pathetic fallacy – Observations and Misunderstandings

I sit tonight with thunder and lightning as a backdrop of sorts. I say of sorts because I am in a taverna and despite attempting to position myself looking outside there are still too many lights and people around to feel the full affects of such weather. In fact all these people and children kill any mood I felt prior to entering. There is always something atmospheric and intense with thunderstorms, especially those in hotter countries not used to rains all year round. The intensity is understandable, I imagine if they could measure the energy build up inside a storm, they probably can, maybe that’s what weather balloons do, they would discover it to be powerful. I suppose it is that strength which creates the burst of electricity that is lighting. Is the lightning a release though, is there a decrease in energy once it has struck. Can we compare this to the human mind?

I can use Greeks as an example. It is probably a little ignorant and lazy. Greeks are known for let’s say having an argumentative character. It is a lazy stereotype but for the sake of this argument, let’s assume it is true. It has felt when I’ve been embracing elements of this culture in the past, that the loud arguments have been a form of release. That sometimes we wouldn’t even be arguing over something we were actually angry about but simply looking for this excuse to release a build up of energy. The stereotype about the Greeks then is lazy because this is clearly something done by all, this is a game played in Scotland too for sure. The point is though that this energy must still go somewhere. I don’t know what happens once lightning strikes. What happens to the power that fires towards the ground. The power in an argument is hardly visible but you feel it and you hold onto it, perhaps it’s the same with the lightning strike. This I clearly don’t know.

I do know arguments though and I do know that I am capable and therefore others too of holding on to that energy. We see the other person relaxed and happy after their release but we’re a quivering ball of someone else’s anger. Our own toxicity levels increasing in the moment. Perhaps this is why some people are described as toxic. Toxic substances poison just as toxic people do too. We can’t ignore the fact if others do it to us then certainly we do it to others too. We can’t just spend our lives avoiding those we deem toxic in the hope of not becoming part of some cycle though, this is no way to live life. We must learn to live and not absorb, don’t take in their bullshit. See it and brush it off. I’m not sure why I got into this. I just wanted to talk about thunderstorms. It’s amazing how the mind wanders and relates.

If we were using weather to describe mood, this last week would have just about summed it up perfectly. As the storms arrived I went down a rabbit hole. I’m not one for describing how I feel online. Generally exposing myself like that is not always something that comes easily to me and in truth there are times I pour scorn on people who share their mood in social media posts. I should probably stop being so unfair on people crying out for help in such moments of desperation, it likely does nothing more than expose my own ignorance of mental health issues.

This has been an intense year. That is probably an understatement. In a way I am happy about how it has turned out, I took advantage of the new version of existence that came along. There are some things I would have liked to have done more of such as learning how to code but with all the work and the need to rest and procrastinate, I just ran out of time. Maybe less procrastination, or more efficiency with it. Can you efficiently procrastinate?

I always knew I would move on from here and I am fine with that because I have moved on from many places, I never saw this stop as a final one and it has already been about six months longer than had been planned. With lockdown any need to achieve or succeed, or create something or make money or do something or whatever self-induced pressures I put on myself evaporated. I had no choice but to stay in one spot and work with what I had. with options come pressures. I loved it and in a way I carried this on. However as it came time to wrap up this chapter I realised I had to step back out into this world and all the old fears and irrationalities, and ultimately all the stupid bullshit returned. For nearly two months now I have been working everyday on the pizzas and delivering bread three sometimes four mornings a week. You don’t sleep much in these circumstances and this simply exacerbates things. Throw in the fact me and my friend have a rather tempestuous relationship, it all seemed to come to a head this week.

If I were to say I lost my mind I would not be exagerating. I started to believe everyone was working against me, that they were trying to sabotage me. At one point one of the guys came down from the bakery to pick up some oven gloves from the cafe as they had run out up there. I wasn’t about and he took the best two pairs. In my mind he did this because it was all part of pushing me out. Looking back now it is almost comical but in that moment it was entirely serious. My body was tensing up, my neck still hurts and I was getting headaches. I have worked many seasonal jobs in the past which have been everyday for extended periods but they’ve rarely involved the mental stress of running things or maintaining personal relationships within the whole daily operation. It’s safe to say I now know my limits.

It’s also safe to say now the winds only signify change and the movement into something new. My friend suggested we stop the pizzas on Monday instead of continuing for two more weeks as originally planned. At first I took it in the same stride of paranoid lunacy I had previously been experiencing and planned on having it out with him when I next saw him. In the end with that being about two days later it was just a chat between two people who had been mates since they were eight years old. In that time I had already started to calm down but he had seen how much I needed a rest and he was right to suggest we stop. I’m grateful for him pulling me out of the rabbit hole because I doubt I would have been able to do it on my own without doing something overly dramatic and ridiculous.

Life is full of pressures. Some pushed upon us but many entirely of our own making. When we look in from the outside we can rationally understand were things need to change. If it is ourselves though, when it’s our own minds which seem to have gone AWOL being able to make sense of things can almost be an impossible act. It is time mentally for some recuperation. With the awakening of my senses this is already underway. The pressures are off and I can breath again. We rest, we recover, we take a step followed by another and we get on with it. We get on with what comes next. Something always comes next, how you experience it is up to you.

Tag: pathetic fallacy

A Toxic Storm

The AWOL Mind