Your Brain distracts you more than Social Media

"Social media or not, it doesn't matter. If I have work to do, then the motivation, the desire to work towards my personal goals pains me the entire time. But when I have free time, no other obligations, all the time in the world, I just... can't seem to do it.

Maybe I'm lazy or have low energy or daydream too much but no matter how much I try, no social media, no distractions, music, no music, going to a remote location where I can either do nothing or do the thing I want to do... I still do nothing. I daydream or zone out entirely or pick at a nail. Thirty minutes pass and I've written a sentence.

An hour passes and the pit sets in, a weight on my chest like someone place a heavy stone over it and told me to roll it uphill, but, unlike Sisyphus, I don't have the arm strength for that.  All of a sudden, it's 4:00pm and I want to use my days to do the things I enjoy and work towards some sense of meaning instead of scrambling at 2am to work past the exhaustion... but the daytime seems so sluggish, like wading through mud. Sometimes it's legitimately painful. And I can't be lazy or relax because I didn't do enough to warrant being lazy or relaxing." 

I'm searching desperately for something fulfilling, something that satisfies the longing inside, so that way a lack of happiness will never hurt me, so that I can create a form for the imaginations in my head. I search for the motivation among potted plants and long walks... at least the idea of them. Everyone talks about this slow, easy life where they are still able to share what they've done... and it's all because they aren't distracted and do things intentionally, right?

Well, I've just spent the last hour pacing around in a circle and wandering across the kitchen with what I can only describe as a not-headache brain fog... MAYBE I SHOULD GO BACK TO SLEEP DEPRIVING MYSLEF INTO WORKING PROPERLY BECAUSE IT'S BETTER THAN THIS OVERHEATING MUSH THAT I AM!! 

And I've tried over and over and over again – so in stars and time core – each time looking for a way to create consistently. To write this many words per day, to finish this piece to write this much to get this done, and the rare times I actually do it, it feels so good. It feels like living. Like being. Like my purpose on earth is finally being fulfilled. Each time I'll look at the environment – that's important right? - the specific writing platform, what I drank, whether I'm standing or sitting, which location I'm in, what time of day it is, what music I'm listening to, what morning routine or lack thereof I did that day... and think to myself 'this is it. I just need to repeat these things and I'll have this sense of flow every, single time without fail.  

And I do it again. No flow. Where's the flow? I'm back to being a pile of overheating mush and my fingers won't move and should I take a walk? But to take a walk I'd have to get shoes and get up and actually walk around and feel guilty that I'm not doing the thing and time is running out and oh no whyyyy I've been zoning out for fifteen minutes now. Why. Won't. My. Brain. Work.  

How did we waste an entire day? What did we even do?  

... how do we fix this?  

Growing is fine but I need to get somewhere eventually right? I know what the end goal should look like. I know. I know. I know. I can see it very clearly in my head but I'm not getting there and every time I do get that rare progress... it feels like it's for nothing.  It doesn't amount to anything or I get too perfectionistic an restart the whole project anyways.  

But I can feel, I know where the end lies and I can taste it, I can make it real in my head and yet I can't touch it. It isn't tangible and it's getting to the point where it's painful. Partially because I see the tangible results of everyone else's brains and I know my thing can be one of those things but it isn't. It's in my head. And it won't get out of my head.  

It hurts. 

And... listen, dear wonderer, dearest wanderer, precious being on the other side of the screen... I get it. I understand. It's a curse, creativity. If we could only find an answer, discover the secret in a youtube video with 50 views or a reddit post in the depths of a forum or on the tumblr dashboard after a good three hours of scrolling and refreshing. (You're searching. You'd get distracted anyways.) Maybe we'll even try a book. There must be answers somewhere.  And we try, and the answers only work for a day.  

So... is the answer to keep finding answers in a vicious cycle?  

Perhaps.  ... no I don't think so. Truthfully I don't think there are answers.  

But while we're here... these things work for me right now, they might not tomorrow. 

1) work in a way similar to how you played when you were small. I used to make my purpose crafting dolls so I wouldn't have to buy toys and feel guilty about breaking them. I never sat in a chair... felt weird, like being slowly encased in stone like a fossil while the flesh rots away... So nowadays I always stand up or sit on the floor... I could do with more stretching and walking though...  

2) Group similar tasks together and cycle between them. If you're writing a story... then do some writing for one character, plot a bit, rant to your friends, make a uquiz ~ shameless plug ~ write about the underlying themes... seriously that's what I'm doing right now and AFTER SIX HOURS FINALLY THE WORDS ARE FORMING HUZZAH HUZZAH.  

