Personal Diary / Journal - art, addiction and a whole lotta love

2020 May 25 Monday

Baby Love says i can start with really short stories, one paragraph, derived from my real life for ease. I don't really need to derive from my real life, it's easy to imagine stuff, but the focus gets too much and foreshadows the pleasure of typing and making sense out of words. Hmm let me try something, inspired loosely on Madonna:

It's the year 2050. Back in the '00s she was twenty, very en vogue in the Pop music industry, one of hundreds of Pop stars to come out in those decades. But she was #1 at some point, and everyone was ravenous to meet and greet her. She made her own lyrics, sang her own melody, something most of the starlets didn't know how. She was #1 for a reason, she had deep lyrics, a soft voice and perfect pitch. Now she smokes, she's 70 years old, the only thing that remained from her former glory years are the songs that come on the radio specific to the decade she was on top of. She doesn't listen to those radio stations. She listens to classical music almost exclusively. The letters have stopped coming altogether, she's not sad or melancholic. She wonders what will remain after she's gone, no one remembering her name except people her age and 10 years younger. The ones 10 years older have already moved on. Drinks her coffee on the sunny terrace, smokes her cigarettes, and wonders what's the next step for her. She has been asking this question for 40 years.

Ok, that's it. Let me re-read it. .... I added some ideas. Not too shabby. Knowing it will be short, there wasn't that state of focus that i was talking about, it was pretty chill and nice to write. Let me read it again. Not too bad, pretty neutral, with a hint of sadness and ridicule maybe? I don't know. Obviously it's not Madonna's situation, she's still en vogue.

Anyway, the experiment was a success. Really short stories come easy. I should do more. Maybe i'll do one more today, or one of the following days.

To get back to these days' focus: yesterday i smoked about 8 or 9 cigarettes. I think the exact number is not important, at least not as important as the time i spent in withdrawal. Yesterday there was little desire to be had, i smoked every chance i got to enjoy the vacation. I have to keep up the self-affection too.

[..] today i'm experiencing a new kind of withdrawal, something to do solely with the mind. I don't have symptoms in my body but i somehow feel that i have to smoke. Is it the habit? The mental addiction, is my addiction taking a step back, or is it stronger than ever, controlling me directly without the interface of the body? I will keep at it and see. I don't fully understand my enemy.

Since yesterday i lost the minimum weight amount showing on my scale, 0.1 units.

I feel the need for silence. I will give myself some affection, see how the need for silence progresses.

[..] i figured two ways forward. For the need for silence, i put on some familiar music, Pink Floyd on Spotify, the complete artist's playlist, 15 hours of music, their whole stuff. As for the mind games my addiction is playing with me, i decided not to smoke for one hour, to satisfy my mind and bring back the symptoms to the body. Already i'm feeling something <evil grin>

[..] i found an accessibility feature that lets my keyboard control my phone, that's pretty nifty. [..] i have been experimenting with the options, it's pretty cool, almost like having a laptop, you don't even have to touch the screen. It helps when i'm in writing mode, although i did fine before too.

[..] one of my mind practice games, Elevate, has a new meditation app, it's called Balance. While doing a meditation i thought about designing guided meditations, i think i would be good at writing some text for something like this. I noticed one meditation that said "procrastination" and another that said "unguided". The one that said "unguided" had a picture of a crossroad. I think this is maybe my key place in the world, at the crossroad, never choosing a path. Contemplating the paths and urging my fellow travelers to sit with me before making a choice. Then inspiring them to never make the choice and sit with me forever. This is my church. It's a place i learned in music, where i'm at the junction between genres and techniques, at the beginning of the road where there's just fun and play with the instrument, but before you choose one road to go on. I think it's the best place to be. Between activities, before choices, before making the first step. I think it's an underrated place to be. Everyone says "come on, just make a tiny step in one direction, then you'll see what to do, go back or move forward, but for Christ's sake, just do something". Well, i want to do nothing. Is this the essence of meditation? Of contemplation, of observation? The place before, the starting point. All the roads ahead, no promises left behind, everything in front of me and forever staying that way. I think it's the place to be. Nowhere to go. Let me think about this some more.

[..] the more i think about it, the more it makes more sense. How pleasant were those days at the beginning of last week, including last weekend, when i didn't do much except struggle with addiction. The lack of activity was exhilarating. In a few days i was so full of life, so desiring of anything to do. I should do this more often. Be between activities more of the time. Just take care of the basic needs and sit and ponder my thirst for life. Nothing could be more beautiful. Except my Baby Love. I have that set up. I'm a very lucky individual, to have found such deep and fulfilling love. What else do i need? To get good at stuff, at this moment, seems just a choice, one step beyond where i want to be. I could get good at doing nothing, if there is even such a thing. And write about it, like i'm doing now. I've been writing in my native language too, very satisfying. But also this platform is very satisfying. I have my native language for the garbage, and this is my official output.

[..] i figured out the perfect (or so it would seem) adaptation for this new discipline. During the day, until 8pm, i would have only one hour (or something of that sort, to be negotiated) for mind activities, otherwise only body practice and creative stuff like writing, dancing or making music. Then at 8pm i would join Baby Love in our daily ritual for watching TV together and commentating. Seems legit, right? I will try this.

[..] i split up my activity choices into two categories, like i said: first category until 8pm includes body stuff and creative stuff, and the second category from noon until 1pm contains all the mind categories, including listening to music. I took off listening to music from the all-day experience in order to not be subjected to the choice of what music to listen to. We will see how this pans out, it's just a beta test. But so far (it's a quarter past 7pm) i've discovered a lot of room in my lungs at this idea, and have begun moving stupidly around, which is very fun (remember my question about fun?) and which i hadn't done in weeks it seems. So.. so far so good. We'll see tomorrow. I wonder what i'll do at noon. My one hour of mind practice. Music - no, i already listened to a lot of music today and all across these past few days. My secret hope will be that during this one hour i will find insufficient time for all i want to do involving the mind, so i will have to expand to two hours. Two hours seems better somehow. But i only want to start out with one hour, let it naturally increase. Maybe it shouldn't even be one hour, it should just be an impulse, the beginning of mind activities, and let the ending up in the air. But just one session. Ah, i don't know, we'll see.