Keep wanting to close my eyes and walk away, as if all the problems, rifts, troubles, stresses, trials would vanish the moment I leave. But you and I know that’s not the case; it’s not ever the case. The desire to walk away and start anew is the cause and the source of most of these problems. Instead of dealing with them face-on, I’m doing the glazed stare at the horizon, letting the problems pile at my feet, sticking me to the ground.

Work is stressful. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of working with mechanical devices instead of mechanistic people. I had a moment of clarity last week; I’m not trapped. I can leave. I’m only existentially bound to my projects and coworkers. As a former manager of mine said just before he left to work for the competitor, “You have to look out for what’s best for Shawn, Incorporated.” But would I leave?

Outside of work, I need to find something to help me relax. Something that I can win. But even then, most of what I do too closely resembles actual work. There’s no relaxation. I mean, I know I have music projects, website projects, writing projects. I have things I could do, if only I wanted to. All of these projects are unified by the same internal drive. Without the desire to generate my own movements and craft my internal desires into external fruits, none of these projects will get done.

That same internal drive also motivates me to reach out and connect with people. I know some of you would love for me to call, to hang out, to spend time with you. It’s nothing against your character that I don’t take the risk. Without that drive, that ache, that itch, that fire, I’d rather sit inert and stare at the screen, listen to the conversation, feel without touching. It bothers me that, at age 39, I’m practicing to be the old man slumped in his chair, staring at the wall of the retirement center. I just want to be passive, for somebody else to push my chair to the garden.

Talking requires The Spark. It requires effort. Speaking in a dialogue takes more energy than random confessions, than verbalizing personal memories, than talking about myself. This blog is easy. Facebook comments are easy. Chat room ramblings are easy. Talking with people about real stuff is hard.

So expect not so much of it from me for a while. I’ll come back around soon enough.

I shouldn’t complain, though. At least I’m not sitting in front of my computer at home.

2011 was supposed to be better than 2010. It wasn’t.

2010 was supposed to be better than 2009. It wasn’t.

2009 was supposed to be better than 2008. It wasn’t.

Ad infinitum.

The problem with the “growth” thinking of “we must get better and better” is that it blindly ignores the fact that over a span of time, the good and bad stuff averages out to a flat gray. If you take any negative moment and view that as the death of all that is good in the world, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Bad stuff happens. Good stuff happens. That’s life.

My hope for 2012 is that I learn to accept the average, that I get comfortable with the baseline, and that I pick up the slack and do something that’s worth it. Cheers.

This holiday break has been a roller coaster with more downs than ups. Been playing the role of the moody gloomcow. I have every reason to dislike myself and my life, but for once this week, I’m choosing to ignore those reasons. I acknowledge that I’m manic-depressive, and what I have today is a mania, but if I can take this and rebuild myself to buffer against the darkness of the following night, then maybe that’s what I should be doing. I’m too much with the drab clothing. I’m too much with the negative talking. I’m too much with the sitting alone, hiding my face, and then feeling hurt when nobody comes over to sit with me.

I’ve had enough, at least for now. So if I avoid staring and thinking, I think I can keep the darkness at bay, I think I can trim back all the rough edges that the demons would grab on to, preventing them from latching on. I don’t want to be one of those scared people you see who run and talk and jump and do everything in their power to keep themselves away from their own scary dark thoughts, but at this point, the idea doesn’t seem so preposterous.

Tonight, I set out to work on my song “Communion” whose lyrics I wrote two years ago during the gray area between awake and asleep. The music’s been knocking around in my head since then. I’ve put it off for far too long, and I’ve had enough. The positive chatter I got regarding “Best Laid Plans” was enough to push me over the edge towards committing something to the songwriting effort. I think I’m proficient enough with my music gear to make it happen without too much frustration.

“Communion” is, chromatically, a dense piece of work, and I’m having no end of confusion about which chords I should use, where I should use them, and how I’m to transition between them. There are phrases that stick out, some things are more solid than others, and I have chunks, pieces that should fit together if only they’d want to fit together. The problem is that I’ve got this thick set of notes, like the bass note would be, say, D#, but the vocal note would be F# (a third), but the tough decision is which I should use as the base of the progression. I know the dominant notes are in the key of F#, but each part of the song seems to have its own soul. The choruses have different chords from the verses, the bridge is distant from the interludes.

It’s a mystery, it’s a puzzle. And the more I play with the pieces, the fuzzier it gets. If I could just see the entire picture on the front of the box, I’d know what to do. I’m hoping to look away long enough to have the parts magically assemble themselves when I’m not looking. The subconscious mind is funny that way; it can take puzzles and solve them when you’re not trying.