3) It is perfectly okay to sit outside or in a corner and just breathe for a bit. People call that meditation but for you it might just be 'wtf are my feelings doing and sometimes breathing is satisfying'. Also your eyes can be open. Also there's no instructions and no guidance and no way you can do it wrong. Feel the discomfort for a bit if you want. That is not wrong. You can feel the discomfort in full force and that is completely and totally okay. Also you're not that aware of anything because existence never felt like existing, it feels like virtual reality on a dimmer right? Either way, that's fine. It's okay to literally be doing absolutely nothing. NOTHING! STOP WORKING! IT IS OKAY! DAYDREAM! LAY ON THE FLOOR AND TALK TO YOURSELF! MAKE RANDOM SOUNDS AS YOU PACE AROUND A ROOM! GO CLOUD GAZING! ROLL DOWN A HILL! NO STIMULATION! OR SOME STIMULATION! ONLINE STIMULATION CAN BE A BIT ICKY SO TRY SOMETHING WITHOUT IT! CAN BE INSIDE AS WELL! WATCH THE SUN PLAY WITH DUST FOR A BIT! MAKE PICTURES OUT OF SHAPES IN THE TILE! 

There's this song from coke studio that refers to spinning in circles and forgetting your troubles. SO SPIN AROUND IN A CIRCLE! YOU! STILL! EXIST! ON! A FLOATING! ROCK! ISN'T THAT CRAZY!? 

I think as a society constantly doing something is so ingrained in us that – especially for those who find it hard to do anything it all – it's a constant guilt to be doing nothing... speaking of which! If every time you do nothing you feel guilty, then I recommend crafting something. Your brain can go completely blank and you can listen to some music and just do a semi-repetitive motion for a bit. I recommend needle felting. My brain counts it as productivity if I've made something.  

... and every time I feel flow-y enough to give advice on how to get there I have to stop myself and put in the disclaimer... I'm hyperfixated on in stars and time, which led me to be hyperfixated on my own story, so It's A LOT easier to create things right now. Alas, can't ever be easy, can't it? What are all of these, if not band-aid solutions? 

On and on the cycle goes, no end in sight, never held aloft for long... 

Point three: human beings, not human doings.... urgh well it's abstract but the flesh is your vessel, and the feelings are signals but so many different factors cause them that it's not worth attributing success to feelings that are going to change anyways. The most important thing... TO ME AT LEAST I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE IF THIS IS HEALTHY ...is to not give them too much importance, if you do, you'll fight against them and spend the whole day trying to stop feeling uncomfortable. Take a minute. Breathe. Let yourself struggle and try different things and get distracted and wallow around before the brain finally realizes what it's supposed to be doing. The hardest part is getting started. So, if you need more time to get started then most and it's a painful process, then be kind to yourself and understand that you simply take longer to start something and you won't be able to just 'sit down, no distractions and do something'  

FOR EXAMPLE,  

TODAY, THE DAY OF WRITING THIS SCRIPT  

So yesterday I overheated, couldn't do much, told myself not to regret anything even though this is a long weekend and once school comes about I know I'll be bursting at the seams with creative urges. I still have two more days.  

Day three.  Still overheating. Feel like I'm in a haze. Floating, drifting, Fuzzy, semi-pulsating stone are lodged in my brain and my head is zoning off so I can skip the daytime where it's all on the precipice of painful but barely even uncomfortable. Press my head into a wall and don’t even try... but if I distract myself with random things, especially if they're things I enjoy like a hyperfixation, then I'll fell icky and gross... like half liquified meat left at the back of the butcher's shop that's too cold.  

So I went outside – because my mom went outside and I went to follow her; if other people do something and you feel obligated to join them it's easier – wrote two sentences at a time, rambled about the OCs with friends, wrote down some backstory and characterization after a ~revelation~ still felt wholly unsatisfied with what I was doing and that my body was stuck on this floating rock with a borrowed existence that could very well be 99% haze and numbness and how selfish was I? To be given anything anyone could ever want in life and being unable to do anything substantial with it while people a quarter of my age with barely any resources are curing cancer or some shi- 

And things are... okay now? Spun around in a circle, kept writing, stared out the window for a bit, wandered around, existed in my weird way. If I'm in the sun I can say my hands are melting because of that and not because of internal dissatisfaction. Wrote a paragraph. That's alright. I did something!  

