Mania never lay your head down

[j4]

I need to cut down on the caffeine, or something. Since last night my brain has been rattling around like a pea in a piggybank; all I can do is make crap puns and free-associate off everything people say.

I wondered the other day whether I'm trying to do too much. The last two days have managed to include: one karate lesson; one singing rehearsal; one orchestra rehearsal; reading two and a half novels; writing a long 'creative' LJ post and a link-saturated blog-style LJ post; one supermarket shopping trip; and enough work (including one edition of the Reporter) that my employers aren't complaining. The problem is then I write it all down and look at it and think "Not ENOUGH! I'm NOT DOING ENOUGH!"

I resent having to sleep. I stay up till 2am reading and wake up at 8am. (There'll be time enough for sleeping when we're dead.) I read while I'm brushing my teeth so the time isn't totally wasted on tedious bits of life-maintenance. I'm trying to live nine lives in one. (It's about being able to fly; it's about dying nine times.) And I'm still not achieving anything. Why can't I put all this effort and energy into something worthwhile rather than endless, pointless middle-class hobbies? What the hell is worthwhile anyway?

This post brought to you by Janet's Teenage Brain.

I need a holiday.

Comments

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Not ENOUGH!

There's never enough!
The more you give, the more it will take.

I don't know about you, When I'm as busy as that, it's when I'm trying to fill all the cracks where the rain gets in, and the spaces where black doubt leaks up from the depths to form tar-pits to trap tigers (and bagers (http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_3/LaBrea.htm)). Can't escape it, becasue the faster you try to run, the more it pulls down on your feet; you can only confront it.
If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.

Oh,my that was upliftingly mixed meataphor, wasn't it?

What the hell is worthwhile anyway?

Existing by your own lights.
Being a mensch (http://www.bartleby.com/61/97/M0219700.html). And you are.

I need a holiday.

[GDL]

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Roy Batty (Nexus-6): "I Want more LIFE".

• Rattling brain is usually a sign of sleep deprivation. 2AM to 6:30AM is how I live during the week. Weekends, I sleep.


• Not achieving anything is a sign that you're reassuringly normal.


• Wanting a worthwhile hobby... Try politics, or middle-class environmental activism. That's so pointless that you'll leatn to appreciate your achievements elsewhere. Like a social life and spreading a little happiness every now and again.


• Reading while brushing your teeth is something I wish I'd thought of, and will try tomorrow morning.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

That's how I feel too, all the more keenly since the US election. Will going to America where there are more obvious opportunities for activism enable me to feel I'm using my life to make a difference for the first time? Probably not. Worth a try anyway.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Many years ago, I tried activism - both conventional politics & pressure groups. After a while, I came to feel even more impotent that before I started. Possibly because I knew more, or maybe I had started off with unrealistic expectations.

Iin the end, I abandoned it all in frustration, and embraced cynical nihilistic hedonism as my salvation.

[rmc28]

Raised by (fairly) conventional politicians, I think I've retained enough idealism to think it is worth trying to change things, with enough realism about how long it will take and how hard it is.

I never ever do everything I want to do. Trying appears to be making me ill. So does dwelling on all the things I don't get done each day.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

I think I was slightly older than you are now when I finally threw the towel in, after about 10 years of late nights, long meetings, conferences, mail shots, demonstrations, parliamentary lobbying, fund raisers, internecine squables, and the rest. We probably achieved something, but I really can't point to what. Maybe I was just burned-out. Whatever it was, I'm not inclined to go back to it, even though I have regained some of my idealism.

I never ever do everything I want to do

I'm not even sure I know everything I want to do...

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

You need sleep. Lots now, and then at least 7 a night regular. You don't want to end up like Thatcher, after all.
What's worthwhile? We all die in the end and mostly just getting by takes all our energy. If you can get some pleasure out of the trip, you're ahead of the game. If you want to leave some sort of mark, there's deeper involvement in the charity stuff, or VSO etc - but how much of that _really_ lasts? What will still be remembered 100 years from now? Be satisfied with the occasional nudge you manage to give the planet.

[j4.livejournal.com]

at least 7 a night regular

Yeah, but what about the sleep? ;) Seriously though... 7 hours a night would mean being in bed by midnight! When would I read??

Charities clearly don't really change anything in a global sense (though I don't doubt that they help individuals in some cases) otherwise they'd all have put themselves out of a job. Look at the new Band Aid single -- "let's celebrate the fact that all the same problems are still there 10 years later". Hmm. Or maybe I'm just not thinking long-term enough...?

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

Wretched, isn't it? But you'd almost certainly save somebody's life, somewhere. Maybe that's enough?
Something like getting a clean water supply to some remote village, that kind of thing lasts at least a decade or so, barring a war.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

Write a novel that makes a devastating point about something political or environmental or something. THAT might last 100 years, since you write rather well.
Or journalism...

[setting-sun.livejournal.com]

I agree. There's just too much stuff to do to sleep. You'd have thought scientists would have sorted this sleeping business out by now. Bah.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

What is worthwhile ?

So far as I'm concerned, I play from my strengths, and I do appear to be good at some things, and very bad a t others, like public speaking; learning to find it morally acceptable therefore not to do public speaking but to concentrate on where I think I can make a difference and not feel guilty about not being able to do some things has been good for me.

Oh, and I've sent you the link to "There is comfort in the knowledge...", yes ?

[k425.livejournal.com]

I need a holiday.

You need sleep.

What the hell is worthwhile anyway?

What you enjoy. If you don't enjoy it it's not worthwhile. It might be worthy but not worthwhile.

P.S. I also read while cleaning my teeth. I always have done. Teeth-cleaning isn't interesting, books are.

[j4.livejournal.com]

If you don't enjoy it it's not worthwhile.

Um, well. I don't enjoy brushing my teeth, but I still do it. I think there are things which are worth doing but which are not particularly enjoyable in and of themselves.

The only problem with tooth-cleaning while book-reading is that the books have a tendency to get splattered with toothpaste. :-/

[k425.livejournal.com]

I don't enjoy brushing my teeth

Okay, that's a good point. Although I definitely enjoy the end result!

And you don't want to know how many of my books have splatters. It doesn't show as much with ordinary toothpaste, but I used to use Euthymol. It's PINK.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I suspect that many people read newspapers while brushing their teeth. This is why the first two of pages of the Sun are often splattered and stuck together.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Now, that's an explanation I'd never thought of.