Ugh, still sick
I didn't sleep well last night and woke up with the pain at five in the morning. I'm still feeling drug out and foggy, don't know if I'll accomplish much today or not. I would like to do some new art. I would like to finish that really good landscape I posted in progress yesterday. But all I feel up to is poking at Diablo 2 lately.
I think it's the stress and if I'm that sick, I need to just accept the sick days come and move on, remind myself it'll be over in a week. It hurts too much to think straight.
The other stress I've been having is keeping up with the course in The Artist's Way, which was so spot-on when it came to talking about discouraging people and the bad idea of taking their discouragement seriously... but I did not realize when I got into it how much Christian thought went into the program. I'm running up against a list of affirmations that I'm supposed to be paying attention to twice a day -- and it's like doing physical exercise. They might be VERY good ones for someone who's monotheist and are vague enough they'd fit any of the Religions of the Book, anything that shares that scriptural background. But I don't, and every time I look at the list the stress mounts up deeper.
I find myself foggily wading my way through religious arguments that I resolved a long time ago, having to remember what I decided on those points. The authors use some tactics that have always angered me in religious debate, like framing the entire question "do you believe or can you set aside your skepticism?" How about full-on philosophical disagreement down at the level of core premise rather than doubt vs. belief? No, obviously I don't believe these things are literal, if I did, though, I would still have to stand where I do ethically.
That of course drags up childhood memory and the people who did nothing to stop the abuse I endured, who rationalized it to my face and told me to just put up with it and feel what I didn't, who lied to me and would not accept the truth of what was going on. And a set of ideas that if applied strictly would have meant I was inherently evil from the moment of my birth, by nature, something that I tackle a lot in fiction that becomes a powerful theme.
I often write characters who are supposed to be monsters and refuse to be evil. It's one of the more important themes in my writing. It may be time for me to throw open a file and jump through the hole in the page and escape this wretched argument by going into serious writing, go back to my original idea of writing a novel during the eBay strike. It would sure be more productive than just sitting around in pain dragging myself through daily exercises and getting dragged into direct contact with the enemies who had absolute power over me when I was underage.
It's one thing to accept that everyone has a right to his or her own religious path. I do. But I should not be obligated to get dragged along into someone else's. Real mystics in any of those monotheist faiths have their own understanding and do not always interpret the ideas in such a toxic way. But there are a host of atrocities still going on in the world when people do take those ideas in the worst way and claim their god's on their side in attacking and destroying anyone who's different.
The other tasks for the week slam me into another aspect of stress and discouragement. There's this one -- list twenty things you enjoy doing and date when you did them last. It's a long list of things that I can't actually do any more even if I did them years ago, because of disability. Or it's a very short list of things I can do and the dates are fairly recent. The idea is a good one, to find ways to put small pleasures back into your life if you're overbooked and stressed. The example of doing it was "Get to the record store at lunch time, even if only for fifteen minutes."
Well, gee, that takes getting out of the house, doesn't it? And having money. I don't enjoy overexertion for window shopping. There's a reason for all the things I used to love doing that I don't do any more -- medieval dancing, SCA sword fighting, downhill skiing, travel for its own sake, going to SCA events, driving at night for hours in peace or rambling out in the car through the countryside. The list is something that breaks my heart all over again on the facts of my disability and present situation. I could not afford to get a car and get insurance for it on my fixed income. Or the equipment for downhill skiing or SCA fighting, if I had the body energy to do it.
A very long term goal is that maybe in 2009 I will be strong enough to start going to fighter practice and slowly train up to where I could do one bout at a tournament, at least qualify as a fighter. The knight-marshal of our shire is warm to the idea and the kingdom may not even require qualifying with sword and shield before going to a two handed weapon -- which I would have to do in order to do it at all. I don't have the strength to haul around a shield and also fight, I parry better with the sword.
So I read through this stuff and skip the ones that are just salt in the wound, they are not helping me get more creative. I do accept that I'm disabled. I do not need to rub my nose into the things that are out of reach and get that discontent with my life in areas that I can't change or will not be able to reach for a long time, expecting to be able to do them next week.
I can see that these tasks are about breaking a psychological block against enjoying yourself, or against specific enjoyments like time alone or doing things you enjoy that others may interfere with. But no amount of good attitude will untwist my bones and make those things possible, or untwist my heart to where I don't care about the things I can't have at all. I can shift my attention away from them to the things that are in reach, but it's bitter to contemplate how short the list is if I limit it to things that I can actually do and enjoy. And what to do with fifteen non-sick minutes is a huge question, one that always gets prioritized to the most important or most enjoyable things.
