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Sleeping, Eating, Monkeys

9 years ago2,590 words

I'm not happy with my life at all. There's just so much I want to change! Often I think about all this with a sigh, depressed, hopeless about the mountain I feel I have to leap over, but I've just been lying in bed going over similar thoughts in a more motivated, hopeful way. I'd like to make use of this mood to write - for my own personal benefit - a raw train of thought about the changes I'd like to make.

I occasionally have moments like this - as I assume many people do, especially at New Year's - where I excitedly entertain big, vague changes that'd magically make my life much better... It all seems so possible at the time, so doable, but of course the idealism dissolves disappointingly quickly as the old habits reassert themselves.

It'd be pessimistic to accept that as some rigid truth, though, and to deny even the possibility of permanent change. So, in this fit of rare optimism, I'll indulge these imaginary ideals. Perhaps writing about them will make them more real in some small way.

Sleeping and Waking

The circadian rhythm ('body clock') plays a crucial role in, well, everything! It determines our moods and motivations throughout the day, and they in turn determine what we're capable of doing, thinking, feeling, everything. It's why erratic sleeping and waking times can be so detrimental to overall wellbeing and productivity.

Erratic's exactly what my sleep hygiene's been for a while now. I go through phases; sometimes it's like this, then I correct it, then slowly slip back into bad habits. I suppose that's the norm for those who lack the routine of school or work or the social monitoring of others; there are certainly tons of entrepreneur blogs out there that go on about this at length.

Something that's worked for me in the past is 'resetting' my body clock by basically staying up for a whole night. If I'd been going to bed at, say, 4am and waking up at noon, I'd just stay up past that 4am until I couldn't stay awake anymore, usually sometime the evening the next day. Then, once my body had slept enough, I'd wake up naturally really early - 6am, say - and then it'd be much easier to continue waking up at that time from then on. It seems easier to slide the waking time forward than backwards; if I decided I wanted to wake at 7am instead of 6, that'd be so much easier than deciding to change it from noon to 11am.

I did this the other day, staying awake for about 31 hours. Always an interesting experience, that, watching your senses and cognitive faculties deteriorate, your perceptions become increasingly bizarre. It brings with it a compelling sense of fatigue that I personally rarely feel; an "I absolutely must sleep now" feeling that feels completely irresistible. People used to sleep deprivation must get that a lot, but it's rare for me.

Anyway, I'm writing this at 5:30am because I woke up at 2am, after sleeping at 6pm. So clearly my sleeping times are still a bit of a mess. But I feel so much better waking up ridiculously early like this, watching the day be born, feeling like so much potential lies before me, than waking up feeling as if I've missed most of the day and there's little point in even trying to get anything done because of it.

I don't know whether I'll be able to maintain this in the long term. Genetics play a role; some people are early-rising 'larks' by nature, while others are nigh-nocturnal 'owls'. I'm likely the latter, so I'm sure I'll by back there soon. Still, that soon is not now, so I'll take advantage of the boons this brings for now.

Learning to Cook

As I lay in bed, I thought a lot about how I can't cook, at all. I've always been a ridiculously picky eater, and my diet's always been limited to the point of embarrassment. I eat only a handful of things, all of which I can either eat without cooking, or which I pour boiling water on or stick in the microwave. Spending longer than five minutes 'cooking' a meal seems like an interminable chore to me.

But! Diet plays an enormous role in overall wellbeing too. So much of our mental life is just due to our body's chemicals, so mastering these basic physiological aspects of our lives is the key to unlocking our full potential. If your diet's poor, you'll likely be sluggish, irritable, too fat, too thin, fatigued...

Everyone wants to 'eat healthy', and I suppose I do too, but that seems like a vague phantasm lurking far away on the horizon. To achieve what we want, it's best to break them down into small, manageable tasks... But that's what's bothered me about the whole 'learning to cook' thing for a while now.

Several times, I've tried searching online for things like 'cooking for beginners' or 'learn how to cook', or 'simple cookbooks' or 'recipes for students', but annoyingly everything I find seems to be by and for people who basically love to cook, who live for food, and their 'simple' recipes tend to take at least half an hour and require all kinds of finicky ingredients and techniques that I don't possess.

I wish it were possible to find some kind of course or set of instructions that started at absolute rock bottom, assuming zero knowledge, introducing little things a bit at a time and building from there. The only assumptions of later lessons would be covered in earlier ones. It's the ideal way to learn, of course, but it seem so elusive at the moment.

I tell myself that I've taught myself other skills - programming, drawing, music composition, etc - just by experimenting and relying on tutorials only peripherally rather than expecting them to hold my hand through the whole process... but those things seem less risky in that they don't require buying ingredients which can be wasted, or a workspace that other people might intrude upon.

Not having a kitchen to myself, where I can experiment in peace and privacy for as long as I like, is the biggest reason I keep telling myself I'll learn how to cook but never do. I have had a kitchen to myself for the past week or two... but I lacked the motivation to seize the opportunity. A shame. I may also have a kitchen to myself in a few weeks... so perhaps I'll experiment then.

Of course, I'm still not sure where to start. I've asked this question to several people in the past, and get replies that seem simple to them, but they're baffling to me. "Try making a simple quiche!" and such. It's like me saying to a non-programmer that they should learn how to program by making a simple noughts-and-crosses app when they don't even know what variables are. It doesn't help that I've actually eaten so few types of foods that I don't even know if I'd like most of what people suggest I try to cook (though I imagine cooking things yourself would enhance your enjoyment of eating them).

