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Recent Jailbreaks

Started by Cramulus, June 19, 2018, 01:47:30 PM

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Cramulus

Morning fellow inmates,

I spent all day yesterday in the cell, just rattling my tin cup against the bars. I immersed myself in the news and felt all the things I was supposed to feel. And now I've felt them, but I'm still stuck in this body with the feelings. Some of them are mine, but some of them are injected. So maybe I'm not a prisoner, maybe I'm an in-patient and they medicate me daily with information.

And by the way, the feelings that I think were mine---I chose to act on those feelings, to let them into my inner sanctum and motivate me. And that feels good, but I don't feel free yet...

Let's talk about our recent jailbreaks. If we share how we got out of the cell, maybe it'll help each other do the same.



One of my recent jailbreaks is money. I am really good at saving money. I'm actually kinda bad at spending it. I was taught at a young age that there's a payoff to putting off pleasure -- not buying candy today so you can afford a video game at the end of the month. I dutifully save for retirement and investment. But this also means that I don't enjoy things in the present, I'm always thinking about money and agonizing over spending it - after all, isn't something better coming? So any time I spend money, I feel guilty.

I currently have two vacations planned, and I've been living real thin (almost like a college student) so I can afford them. My girlfriend asked me, "what vacation do you want to go on AFTER THAT?" and I felt the anxiety well up and flood my inner world... I had to say it -- I want to take a break from scrimping and saving just so that I can enjoy something months down the road. I want to enjoy the present moment and stop focusing on something months away.

I am recognizing the need to draw a line and say "that's enough." --- and give myself permission to order the cheese fries instead of regular fries. I recognize this is a first world problem. But cash is a significant source of anxiety in my life, which is weird considering I'm responsible, employed, and stick to a budget.




have you escaped your cell recently?



if not --- why not?

Q. G. Pennyworth

Until November I am in the middle of too much to futz around with fnords and hot dogs. If we take back the House and the Senate and Massachusetts manages not to REPEAL transgender protections at the ballot I can take a minute, but for now my cell is a command bunker and everything is more or less where I need it for the war ahead.

Cramulus

oh here was a big one

I took a two-week facebook detox. I was using it wayyy too much and I was feeling stressed all the time. After a few days, my cortisol levels returned to normal.

Getting news pushed at me via social media, in the context of other people's emotions about it, was causing me to be all worked up all the time. Now I make an effort to only read the news when I'm on a news site, explicitly looking to hear about the news. It's important to be connected to the bigger world, but you gotta protect yourself. Center yourself. Not get stuck in the emotion treadmill.

Cramulus

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 03:13:48 PM
Until November I am in the middle of too much to futz around with fnords and hot dogs. If we take back the House and the Senate and Massachusetts manages not to REPEAL transgender protections at the ballot I can take a minute, but for now my cell is a command bunker and everything is more or less where I need it for the war ahead.

LEGIT, HEROIC - and in a lot of ways, what you are doing is a jailbreak in itself - you are letting your values motivate you and choosing conscious discomfort over the easy resting position.

just be sure to keep hydrated and attend to your own fatigue

Frontside Back

I got this unnerving feeling my jail is designed to break at regular intervals to give me some illusion of agency. It's like giant treadmill to keep me at place, while I keep thinking there's movement. And what i'm afraid of, is that this movement and constant change becomes a new jail. Like when I have to choose the new and interesting path every time, all the choice is gone, and I risk becoming a monster just out of boredom.

Or that's what the guard told me at least.
"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 03:13:48 PM
Until November I am in the middle of too much to futz around with fnords and hot dogs. If we take back the House and the Senate and Massachusetts manages not to REPEAL transgender protections at the ballot I can take a minute, but for now my cell is a command bunker and everything is more or less where I need it for the war ahead.

BOO YAH
Molon Lube

shamelessPuck

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 03:13:48 PM
transgender protections
Fucking this! Having grown up in rural Michigan I never expected to see shit like this now that I live in Mass.  I'm so proud of my partner for getting the spoons together to help canvass, particularly since my working Saturdays precludes my joining in during their usual times.

As for my prison, I've been struggling with my focus on the goal causing me to lose sight of the present.  After seven years in EMS (which was a plan B made when academia sucked), I finally realized I just want to be a doctor.  I am going back to school in the fall for my prereqs but I find myself constantly looking to what's next in a way that I didn't struggle with before.  There's so much good in my life but it's easy to get mired in the pieces that dissatisfy.

Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: shamelessPuck on June 19, 2018, 07:14:40 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 03:13:48 PM
transgender protections
Fucking this! Having grown up in rural Michigan I never expected to see shit like this now that I live in Mass.  I'm so proud of my partner for getting the spoons together to help canvass, particularly since my working Saturdays precludes my joining in during their usual times.

As for my prison, I've been struggling with my focus on the goal causing me to lose sight of the present.  After seven years in EMS (which was a plan B made when academia sucked), I finally realized I just want to be a doctor.  I am going back to school in the fall for my prereqs but I find myself constantly looking to what's next in a way that I didn't struggle with before.  There's so much good in my life but it's easy to get mired in the pieces that dissatisfy.

