From circumstance, I made a short appointment with the shrink yesterday and renewed my prescription for my SSRI. Is it irony that understanding how much the chemical imbalance in my brain affects my behavior somehow makes me less existential? That is, when I have my drug, which I know has only the minor effect of dampening the howl of the void within me, I feel more like I’m in control of my own destiny. When really, the bulwark of the drug simply stops the downward slide into the reality that is our meaningless existence and lets me enjoy the banal.

Stranger and stranger.

Still, if one must live a self-aware crumb on the unforgiving tabletop of the universe, one might as well enjoy it, no? Struggling against the concept that life only means enjoyment doesn’t change its truth.

So, I’m enjoying the praise given o me from others today, even if their praise is meant for their own validation. I’m enjoying the sense of freedom that comes from having no appointments, even if I have a million niggling tasks to achieve. I’m enjoying the feeling that comes from anticipation of a great board game or tabletop role-playing experience, even if I know my expectations put such any actual joy beyond the threshold of possibility.

Much love. Rational, cautious love.

Why do I care so much that my friend is “cheating” on Habitica? I mean, I’m not tracking his progress directly, so maybe he’s just actually that busy, or doing that well.

It’s my problem with any socialization of games or martial arts or art or anything of joy. People compete with me. They want to either beat me or impress me, and it makes me stumble from my path. What should be private, and thus perfect, transmutes itself into the abhorrent.

He’s my friend and there are no stakes. If he passes me in level, it could not conceivably mean less. As always, it’s the principle, and the loneliness that principle brings which at once sharpens and dulls all emotion.

Today, I came of as a complete ass in my opinion to people whom I respect greatly. They are kind to me and listened as I talked about what amounts so heavily to White People Problems. I have many friends who I feel have to do this. When did I become so arrogant? My family thinks of me as a narcissist, who can’t stop talking about himself. Really, I’m just bored. most people’s lives are boring to me. Is that the same as being self-centered? Or is it simply a matter of being on the right-leaning end of the bell curve of human intelligence? Does that statement make me egotistical? Or sociopathic?

I want to cure sources, not symptoms, so to hear someone drone on about their problems only prompts a response that probably seems less humane, even when it would do the most good. I don’t want people to settle for a life that makes them comfortable, but from my position I am safe from most of the aches that others live with. I am white, male, healthy, tall, well-liked, and, most of all, my wife makes enough money that I essentially never have to think about it.

Hopefully, people recognize that I attempt to use that privilege to help as many people as I can, but I doubt that is what they see. I think they see softness and weakness instead of kindness and thoughtfulness. I miss my muse, but that is the one place I’m no longer able to go. The restrictions come from me, as much as anyone, but to know that the rest of my life is justification for my own comfort makes me cringe.

Complacency. Compromise. Commitment. All the same word to me.

Performing in Bug in a Rug is still the most rewarding part of theatre for me. The director knows what she wants, but gives the actors plenty of room to play. The actors take that space to play with one another, while keeping their eyes on the ultimate goal of entertaining kids while making a lesson that does not preach, but appeals to the better nature even in the sociopathy of pre-adolescence. The audiences appreciate the work on all the appropriate levels. The pay exceeds most professional acting standards, excluding union work.

Most of all, I like it. I genuinely enjoy my time spent in that company. I will do it until I can’t.

I got back on my meds, for the time being. I don’t know if I had bucked off the intense backlash that came from being off of them, or if they have evened me back out, but I feel a little closer to normal. I am still far too overbooked, which makes me a little scared, but I do a little every day, climb one more stone of the well’s belly, and reach for the light.

It’s sad how metaphor sounds sentimental. I let it slide, but only the ugly satisfies the literary mind. I find peace in Eliot, Dickinson, Bukowski, Waits, while I push away Yeats, Keats… others.

Describing the warmth of the fight family borders on impossible. I relish contact with them, despite that I haven’t been able to spend much time with them, and seem to have less and less in common with them.

Similarly, being around the team for Bug in a Rug lightens my heart and pushes back the darkness considerably. I had a lovely afternoon running lines with Merkin, among the first times that theatre has made me like my fellows, rather than stealing joy and empathy. The right people, I suppose.

Additionally, the new Theater RED show started with a bang and not a whimper. Surprising, considering I am only overseeing. I might be good as a producer, after all, if I can clear my schedule to work on one creative project at a time.

It seems like I might actually have simply been a slave to brain chemistry, after all. My SSRI prescription ran out just before Winter Wonderland, and I spent a good deal of my day weeping, after a day of coding problems, and a night of less-than-stellar mass battle choreography.

I nearly lost it on a kid who tried to “help” me by writing things for himself, and whom the high school teacher / director insists is “so good.”

“Of the two of us,” I said, “which has 23 years of experience.” He demurred, but actually less than humbly. I railed at the traffic. I sniped at my wife. I slept poorly.

Back for more tonight. Maybe I can sleep tomorrow.

I taught:

Tesla’s Needle
Kicks Korea
Single Sword Speed Date
Closing in for the Kill
Dialogue, Danger, Death

I learned:

I can put together a reasonable class — on concept, not just on technique — on short notice and engage students of many different levels at once. I can be in awkward situations without collapsing, succumbing, or losing grasp of my polite nature. My fight family is part of my “soul’s code” for lack of a less new age term. Without more attention paid to my health, I am no longer immune to the sapping of creative energy and patience caused by lack of proper sleep and nutrition.

I learned mostly to like myself a little more.