It hurts. And the stress sets off my fibromyalgia and I accomplish far less ... gods I want to get to another chapter and hope this one is just a fluke. The book could be very helpful but sorting it is another thing entirely. Something intended to raise my morale is having exactly the opposite effect.
I think it's the stress and if I'm that sick, I need to just accept the sick days come and move on, remind myself it'll be over in a week. It hurts too much to think straight.
The other stress I've been having is keeping up with the course in The Artist's Way, which was so spot-on when it came to talking about discouraging people and the bad idea of taking their discouragement seriously... but I did not realize when I got into it how much Christian thought went into the program. I'm running up against a list of affirmations that I'm supposed to be paying attention to twice a day -- and it's like doing physical exercise. They might be VERY good ones for someone who's monotheist and are vague enough they'd fit any of the Religions of the Book, anything that shares that scriptural background. But I don't, and every time I look at the list the stress mounts up deeper.
I find myself foggily wading my way through religious arguments that I resolved a long time ago, having to remember what I decided on those points. The authors use some tactics that have always angered me in religious debate, like framing the entire question "do you believe or can you set aside your skepticism?" How about full-on philosophical disagreement down at the level of core premise rather than doubt vs. belief? No, obviously I don't believe these things are literal, if I did, though, I would still have to stand where I do ethically.
That of course drags up childhood memory and the people who did nothing to stop the abuse I endured, who rationalized it to my face and told me to just put up with it and feel what I didn't, who lied to me and would not accept the truth of what was going on. And a set of ideas that if applied strictly would have meant I was inherently evil from the moment of my birth, by nature, something that I tackle a lot in fiction that becomes a powerful theme.
I often write characters who are supposed to be monsters and refuse to be evil. It's one of the more important themes in my writing. It may be time for me to throw open a file and jump through the hole in the page and escape this wretched argument by going into serious writing, go back to my original idea of writing a novel during the eBay strike. It would sure be more productive than just sitting around in pain dragging myself through daily exercises and getting dragged into direct contact with the enemies who had absolute power over me when I was underage.
It's one thing to accept that everyone has a right to his or her own religious path. I do. But I should not be obligated to get dragged along into someone else's. Real mystics in any of those monotheist faiths have their own understanding and do not always interpret the ideas in such a toxic way. But there are a host of atrocities still going on in the world when people do take those ideas in the worst way and claim their god's on their side in attacking and destroying anyone who's different.
The other tasks for the week slam me into another aspect of stress and discouragement. There's this one -- list twenty things you enjoy doing and date when you did them last. It's a long list of things that I can't actually do any more even if I did them years ago, because of disability. Or it's a very short list of things I can do and the dates are fairly recent. The idea is a good one, to find ways to put small pleasures back into your life if you're overbooked and stressed. The example of doing it was "Get to the record store at lunch time, even if only for fifteen minutes."
Well, gee, that takes getting out of the house, doesn't it? And having money. I don't enjoy overexertion for window shopping. There's a reason for all the things I used to love doing that I don't do any more -- medieval dancing, SCA sword fighting, downhill skiing, travel for its own sake, going to SCA events, driving at night for hours in peace or rambling out in the car through the countryside. The list is something that breaks my heart all over again on the facts of my disability and present situation. I could not afford to get a car and get insurance for it on my fixed income. Or the equipment for downhill skiing or SCA fighting, if I had the body energy to do it.
A very long term goal is that maybe in 2009 I will be strong enough to start going to fighter practice and slowly train up to where I could do one bout at a tournament, at least qualify as a fighter. The knight-marshal of our shire is warm to the idea and the kingdom may not even require qualifying with sword and shield before going to a two handed weapon -- which I would have to do in order to do it at all. I don't have the strength to haul around a shield and also fight, I parry better with the sword.
So I read through this stuff and skip the ones that are just salt in the wound, they are not helping me get more creative. I do accept that I'm disabled. I do not need to rub my nose into the things that are out of reach and get that discontent with my life in areas that I can't change or will not be able to reach for a long time, expecting to be able to do them next week.
I can see that these tasks are about breaking a psychological block against enjoying yourself, or against specific enjoyments like time alone or doing things you enjoy that others may interfere with. But no amount of good attitude will untwist my bones and make those things possible, or untwist my heart to where I don't care about the things I can't have at all. I can shift my attention away from them to the things that are in reach, but it's bitter to contemplate how short the list is if I limit it to things that I can actually do and enjoy. And what to do with fifteen non-sick minutes is a huge question, one that always gets prioritized to the most important or most enjoyable things.
It hurts. And the stress sets off my fibromyalgia and I accomplish far less ... gods I want to get to another chapter and hope this one is just a fluke. The book could be very helpful but sorting it is another thing entirely. Something intended to raise my morale is having exactly the opposite effect.