Only in Dreams

A good friend wrote a "Random Thoughts" post. It intrigues me how the female mind can hold so many things at once. I say "the female mind" because Ms. R is not the only one who consistently has a lot on her mind. Wife does it too, and has written many thousands of words on the subjects since I've known her. Many things at once, though. I have a lot of thoughts too, but they usually come one at a time and are largely unimportant.

If I were to make a random thoughts list like hers, right now, it would look something like this:

* I'm hungry

* I'm bored

* I'm tired

That's it. Otherwise, all quiet in the chambers of my mind. This is actually not so disturbing as you might think. A quiet mind allows for true focus, enough to make serious attempts at telekinesis if you're like me and magical thinking doesn't trouble you.

Speaking of magical thinking, several years ago, before I married Jess and moved into the apartment, I had a dream that I wish I had written down at the time. In this dream I was witnessing events through my eyes. I was brushing my teeth. I was listening to someone in the tub next to me talk, they were talking about Cingular Wireless. I remember that because the person sounded out the word: "Cin-gu-lar", heavy emphasis on the syllables. That stood out to me, made me remember it all this time. It nagged at me off and on for the last six years or so. Why would someone in a tub be talking to me about wireless service like I was an idiot?

Well, this morning it came true.

I was standing at my sink brushing my teeth. Jess was in the tub finishing up her morning bathing ritual and talking to me of things she wanted to do this weekend. I wasn't really listening (sorry dear), so when she said it for the first time what I heard was, "see, you will."

I asked her, "See you will? What is that, Yoda-speak?"

She corrected me. "No, Cingular." She'd been talking about going to the wireless store and replacing her phone. "Cin-gu-lar."

She said more on the subject, but I didn't really hear it. I had an excuse this time for not paying attention, though. My mind had been parted like the Red Sea. Once again, I'd dreamed of the future.

People usually try to explain this away when I talk about it. They think I'm just having deja'vu. I assure you I'm not. I've scolded myself again and again for not keeping a dream journal, and this time the bite is truly painful because I had a witness to the phenomenon, and if I had just written it down I could have proven that this really happens to me and I'm not crazy.

I've never been able to "make" it happen, it just does at times. I'm asleep, and I dream, and in my dream I see things through my own eyes, like I'm actually watching my future self do things from the back seat.
It's never about anything special or significant. The first time I became aware of it, I was in Josh's house for the first time. We were playing the Mechwarrior 2 demo when it crashed in on me that I'd seen it before, that I'd been in his house before, even though I really hadn't. I'd dreamed it almost two years ago when I was still in Middle School. I was still a good year and a half away from meeting Josh, or even being in the public school where he attended class.

What shall I make of this, I wonder? More thought is required.

Hmm? What? What's that?

Holy God, we're set to finish up this month at a surplus! That's unprecedented. I don't know what to do with myself.

I want to chase this feeling, if we can. Really knuckle down and save some money, then be able to kill some bills (no pun intended) later this year. If you think about it this is fairly impressive for us. Just finishing up the holiday season, birthdays, college, a veritable plethora of additional expenses, and we still came out on top stronger than usual. Pretty sweet deal all things considered.

In other news, I set myself a goal of figuring out what to do with my spare time, things that would enhance my life rather than leech it. I did honestly give the matter a great deal of thought, and the honest answer is that I have simply drawn a blank on this quandary. I know the things I'd *like* to do: Get in shape, write a book, but those things are neither new or immediate. So, back to the drawing board. "If at first you don't succeed" and all that.

Been watching a bit of Star Trek lately. I'm increasingly of the opinion that life would be so much better with a holodeck.

Tattoo-ine

I surprised one of my friends, I think, when I expressed interest in getting a tattoo. She made the accurate point that I had never before mentioned such a desire, and of course she is right. Besides my wife, who has only heard this desire voiced twice, no one has ever before heard me say, "You know, I think I'll let someone drill ink on me."

The full scoop is this: I have wanted a tattoo for a long time. However, I see no point in actually *getting* one--or, indeed, even talking about getting one--until I have lost all the weight I want to lose. Those things are sensitive to changes in body weight as I understand it, as the skin changes shape and the ink moves around as a result.

How did Robin Willams put it? "You get the tattoo of the barbed wire now, and by the time you're eighty, it's f%#*in' picket fence."

So, if I do manage to achieve the ideal form of me, as is my desire, getting that ink done will be one of a few things I plan to reward myself with.

As for what image I plan to use, well... one springs to mind.

*turns key* - BrrrRrrRrrrrRrrrrrRrrr...

I haven't updated my blog in a while, obviously. The reasons are fairly sound: Nothing to write about. That's not exactly true, of course. There's been stuff going on. Christmas happened. So did the new year. My wife's back to college. My cat had pneumonia. The list goes on like that.

