I wonder what I am doing?

Life is a roller coaster, the bigger the hill the deeper the valley.  Sometimes you are just sitting in the seat, locked in place while you wait for something to happen.  I don't know where I am on the ride right now.

If we continue this metaphor, going up the hill is hard work but there is a lot of anticipation and excitement.  Have you ever been stuck going up on a roller coaster...it sucks.  The sun is hitting you square in the face, you are locked in at an odd angle and just waiting.  It is a little scary because if feels like you could just go crashing backward at any time and you KNOW that the next set of cars is sitting in the station, waiting to be crushed.

Or even worse, you are in the front car and dangling over the hill, thrust forward staring down at the tracks and just as uncomfortable as can be.  Somewhere a teen ager is pressing a red button to alert the one guy at the park who knows what the fuck to do.  A tattered binder is being thumbed through to review a long ago written protocol on how to get people down from the first hill.  At least you think that is happening, realistically they are all just sitting there and looking at you helplessly stuck, secretly hoping that something really bad happens so they can capture it on Youtube.

When at last the roller coaster does get going the ride is dampened, you just want to get out of the car and take a piss.  The twirls and curls do not entice screams of joy, you are just happy that the wind is drying some of the pool of sweat that you are sitting in.  When you get back to the station and get out you curse your luck and watch and the next group of riders jump in with joy.

I have mentioned Sisyphus before.  The eternal bolder pusher in Greek mythology.  My life for the past few years has made me particularly interested in his plight.  Dammed to an eternity of fruitless labor.  One step forward and two steps back.  Stuck on the hill...

I have tried many things to get my life moving and they all work to some degree.  We implement a new plan and we get good results and we think, "Finally!  We figured it out, we got the machine moving!!"  Then the next month everything goes back to the way it was, nothing had really changed, it is all just dumb ass luck.

I imagine a change in geography will help things, get me out of this damn desert.  It might!  The economy in this area sucks balls and has sucked balls for a long time.  Hindsight being 20/20 I would have never moved to this shithole of a city.  Uprooting a life is never that easy and I seem to be the only person really suffering here.  Everybody else just wants me to keep pushing on.

So I pick up the rock again and start the walk up the hill.

It is the absurdity of life and the human condition.

There are four answers to the absurd:

1.  Suicide
2.  Find god
3.  Accept the absurd nature of life and just keep going anyway
4.  Accept the absurd nature of life and realize that because it is absurd and nothing REALLY matters, you can just do whatever the fuck you want, because in the end...everyone dies and life is meaningless.

While #1 is tempting due to its simplicity I can't go down that road again.
#2 is just a lie and I have trouble drinking that Cool Aid
#3 is where about where I am at, I just have not accepted the absurd
#4 is where my other foot is, but in a way it is comparable to #1

I also do realize that being stuck this way is a mental thing.  Value is only ascribed by me to any event or situation.  There is no inherent value or meaning in my situation.  I can CHOOSE to feel however I want to feel about life and the absurd.  This is an easy concept to say, but to practice this takes a lot of self discipline and effort.

We are, by nature, reactive.  To overcome our reactive nature you have to be mindful at all times.  In the beginning of mindfulness you must have practices, daily and hourly, that put you where you want to be.  You will still feel the reactive feelings, the process is to stop, recognize them, set them aside and CHOOSE your feeling.  It is summed in the saying, "Fake it till you make it."

The stupid thing is, I feel like I used to be this way.  I feel like I had this shit figured out and I have backslid to where I am now. 

The historian in me wants to figure out what happened.
The little bitch in me wants to find out who to blame.
The Freud in me wants to analyze it and find my rationalizations and correct them.
The Jung in me want to just get over it and start new.
The Bobby McFarrin in me just says, "Don't worry, be happy."
And my penis just want a warm wet place to piston into.

"In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: It goes on."  Robert Frost