I suppose what I'm trying to say is... let the emotions be. Let them come and let them stay for a bit, fighting them will only cause them to root and whine and cry.  

AND ta da! Before I would spend the day trying to emotionally regulate then end the day berating myself for how I wasted my life away, today I wrote an entire script thing and feel weird but nothing a shower later can't fix! (I hope.)  

Sometimes you just forget to stim, to frolic outside and scream I suppose. Make a mental caretaker, a kind voice to nudge you softly into doing something or soothe the churning feelings like a grandparent with cookies. Treat your body like a creature that needs stimulation and to get out of the cage for a bit. I'm a hypocrite because I haven't drank water today and get about as much movement as a barnacle.  

And I've been rambling. Sigh sigh.  

Point four: radical acceptance and the sarcasm icon Nali.  

To those whose biggest distraction is trying to regulate their emotions:  

My friend introduced me to the topic of ~ radical acceptance ~. Accpeting the way the circumstances are and your feelings about the situation, and letting them be. (So Yaelokre's Harken core.)  

It was for Nali (oh noes my words are starting to leave me alas.)…. 

…. 

You are not your emotions. They are chemical signals and transitory randomness.  

Eew that felt way too 'buy my free course or none of your money back for 5 million dollars!"  

… I made a ko-fi premptivel- 

OKAY so one of the things that's helped me a lot with this whole 'existence business' is the idea that my emotions are mine but aren't the 'end all, be all'. They'll be awful sometimes and there's not much I can do about it other than notice that they exist and let them be uncomfortable, maybe even enjoy the discomfort like it's spicey food or something sour? (Is this healthy?) Let it churn my stomach and yank the strings puppeteering my heart, throw its fit, then leave, eventually, and from the outside I look exactly the same. (Well, I do anyways, family members think I'm calm. HA! What a joke.)  

It's a story, really. I'm the reader. I read the story, feel the emotions, like the emotions, no matter how painful they are. But I'm not supposed to fight against them. I'm supposed to feel what it wants me to feel so nothing is bad.  

Funnily enough for the most recent in stars and time hyperfixation I had a crisis over not feeling anything right even though I WAS TIRED and still FELT THINGS but I compared it too much to things I felt before so... brains are weird. That's my thesis. You all can go home now.  

So... Nali. Character! My dad told me once – and I'm not sure if this is accurate because he made me believe the hulk was real for the longest time – that in certain cultures people see art as a way to grow the artist rather than seeing the artist as just 'the creator of the art'.  

So taking that approach here...  

… I created this story to comfort myself. To tell myself that my emotions don't make any sense and don't do anything right and that's OKAY. Just because I don't feel anything when a family member needs comfort doesn't mean I don't love them. Just because I don't feel any care for my potted plants doesn't mean I don't enjoy taking care of them (I should give them water...) Just because I don't feel what I've categorized as 'enjoyment' doesn't mean I'm not actually-  

I WANTED TO EXPLAIN THIS SEGEMTN IN STORY METAPHOR THING BUT THAT NEVER SEEMS TO WORK FOR SOME REASON!  

AAAAAAA-  

Anuli is the main character because fae makes all these rules for how fae should feel things and why fae should feel them and if faer emotions aren't right then fae gets upset and thinks the tether will eat faer whole. So Anuli gets very obsessive over clinging to things that make faer happy and trying to preserve that happiness even if it means destroying faerself.   Contrast that with Nali, who accepts the world as it is, society as something that traumatizes the kind ones, overworks the creative ones, and feeds cult-like behavior to the grateful ones. Fae doesn't like it, but fae's lived with it for so long that fae registers the same societal cycle, stealing away all the light from faer friends eye's, with mild disappointment. Fae predicted this all along. And it barely even matters to faer anymore. It's all a joke, just one cosmic joke, and fae accepts it all, with an unhealthy dose of sarcasm, obviously. Tell everyone not to hope too much and still they act surprised when faer predictions come true. It's so, so funny.  

Obsession versus levity. Clinging versus mild acknowledgement. Wow foils. Wow characterization. Wow I've never had these two interact before.  

But if there is anything like answer, it might lie somewhere in between? Some sort of balance. To acknowledge and give emotions and thoughts and distractions the weight they need but not too much to the point where you're hyper-regulating them.  

… I think I've lost the original point of the script. ALAS! THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS!  

I should stop while I'm ahead, and turn the conversation over to you, dear wanderer, dear wonderer. Here's my thoughts, and I've love to hear what you think, any advice you have, what to do when your brain is the most distracting thing, let's find some semblance of an answer together!