Keeping The Cool

The housing situation seems to have eased off recently, so naturally I'm relieved about that. I'm still not 100% convinced about the electrics, but most of the other problems aren't as bad now as they were. Even the new tenants have settled down a bit, although saying that is probably the kiss of death! It's hot and humid here and that tends to bring out the worst in people, so I'm bracing myself for that. Mainly with alcohol!

Actually I need to keep an eye on my drinking. I don't drink excessively, just steadily as I work through the night on computer. But I'm aware of the fact that I'm drinking for my nerves, and I seem all too ready to accept any excuse I can get to have a drink. Usually I drink to deal with tiredness, because my nerves leave me so fatigued these days that I get really scared when tiredness hits. I also become very "retentive" when my nerves are bad, so drinking helps me deal with that. It's not really a problem and I could stop anytime I wanted to, but all the same it's something I need to keep an eye on.

Right now the main thing to deal with is concentration, or lack of. I've installed new software in the past couple of days, but still can't make head nor tail of it because my concentration is so poor. I've started meditating to help me out with this. Not full-on meditation sessions (yet), as at the moment I have neither the time or the inclination to sit still and hum for an hour. No, I mean visual meditations available on youtube and the like. They're really good...they put you in touch with the rhythms of life, which I never really got from "proper" meditation. And I've always been really poor with visuals, so I'm hoping that visual meditation improves that too.

I suspect I wouldn't be having these problems if I wasn't quite so soft in the head! I've spent the past few years developing mental dexterity and flexibility, with the intention of converting that flexibility into a conceptual instrument. But what I didn't fully appreciate was the extent to which that flexibility is generated by "softness", and pre-requires a certain softness in order for it to work. "Hard-headedness", almost be definition, is less flexible in itself, but it could be argued that ultimately it is more flexible if it leaves one better equipped to deal with the daily rigors of life. And if mental "softness" undermines personal responsibility and the ability to keep one's nerve, then it is automatically wrong irrespective of whatever redeeming features it might possess.

Responsibility preaches the virtues of the singular mind. Meditation preaches the virtues of the still mind. I've been preaching the virtues of the moving mind. I'm beginning to accept that maybe I'm wrong. But if only it felt wrong, and if only it felt wrong for me, then I would accept my wrongness once and for all.