Grab a seat kiddies. This one might take a while
So for the last....I guess the last month or so I've been stuck in this self-imposed melancholic funk. I've been systematically creating reasons to doubt everything I'm doing in my life right now. Ricoh, sales, music, friends, family, Toronto, Cooper, writing. I thought...I mean REALLY thought about looking for another job in Kitchener, moving back - cheaper rent, old network of friends, old haunts, things that were familiar and comfortable and...well...familiar.
I woke up this morning to the stink of that doubt. It was like crusty old gym socks that you put on because you don't have any other socks. They're nasty and crunchy but after you've had them on for a while you don't even really notice anymore because it's familiar. It was MY stink. MY crust. I went to work utterly convinced that nothing positive would come from this job. That I couldn't cut it in this industry, that I wouldn't be able to make the kind of impact that you need to make to be successful. I look around at people who are good at what they do, and all I see are the shadows of the people who used to work with the success stories, and faded away because they just didn't want it badly enough. It's essentially true everywhere. Any job has people who are good at it (and damn them for making it look so natural) and people who tried and quit, or who tried and worked their asses off and still didn't make it and I was 80% convinced that I would be one of them. It started off being a day of trying to put out fires all the while mentally calculating the tiny return on the hours of labour that may or may not even materialize.
Then I made a phone call. It was an account that I cold called two days ago and got nothing but "oh fuck another fucking copier rep" attitude from the receptionist. But by the end of the call I had a meeting for tomorrow morning that may (stress on may) be a perfectly timed meeting to create a real opportunity. Then I put out a substantial fire with another customer I've been working on for two months that will probably close to a successful deal inside of a week or two.
Drove home wondering what it all means....decided to go to the gym to think about it. DIDN'T think about it while I was there because who the hell thinks about intangible mysteries of life and career when they're balancing 100lbs over their heads? Not me kids. Not anybody with an instinct towards self-preservation. So I come home, cook dinner, kick back and watch High Fidelity. One of my all time favorite movies. John Cusack just makes such a natural "loser-hero". There's nothing glamorous about him. No intimidating charisma like you get from a Mel Gibson or John Malkovich or even Johnny Depp (I say "even" Mr.Depp because all his characters are subdued. There's no such thing as an 'over-the-top' Johnny Depp character, not even Fear and Loathing....it's always a very calmly played erratic...end tangent). He just plays a flawlessly flawed everyman. So anyway, I'm watching the movie and it's having the general calming influence it has always had on me, and I'm noticing the set design for the first time. The apartment Rob lives in is simply draped in his life. Records on every shelf, concert posters on the walls, etc. I decide a neat project would be to own every John Cusack movie. There's like 50 and some of them are shit, but why not have a complete anthology? This thought spins off in a hundred different directions. Why only John Cusack? I like Malkovich as well, and Bill Murray, and what about directors? I've never really thought about directors and whether I like a particular individual's style for creating films....then I realize that I want things. I want stuff. I want to acquire it and compile it and keep it in stacks or on shelves or in cupboards. I've never really REALLY understood this compulsion before. I mean, music is easy to explain logically. You can listen to it over and over. Films are similar, but I never got people who have hundreds of books. Once you read a book once, maybe two-three times, you're done right? Don't even get me STARTED on random knick knacks and their uselessness. Buy something to put on a shelf so that it's there, looking like it did when you bought it. Photos - I have one Kodak envelope full of photos from university but they're all photos that other people have given me, or shots from the one disposable camera I've ever purchased in my life in 1998, that I bought in the first place because a girl I was dating wanted to have pictures of us. People have these tangible evidentiary compilations of their lives that they either stow away for occasional reference or display proudly for others...or themselves....
So what am I really talking about? Well, I've pretty much decided to stop worrying about whether or not life is going to go the way I think it should/want it to/am afraid it will go and just....well be. When I'm so concerned with every individual variable that's unsettled I never really get to DO anything. I just sit around and mope because I don't know enough people in the city I live in, or because I'm single and it's my own fault, or because I'm single and it's everybody else's fault, or because I'm single and it's no one's fault, or because I don't feel comfortable and confident in my job, or because....well anything really. Any excuse to have something to think about. Mental crunchy gym socks I guess.
I think I'm ready. Ready to put stuff up on my walls. Ready to commit to living in this apartment for longer than the current length of my lease (haven't done that before....ever). Ready to stop wondering why I'm alone and just be alone...or not. I know lots of folks who (gasp) DON'T define themselves by whether or not they have a girl/boyfriend. I'm sure they think about it from time to time, but it's not a central characteristic they attempt to base their self-impression on.
I have no idea if I'm doing this right - if this is the right job, the right apartment, the right city, the right musical pursuits, the right diet, the right LJ, but I've decided I really don't care. If I do the simple things and do them properly and consistently - clean my apartment, put away my laundry, feed my cat, go to work, get a haircut, everything else will fall into place, or not. But I think it's time to just do them. I've been avoiding living life until I was 100% proof positive QED that everything was in place. It's like having a great idea for a novel but then never writing it because you can't come up with perfect names for all the characters. It's also...what's the word I'm looking for here....ah yes. retarded.
