im working, I listen to music. I sing to myself. I go into the hall and try my best to run and jump to hit the pipes above (we work in a huge renovated warehouse, but some of the ceilings are low enough for me to manage). I drive to the store, taking the long scenic route.

sometimes when the women screeching around me are making me insane, I take positive, single words from their conversations, type it, and use it to write something. I always toss it cause its always crap, but its a calming distraction.

at home I construct love letters and silly missives to mail to the people in my life. I stretch, a lot. I roll around like a little kid in gymnastics class and laugh at how I must look.

I call anyone who will make me laugh

11:35 / 07.06.02

I don't know if this will work for anyone else but just on the off chance I'll share my method for getting some clarity of thought. I make tekno/drum&bass and what I do when I feel a sort of general apathy and confusion is smoke a load of spliffs and freestyle some music (used in the loosest sense of the word) till it gets louder and louder to the point where it sounds like the roof is going to fall in. I usually mix and write new pattern until I have a really hard time stringing thoughts together. Then I sleep it off and when I wake again I usually am in love with the world again. This method works really well for me as regards stress and depression - I've yet to find a better release. I think it'd work with a bass, or six string and a distortion pedal too. Or a set of decks.

Jack The Bodiless

12:16 / 07.06.02

Well, I get stuck into writing, generally, but you do that for a living, don't you?

You said total confusion. In what way? Psychic feedback? Emotional hassle? For the former, some form of focussing mantra-like activity is good - forces you to concentrate in that peculiarly 'not-concentrating-at-all' way. Tai Chi is good... but if that's not good for you right now, constructing something - anything - can work. As silly as it sounds, Lego really does the trick, for example...

For the latter, concentration of any kind can be practically impossible. Blokes tend to be resolution-oriented - maybe spending some time in a quiet space actually focussing on the issues and figuring the best way through would help, evne if you later discard the plan when you're back amongst the people/person concerned again. If you're not wired that way, try treating it like the pull of a singularity - escaping the gravity of the thing is draining and sometimes unworkable. Go through the other side. Put on the most depressing film/music and get wrecked. For either side of the brain, talking to someone you trust, whether to sort the problem or just hack it out in company, can prove very useful.

And try several things - alternate your remedies... the last thing you need is a dependency on one particular avenue. When that stops working (and it will - nothing kills every kind of pain), you'll feel even more fucked than you do right now.

Any help?

12:24 / 07.06.02

Get on a bus. I'm just talking about a city bus that has a route you know. You don't want to get on a bus and end up in a cow pasture somewhere. Just get on the bus, sit down, and think. Let the conversations of the other riders and the roar of the engine become a dull background static. Neither of those things are important. Eventually, you'll get relaxed and be able to look at whatever's bothering you with an objective eye.

13:06 / 07.06.02

When you say you "have to be here", how big is "here" and do you have to be there 24 hrs a day? Could affect the answer.

13:52 / 07.06.02

i'm with bitchiekittie, rolling around on the floor. well, i mean metaphorically with her. (Alas! To Be with BK Rolling on the Floor!)

i do yoga or just any kind of stretching...walk my dogs. far. when i have the $ i get a massage. that's my absolute favorite. (spouse smokes. massages are no more expensive every now and again and much better for the body.)

i come onto barbelith and blather mindlessly . . .

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:13 / 07.06.02

Thanks all -

Sav - I'm sort of trapped around my house by the vast quantity of water which comes through the ceiling in unpredictable places when it rains. I work from home, and my job is currently coming online in fits and starts, so long trips out of town are not really ideal - usually what I'd do when the world is getting on top of me. Not to worry - in hand...

15:43 / 07.06.02

Brrr... my house leaks too, I hate it. I used to love the sound of rain, and now it makes me frantic. Then you have the towels lying all around, it's so untidy & that disorders my brain as well. I had thoughts of getting attractive towels, neatly folded, to fool myself that they're part of the decor. Or houseplants.

When things start to close in, I tidy up or cook. Well, that is a lie; lately I've just been lying on the couch surrounded by squalor and consuming junk, which I can't recommend. Don't do that.

15:56 / 07.06.02

Home repair settles confusions nicely.

So does digging big fucking holes.

It's nice when you can do both at once.

16:16 / 07.06.02

Crocheting works for me, no extraneous thought needed. Washing dishes also lets my mind--what's left of it--float free. Of course, I'm a Pisces, so most water splashing works. Not leaks through the roof, though.

16:26 / 07.06.02

I think grant has the answer there, Nick - fix those leaks! Performing and completing small DIY tasks is a great way to re-set the system (well, it is for me). Especially if you avoid frustration by using exactly the right tools (at least one power tool is a must) and get as close to perfection as you can whilst successfully bodging one or two small elements - boosts your 'initiative and cunning' ratings, that does.

16:50 / 07.06.02

Yesterday when I went home I was angry confused and scared. I crawled into bed and closed my eyes and convinced myself that there was only me and nothing else. Which helped until Reason came in and gave me a hug. Which helped too.

I usually go back to something that centers me. Right now I'm reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for that very reason. Sometimes it's Hesse's Siddhartha, other time Richard Bach's Illusions. GM's Doom Patrol serves this purpose for me too.

I widdle away a few hours on the guitar if I can. Not always a possibility, but always worthwhile.

One thing I did a few months ago was this: I created another personality that all this stuff was happening to. I'm surprised at how well it worked. I'm not sure if I really created another person, or if I'm just repressing everything, but it helped. The me I had afterwards was free to deal with the here and now, rather than the then. Perhaps not the most wise thing to do, but for a quick fix it was pretty good.

Mordant's idea sounds like fun no matter your mood and I will do that today, absolutely. And Applepicker, the paranoid in me was trying to figure out what you were laughing about yesterday in your lj.

Sorry you're feeling bad Nick. Can't promise it'll get better, but I'm right there with you.

Zoom.

Mr Wolfe

17:34 / 07.06.02

Smoke pot.