The problem with me and blogging is that all of that stuff, while significant to *me* and most certainly to my spouse, doesn't truly strike me as the kind of thing anyone else wants to read about. They moved my desk at work. I completed Valkyria Chronicles. I'm playing Pirates of the Burning Sea and having a great time. Cool for me, but does anybody else give a flyin'? Fairly certain that the answer to that is no. :)

I think the reason I take blog breaks is because part of me would like to wait for something worth writing about to happen, or at least a noteworthy thought to strike me. I'd take either at this point; life has been hum-drum long enough.

Jessica stayed home sick today. I was torn; I wanted to stay home with her, but I couldn't think of an adequate reason beyond, "I want to stay home and take care of her." If we were slow at work I might have gone ahead and done it, but we're busy as hell and likely to stay that way for a good long while. Call it responsibility, call it fear of job loss, whatever the reason I'm at my desk today when I'd rather be home looking after my wife.

The Buzzing Et Cetera

I mentioned in the last post that this would be a two-part observation, and so it is. I hope to cover some interesting observations in this post that have been shared by myself and others, but first a few pleasant highlights. First, thanks, J & R, for having me over last night. Had a lot of fun, certainly much more than I would have had sitting around my apartment all by my lonesome. Second, my uncle John was in surgery as of Monday. He had an aneurysm, something they caught at the last second and had to remove in a huge hurry, lest he perish. It was apparently a five hour open-brain surgical ordeal, but he made it through and is recovering nicely. Astounding, these things that can be accomplished with medical science today.

Now, onto the meat of the post.

As my friends and wife know now, I am being medicated for major depression. That was the official diagnosis when I went to the doctor's office on Tuesday. When I explained my symptoms they immediately knew what we were dealing with and prescribed something for it. Apart from the depression and being somewhat overweight, though, my health is generally good. Blood pressure, cholesterol, lung function, heart function, all within normal parameters. I am free to begin any reasonable workout regimen I choose, and they recommended the South Beach diet for weight loss. I'm examining it.

All that being said, some of us can't help but wonder whether this problem is symptomatic of a larger thing at work in the world. Everyone's got some kind of mental hangup. Nobodies normal, and it's always in some weird way that make them miserable with the way their life has turned out. Our generation suffers it. The one right on our heels fares even worse. Talk to anyone, even people who have really good and solid lives, and they'll tell you all about how messed up they are. Usually at the drop of a hat.

(I'm using broad, sweeping terms like "anyone" and "everyone", of course. That's not accurate, but I have not the time nor the patience to word everything in the post in a politically correct way. Obviously not *everyone* is like this, but a whole hell of a lot of people are.)

I have my own theory on the matter. I think people are depressed simply because life is too easy. Now, before you scream "WTF?!" let me explain what I mean.

Your grocery store is five miles from your house at the most. Frequently, less. For some, like me, it's a *lot* less. I could see mine from my parking lot if there weren't a highway in the way. Anyway, five miles. Your car can get you there in five minutes. You'll spend thirty in there, grabbing carefully-laid out products from easy-to-reach shelves. Engineers have studied it down to the molecule and determined the perfect layout to make your shopping experience easier. You'll be in and out without having to use your brain.

Think about that. The quest for food! Hunting and gathering! Key and necessary to the bedrock of our survival! One of our species' core functions has been reduced to a task that takes no time and requires no thought or effort.

Now think a little higher. Acquiring and maintaining shelter. Again, a key, core task of our species. Again, no effort. Hop on the Internet and head to a website. Specify your needs, pick from the list, go on down and sign the lease. Bingo. For added laziness, head back to the Internet to set up automatic payment of the rent and the bills. There's another one. A core function, reduced to zero effort and thought.

So we have food and shelter taken out of our hands. What need we ponder? Essentially, all we need to worry about are two numbers: Cash coming in, and cash going out. Make sure one stays higher than the other. A lab monkey could do it. The short of it is, I think human beings are in a state of decline, a state of creeping depression and uselessness, a state where obesity runs rampant, where suicide is on the rise, where everyone wants everything but doesn't want to work for it, because life for the average person has been distilled down to a set of very easy numbers. It's *too easy*. The mind can't cope with being this bored. The mind wants for problems to solve, challenges to overcome. Without them it settles into a state of "meh."

That's for adults. Kids, much easier to understand what their problem is. But that's another blog post.

So what is the answer? Well, I'm going to go ahead with my depression treatment. There is absolutely no point in my starting anything worthwhile right now with the way I've been feeling. Once I'm feeling better, though, I think the *real* treatment for this will be to push myself. Challenge myself, or be challenged by others. Inject some imperative into life. Put more on the plate than the problem of, "Is this number bigger than this number?"

Thoughts?