Oh shit buddy if you're near Boston I an hook you up with activisty folks

Chelagoras The Boulder

Quote from: Cramulus on June 19, 2018, 03:32:41 PM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 03:13:48 PM
Until November I am in the middle of too much to futz around with fnords and hot dogs. If we take back the House and the Senate and Massachusetts manages not to REPEAL transgender protections at the ballot I can take a minute, but for now my cell is a command bunker and everything is more or less where I need it for the war ahead.

LEGIT, HEROIC - and in a lot of ways, what you are doing is a jailbreak in itself - you are letting your values motivate you and choosing conscious discomfort over the easy resting position.

just be sure to keep hydrated and attend to your own fatigue
This.
I've been in kind of a similar state, tho QGP sounds like she's handling it better than I am. Seems like I'm seeking out and spreading information more than I am actually doing my job, which has long since ceased to be helpful to any other actual humans. So I'm transmitting from my bunker but more and more it's feeling like the shells are starting to break through. But to stop transmitting feels like giving up.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

Vanadium Gryllz

For the first time in my life really I am having to work hard and consistently.

It's mostly mental work rather than physical but occasionally I get the chance to feel myself up out and feel the pull of my old procrastinating ways.
I think that moving to a completely different culture and environment has helped though as I don't have a lot of my old habits available to fall back on. New habits form in their place.
"I was fine until my skin came off.  I'm never going to South Attelboro again."

Cramulus

Quote from: Vanadium Gryllz on June 20, 2018, 08:07:34 AM
For the first time in my life really I am having to work hard and consistently.

It's mostly mental work rather than physical but occasionally I get the chance to feel myself up out and feel the pull of my old procrastinating ways.
I think that moving to a completely different culture and environment has helped though as I don't have a lot of my old habits available to fall back on. New habits form in their place.

Procrastination is a bar, cemented in place at the top by pleasure and at the bottom by aversion.

New habits will form, that's natural -- "The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes." (Waking Life)

Doktor Howl

Procrastination is a gift of the gods, so that we don't get trampled under the herd of gazelles we're hunting today.
Molon Lube

rong

Quote from: Cramulus on June 19, 2018, 01:47:30 PM
Morning fellow inmates,

I spent all day yesterday in the cell, just rattling my tin cup against the bars. I immersed myself in the news and felt all the things I was supposed to feel. And now I've felt them, but I'm still stuck in this body with the feelings. Some of them are mine, but some of them are injected. So maybe I'm not a prisoner, maybe I'm an in-patient and they medicate me daily with information.

And by the way, the feelings that I think were mine---I chose to act on those feelings, to let them into my inner sanctum and motivate me. And that feels good, but I don't feel free yet...

Let's talk about our recent jailbreaks. If we share how we got out of the cell, maybe it'll help each other do the same.



One of my recent jailbreaks is money. I am really good at saving money. I'm actually kinda bad at spending it. I was taught at a young age that there's a payoff to putting off pleasure -- not buying candy today so you can afford a video game at the end of the month. I dutifully save for retirement and investment. But this also means that I don't enjoy things in the present, I'm always thinking about money and agonizing over spending it - after all, isn't something better coming? So any time I spend money, I feel guilty.

I currently have two vacations planned, and I've been living real thin (almost like a college student) so I can afford them. My girlfriend asked me, "what vacation do you want to go on AFTER THAT?" and I felt the anxiety well up and flood my inner world... I had to say it -- I want to take a break from scrimping and saving just so that I can enjoy something months down the road. I want to enjoy the present moment and stop focusing on something months away.

I am recognizing the need to draw a line and say "that's enough." --- and give myself permission to order the cheese fries instead of regular fries. I recognize this is a first world problem. But cash is a significant source of anxiety in my life, which is weird considering I'm responsible, employed, and stick to a budget.




have you escaped your cell recently?



if not --- why not?

i'm the same way about money - i've found the only way i can enjoy spending money on a vacation is if I budget a certain amount of dollars per day - way more than i normally spend in a day - so I always come in under budget while also am treating myself.  that's like a win-win.  roll the unspent money into the next days budget and pretty soon it's "hookers and blow" for everybody!

i just got out of my own self imposed "prison"- i finished my bathroom re-model project.  new bathroom is fabulous, but i've been a tiling, wiring, plumbing, sheetrocking, painting machine for a very long time - feels good to not know what i need to get done next.
"a real smart feller, he felt smart"

shamelessPuck

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on June 19, 2018, 10:16:35 PM
Oh shit buddy if you're near Boston I an hook you up with activisty folks
Yes please!  I'm down in Dorchester, though my partner and I just got offered housing on campus at the school where they teach, so we'll be moving a mile south come August.

Quote from: rong on June 21, 2018, 02:43:44 AM
i'm the same way about money - i've found the only way i can enjoy spending money on a vacation is if I budget a certain amount of dollars per day - way more than i normally spend in a day - so I always come in under budget while also am treating myself.  that's like a win-win.  roll the unspent money into the next days budget and pretty soon it's "hookers and blow" for everybody!
I do something similar for my normal spending.  A small portion of my paycheck (and a large chunk of any overtime I pick up) goes into a "fun buys" account which I can then feel free to spend on whatever I want without giving a damn.  After living paycheck-to-paycheck for years I didn't really know what to do once my paychecks had leftovers after regular expenses, and I've found that this system lets me pay down debt fast while still having a good time.

Sung Low

Myriad of jailbreaks might have occurred since my first forays on this forum.
The d key has chosen to absent itself