Anyway, I'm rambling about this more than I should! Maybe it's because I'm hungry. I have no food at all, but can't even go shopping until the shop opens in a couple of hours. Fascinating to hear all this mundane stuff, I'm sure.

Avoiding Correspondence

I think that the biggest obstacle in my life right now is aversion to anything which might hold the slightest threat of social rejection or comparison. I suppose I've endured so much pain from those in the past, and had so little pleasure in order to build up resilience to handle future instances of such pain, that it's easier to just retreat and hide.

There are two emails that are eating away at my mind, as they're both important for my future, but I've not even read them yet. It's similar to that childish "if I can't see them, they can't see me!" kind of thinking; if I ignore them, they don't exist!! I'm aware it's ridiculous.

One of my lecturers here at university - for a neurology module - wants to start a project next year where he tries to make an artificial mind. He wants some students to join him in brainstorming sessions, and sent out an email requesting interested volunteers to write a short essay about what they'd do when faced with an artificial mind (to demonstrate their creativity and such). From the moment I read about it, I was deeply intrigued; it seems completely in line with what I've spent my life doing and the direction I want to take it. However, I took forever to actually write my own short essay, and actually missed the informal deadline he'd specified by more than a week. My reply was long and rambling - as is typical of me! - and while I think I showed passion, creativity and intelligence, I'm terrified to even check my uni email inbox because I'm so scared of what his reply might be. What if I said something weird or wrong and his reply makes it clear my words made him feel awkward? What if he says no, either because I'm not what he's looking for or because I was too late? What if he says yes, and wants to develop some kind of professional relationship with me, which would terrify me because I'm intimidated by people I see as higher on the hierarchy than me?? Of course, these are all just imagined thoughts... but they leave my like a deer in headlights, inert.

The other email is from Greg of Kongregate, the Flash site that sponsored some of my games in the past. I didn't actually see it until yesterday - several days after he'd sent it - because I have three email inboxes and hadn't checked that one in a while... (I want them all to dump into one, but the mail fetcher's not working and... well, that's a whole other story.) I haven't read it yet though for the same "if I can't see it, it isn't real" reason. I think from the title that he wants me to work with Kongregate in some way, and I don't know whether that'll involve the same sponsorship stuff as before, or whether he wants me to develop my existing games with Kongregate in mind, or whether they'll guide me to make something (like MARDEK 4), or what. I'm both honoured and concerned... It's nice to know I'd be considered for such a thing, but I've been trying to move away from the world of games development for a while now, and that seems like something that'd just drag me in even deeper than before. I just wish I were more content with life in general, so then things like this wouldn't feel so complicated and intimidating.

Obviously reading these emails will dispel the delusions I have about them. They'll remove the 'what if's and reveal the truth, which might be good or bad, and I can move forward from there... I understand that it's the best thing to do. It's just that the rational part of my brain isn't really in control here; the irrational, emotional part is. The limbic system; the bit that makes animals hide from threats.

A big part of it is a lack of social support. Someone to turn to. I always think that if I lived with someone, if I had a caring partner I could immediately turn to immediately after reading whatever they might say, I wouldn't put these things off at all. Sometimes I've opened emails when talking to my mother on the phone because I literally have nobody else and can't face things alone. How sad is that??

Talking to myself aloud as I do it helps too, so I might try to rely on that...


An old, cruel psychological experiment comes to mind whenever I think of this. Harlow's monkey studies. I might have mentioned it this blog before. The psychologist wanted to test the effects of things like love and support, and social isolation, on mental health, and the results were rather alarming. One of his experiments involved placing young monkeys in an unfamiliar environment, either with their mother (or a substitute) or alone. Those with their mother explored the environment cautiously; if they were scared by anything, they fled and clung to their mother, got their strength back, and then resumed exploring. Those without a mother simply curled into a ball and panicked.

It's where the idea of 'attachment styles' came from... Those who have a 'safe base' to return to when they need it tend to have the courage to try new things, and tend not to worry too much about things going wrong, while those who lack such a safe base tend to retreat within themselves, statically, and panic a lot about losing what they already have. I am of course very much the latter.

It's the biggest reason I wish I had a partner. When I did have one, she was my safe base, and since losing her, my world has gradually shrunk because I'm constricted by fears. And yet I'll never find another unless I develop the courage to try new things... The same old vicious cycle. A big reason spirituality spoke to me. I just need to practise that more.

I know there are other things I want/need to do as well, but don't because of this. I want to get into Facebook - several people have added me as friends there, yet I can't even check their profiles or my own - as it'll likely increase my connections with the real-life people here at uni. I want to play more games, get better at promoting my own, all kinds of things. But I just retreat within myself and hide.

I do make baby steps sometimes. But they're few and far between. I keep telling myself "I'll spend today facing my fears!!", but make up constant excuses ("I want to eat first, in case anxiety prevents me from eating", "I've just eaten, I'll digest first", "It's too late, I'll do it tomorrow"). And yet it's so easy to indulge those excuses without anyone directly pressuring me to do otherwise...

I feel that perhaps writing this out here might help, by showing how ridiculous it all is and perhaps triggering the fear of social judgement that way (if I feel that others are judging me for this, I might do it less), but who knows?

Finding My Calling

As I lay in bed earlier, I also thought a lot about what I want to do with my life, and how I'd even find out what that might be... but I think this is long enough for now, so I'll tackle that another time. It's not wise to overload the mind with too many scattered intentions at once, anyway.

I feel that 'taming the mind' succinctly describes what I feel I should focus on... but before I can make some kind of living or impact with that, clearly I have to tame these big things about my own mind first!!