If there is one component of my personality that seems to cause the most difficulties, it is my questioning of nearly every component of my life, repeatedly and without mercy. Even when an internal consensus is reached on a topic and an action taken, I will still reflect on it long after the fact and possibly reopen the floor to debate after a suitable amount of time has passed. It is a rare topic that has an edict against further deliberation.

The recurrent one that I think most people can relate to is "why am I here?" Of course, at any given moment it might refer broadly to my continued existence on our fair planet or narrowly as to who I am socializing with at a certain time and place. It is a tricky thing constantly questioning each of your motivations, probable consequences of your actions, and willingness to accept those consequences. Something as simple as meeting a friend for breakfast will occupy a prime place on the carousel of my thoughts for days beforehand.

Because of that carousel, I rarely take action without being acutely aware of the influence that a choice may have on my life. Of course, I am exceedingly aware of how chaotic and unpredictable life is. You can ruminate as frequently and deeply as you wish, but you will never see the complete patterns of consequence until they are well behind you. With all of my deductive reasoning skills, knowledge, and experience I cannot even hope to reliably predict all of what will happen tomorrow, let alone the rest of my life.

Consider all the interwoven patterns of human interaction that you superficially perceive on a day to day basis, then think back to those moments in your life that were the true, root cause of a dramatic shift in the direction of your day/year/life.

Leaving my dorm room door open on a sunny Saturday morning Sophomore year; applying for a programming job that I was laughably underqualified for; jumping down from a rock ledge on Mt. Adams. I just want to laugh at the absolute absurdity of trying to prepare or plan for anything.

This is all a long winded way of introducing how I perceive my actions. There are absolutely no promises in life. Even if you believe in a God or gods, there is no guarantee you will get safety, comfort, or happiness. The Universe is rather ambivalent towards your needs and wants. For some, that realization means they seize onto whatever feels the most stable. That is not so much my public modus operandi.

Which is odd because I do not consider myself reckless or even particularly impressive in my accomplishments. Instead, I consider most everyone else timid and lazy. How can you possibly go through life wanting more and knowing you should do more, and then not do it? As a well known Dutch author once said: It's maddening; I get mad about it.

I have a tendency to think of my life as a narrative. There are certain themes and rules that I tend to follow, and I aim my actions to fall within those lines. I obsess over my decisions and carefully evaluate how I want to act, but once a decision is reached I take action. Discovering the "should" is the hard part, taking action is easy for me.

I grant there is a certain cold, clinical approach in how I disregard emotional considerations and physical comforts when I believe an action is called for. Breakups are emotionally painful, but if it is necessary there is no reason to delay. Leaving your warm, dry tent and getting moving in cold, wet conditions is unpleasant but you must leave and start hiking. I understand that others are motivated by these considerations in varying degrees, I really do, they just rarely affect my own actions; they lack potency.

I think our culture is making progress on accepting that there are a wide range of behaviors in humans. The entire introvert/extrovert distinction being one that is often brought up on social media. It bothers me that my actions are given less acquiescence than if I pretended to have those more tender sensibilities that others have and I often seem to lack. Almost as if by being me, I am somehow broken.

....

This entry took an exceptionally long time for me to finish. It is all true, yet it feels woefully incomplete and surprisingly one sided. There is a metaphor there, I am sure.

I think in the end, I am just tired. Of what, a single word cannot adequately explain. Feeling aberrant. Being lazy by my own standards and yet told I am exceptional. Caring, trying, and then seeing it all fall apart again and again. Never being able to, myself, accept why people act the way they do. How the bloody hell I don't have a TARDIS.