Focus

I don't know about you, but I have a clear inability to focus at times – I seem to drift between layers of fog in a world I can barely touch – just scraping the surface of the glass I'm looking through – looking at the rest of civilisation just getting on with it. It's remarkable that I can even tie my shoe laces in the morning – although I have noticed I'm wearing more slip-ons.

This could be for several reasons, so I will divulge:

Maybe it's because i've been so out of touch with people in every capacity for so long. I have to really head back to uni where there was a similarity of direction and connection with the people there – following that I have endured large spells of complete isolation. It's been partially intentional with the fact that I felt so insecure with a lack of purpose that to communicate at all with others was to highlight my ineptitude. Isolation can lead to revelation, but it can also lead to damnation. It all hinges on the mind state in going into such a place. Quite like alcohol – it enhances ones emotional states as it depresses the ability to cover them up. When I went overseas and had purpose and respect it helped massively – I understood my role there and got to know many other people I could associate with and cover the me whose nerves are all exposed, but at the same time numb with what's going on. The problem was that I constantly came back – back to a place I used to know, back to people I used to know and realised, I was not changed and everyone else had moved on. It's like being stranded on an island and watching the boats sail out to sea with me left sat, squat in the sand, trying to chew on some bread stack and tasting SANDwich with a crunch.

Maybe it's just a lack of things to do. Distraction is something I have been grappling at since I was left deserted, trying to occupy my incessant mind from reflecting back on itself in stark realisation of its fault. It's the Ouroboros incarnate; a circular rotation of insecurity which comes from being in a dark place for so long. Upon reflection comes the despair, a despair you feel in your mind and soul, a coldness washes over and you see no way out – how could you? It's a problem when you are staring from a pair of eyes behind murky glasses and see a world tainted by it, how do you get out of such a whirlpool? The only way I've found is to distract yourself from the cycles it's in. If an engine is in the wrong gear grumbling away down the road, steering won't do anything about it, but changing gear will. At first, when I was postulating going overseas I though it would be a good place to discover my strengths, a good time to become better, more confident and less inconsistent. In many ways, that was true; I overcame dire obstacles, I shocked my system in environmental and cultural factors, and met a great deal of people unusual to my normal social list. That might have been all too true, but it all hinged on my mind, a mind I had distracted enough to move from fretting to actualising. The problem was, when coming home again. I left my distraction behind and was met face-to-face with where I was and what I was. Time may pass in-between, but memories fade and in the end, only your strongest sensations emerge to produce the you you see in the mirror each morning. So, I went overseas again and again, each time I went alone, and each time I came home alone.

The problem with connection:

As I said before, I have been isolated for quite a long time now – partially it's intentional – not finding myself in a stable position long enough to establish any partnership. For the last 5 years or so, I've been so all over the place that it was never conceptually possible to maintain a relationship, so I never really pursued one. In Uni, I had several 'encounters', but one in particular left me in a bad way that I have never really pursued a relationship since. The other reason behind this reality is this simple fact: How can you love another when you don't love yourself? And that explains part of why I have never truly opened my doors to let others in. Another reason boils down to this; the reason I begun this splurge – that I often feel like I'm looking in on humanity, but am, myself, an outsider, with impulses so driven down that instinctual processes become secondary to external reflection. Maybe that's why I lose myself so often in films and media, as a way of reconnecting to humanity – a humanity which is at time foreign to me – and although I have sampled foreign; I don't know it.

Another problem with connecting to others is this – the fact that when it comes to any sensitive topic I more than likely avoid it with humour or struggle under it like a flailing fish puffing out my cheeks in alarm. Again, this boils down to a lack of practice and being so outside the realm others seem to inhabit. When I was in university, I was known to my friends as a bit of a joker, a person who likes to tell others to not be so serious and to attempt to avoid arguments and confrontation at any cost. I know that this comes largely from my upbringing, as my parents, particularly my dad, was allergic to confrontation – preferring to ignore the issue than to face it. Often, this is easier than to actually deal with the struggle, but it is far worse in its outcome, for without a voice there is to be no resolution. It's weird when you find yourself worked up by something and unable to hold yourself together in order to actually speak about it. I had a number of times recently where I was emotionally compromised and tried to speak coherently about the issue but finding my words came out like squeaks and grunts, rather than the exceptionally eloquent voice I usually produce.

Further issues:

So, sometimes you get out of bed on the 'wrong side' and hit the wall with your face, and at others you manage to find the right side and slide your feet into disconcertingly moist slippers. It's a factor of any day, that certain mind states are already awake before you, and before you can make any sense of them. Some days, going clubbing seems like the best thing you can do, where you walk up to the middle of the empty dance floor and jiggle and pump and twerk till all the people's eyes around you bleed. At other times, even leaving the house can be alarming. Who knows why this is, but it's this inconsistent tendency which makes one feel more vulnerable and broken than one aught to. Even if you can get several under par one day on a golf course, you're not a good player if on the the next day you bogey everything. It's this bizarre and completely irrational emotional inconsistency which causes the most grief. Focus is hit over the head with a large cast iron pipe, and you are left exposed – naked to even the smallest of winds. How to defend yourself from this, when even chatting to a neighbour can cause a mild panic. And that's nothing to do with the fact that he may be wielding the head of a relative.

So with all of this, it's probably no wonder that I find my focus is often concussed and drooling on the floor somewhere when my body is somewhere else trying to be a person. It's at times like that when I look at myself and the rest of the world and sigh, and breathily whisper out 'what's the point?' Though, where there's a will there's a way, and it is my will to change my way and unclog what I know is a functional entity. It will take changes – and I hope that one of those changes soon is a job, for otherwise, I will likely find a very high cliff and go base-jumping without a parachute.

I think this is the first time i've been remotely honest in a while... No idea what I wrote as I don't want to read any of this back, but sometimes honesty is the key to solving the hidden demons. Also, it might highlight to some others that you are not the only one who is good at being crap.