I feel completely unsettled, imbalanced, rootless, directionless and great.
I woke up this morning to the stink of that doubt. It was like crusty old gym socks that you put on because you don't have any other socks. They're nasty and crunchy but after you've had them on for a while you don't even really notice anymore because it's familiar. It was MY stink. MY crust. I went to work utterly convinced that nothing positive would come from this job. That I couldn't cut it in this industry, that I wouldn't be able to make the kind of impact that you need to make to be successful. I look around at people who are good at what they do, and all I see are the shadows of the people who used to work with the success stories, and faded away because they just didn't want it badly enough. It's essentially true everywhere. Any job has people who are good at it (and damn them for making it look so natural) and people who tried and quit, or who tried and worked their asses off and still didn't make it and I was 80% convinced that I would be one of them. It started off being a day of trying to put out fires all the while mentally calculating the tiny return on the hours of labour that may or may not even materialize.
Then I made a phone call. It was an account that I cold called two days ago and got nothing but "oh fuck another fucking copier rep" attitude from the receptionist. But by the end of the call I had a meeting for tomorrow morning that may (stress on may) be a perfectly timed meeting to create a real opportunity. Then I put out a substantial fire with another customer I've been working on for two months that will probably close to a successful deal inside of a week or two.
Drove home wondering what it all means....decided to go to the gym to think about it. DIDN'T think about it while I was there because who the hell thinks about intangible mysteries of life and career when they're balancing 100lbs over their heads? Not me kids. Not anybody with an instinct towards self-preservation. So I come home, cook dinner, kick back and watch High Fidelity. One of my all time favorite movies. John Cusack just makes such a natural "loser-hero". There's nothing glamorous about him. No intimidating charisma like you get from a Mel Gibson or John Malkovich or even Johnny Depp (I say "even" Mr.Depp because all his characters are subdued. There's no such thing as an 'over-the-top' Johnny Depp character, not even Fear and Loathing....it's always a very calmly played erratic...end tangent). He just plays a flawlessly flawed everyman. So anyway, I'm watching the movie and it's having the general calming influence it has always had on me, and I'm noticing the set design for the first time. The apartment Rob lives in is simply draped in his life. Records on every shelf, concert posters on the walls, etc. I decide a neat project would be to own every John Cusack movie. There's like 50 and some of them are shit, but why not have a complete anthology? This thought spins off in a hundred different directions. Why only John Cusack? I like Malkovich as well, and Bill Murray, and what about directors? I've never really thought about directors and whether I like a particular individual's style for creating films....then I realize that I want things. I want stuff. I want to acquire it and compile it and keep it in stacks or on shelves or in cupboards. I've never really REALLY understood this compulsion before. I mean, music is easy to explain logically. You can listen to it over and over. Films are similar, but I never got people who have hundreds of books. Once you read a book once, maybe two-three times, you're done right? Don't even get me STARTED on random knick knacks and their uselessness. Buy something to put on a shelf so that it's there, looking like it did when you bought it. Photos - I have one Kodak envelope full of photos from university but they're all photos that other people have given me, or shots from the one disposable camera I've ever purchased in my life in 1998, that I bought in the first place because a girl I was dating wanted to have pictures of us. People have these tangible evidentiary compilations of their lives that they either stow away for occasional reference or display proudly for others...or themselves....
So what am I really talking about? Well, I've pretty much decided to stop worrying about whether or not life is going to go the way I think it should/want it to/am afraid it will go and just....well be. When I'm so concerned with every individual variable that's unsettled I never really get to DO anything. I just sit around and mope because I don't know enough people in the city I live in, or because I'm single and it's my own fault, or because I'm single and it's everybody else's fault, or because I'm single and it's no one's fault, or because I don't feel comfortable and confident in my job, or because....well anything really. Any excuse to have something to think about. Mental crunchy gym socks I guess.
I think I'm ready. Ready to put stuff up on my walls. Ready to commit to living in this apartment for longer than the current length of my lease (haven't done that before....ever). Ready to stop wondering why I'm alone and just be alone...or not. I know lots of folks who (gasp) DON'T define themselves by whether or not they have a girl/boyfriend. I'm sure they think about it from time to time, but it's not a central characteristic they attempt to base their self-impression on.
I have no idea if I'm doing this right - if this is the right job, the right apartment, the right city, the right musical pursuits, the right diet, the right LJ, but I've decided I really don't care. If I do the simple things and do them properly and consistently - clean my apartment, put away my laundry, feed my cat, go to work, get a haircut, everything else will fall into place, or not. But I think it's time to just do them. I've been avoiding living life until I was 100% proof positive QED that everything was in place. It's like having a great idea for a novel but then never writing it because you can't come up with perfect names for all the characters. It's also...what's the word I'm looking for here....ah yes. retarded.
I feel completely unsettled, imbalanced, rootless, directionless and great.