Litany

There are few things I find myself repeating over and over. I repeat them because they are true, or I haven't realized them completely, or I don't have a good way to describe them. Whatever the reason, it annoys me to find myself returning to saying the same things. It's along the lines of : "I've already said that. It's lame to merely repeat it again."

So what exactly am I thinking of, that I keep repeating ad nauseam?

It seems I have "realized" around three times in a row, now, that I gave not been living or thinking the way that I want. (Not just want, but think I morally ought. The way that is _right for me to think and live._) Maybe it is slightly different each time, but really it is the same damn thing. Each time a revelation, but I should have already known it from the last time....

I keep saying that I will return to topics at some point and finish or rewrite them. Which isn't so bad, except it is for almost everything I write and I do not return to them more than 50% of the time.

I keep hesitating and not speaking up about things. On topics I care about, or to people I want to know, or people I want to get back in touch with, or pursuing things I'm interested in.

I keep intending to take care of business but never getting around to it.

I keep talking about myself and my emotions and thoughts about how I live. And then feeling ashamed that I keep doing it so much of the time. While all the things I say matter to me, it's all silliness. For one, I keep doing it, over and over. And besides that, the things I react so strongly to don't seem like they should be so overblown and important. They hardly change anything, or are obvious, or are just so insignificant compared to all of the good things I have and all of the bad things I have never had to deal with. It doesn't help that they are so simple and obvious things that everyone knows and hears. (Actually, that fact isn't so bad. Realizing how general principles should be taken in each instance is a far cry from being aware of the vaguest of advice.) No. Rather, the thing that bothers me most about it is closer to the nagging annoyance that I'm devoting so much attention to me. It all just reeks of shallowness and id. There are other reasons it is distasteful too - it doesn't seem healthy. It seems so limited when there are things a thousand times more interesting, more important than the specifics of my conscious. I wouldn't like to see it in others, especially such compulsive necessity, and so frequently. And yet. All of that negative reaction to it drops away if I were only doing it for myself, it's the knowledge that I'm pushing it on someone else that is aversive - each time I do it for myself I know I am working through something bothering me and it's interesting to understand how and why I think the way I do. I even like the overall concept of doing that; understand ourselves and why and how we think.... That is, until I actually do it in the light of someone else's gaze. Then how self-absorbed and simplistic to have such a focus on such a thing.

I keep telling myself I will do better, I will work harder, I will do the things I list as wanting to do. And I continue not making a significant difference one way or the other.

I keep noticing good and nice things, paying them mind and feeling generally harmonious and amicable and content and blissful, but never do these things get the same attention I pay to my troubles. I don't record them nearly as often, even though they are almost often as important and I want them to last just as much.

Along with that, I keep not giving myself credit or being satisfied when I accomplish things. Maybe it's my standards being too high, but I suspect it is closer to never being very comfortable or familiar with being happy for having done something. I like it about myself that I care more about the reasons behind and the intention. Being satisfied that I am good rather than I am doing good. Which would be fine, except I am not in possession of the same self assurance that I used to have, many years ago.

It also ties back to talking about myself. Part of it is not liking that I am acting in such a way, and part of it is really feeling inconsistent with how I think of myself. I don't think of myself as constantly critiquing the very foundation of how I think. I don't think of myself as gloomy or easily upset or insecure. The complete opposite, yet I've been acting very much contrary wise. I don't think of myself as caring about grades, and yet I am so very hesitant to act so. I don't think of myself as unsocial, and yet I have no close friends here. I don't think that I am lazy and yet I frequently have been doing as little work as I can get away with. I don't think of myself as dependent, and yet sometimes I wonder how much I would be lost without Jackson. I am used to thinking that I am naturally disconnected from the way everyone else thinks, but it would appear that isn't so.

Saying so reminds me of another thing, I am getting tired of saying, "that is not how I used to be," and constantly commenting on how I have changed or no longer am the way I had been. I am interested in comparing how I am to how I used to be and figuring out why, but it seems to never stop coming up. The alternative is to just think of it in terms of "this is how I am now" which might be better, I don't know.

I wish I would stop finding myself repeating the same tired ideas and concepts and phrases, and I am somewhat consoled to see many different themes have come and gone through my life. As much as I don't like how I repeat myself, at the same time, I don't want to just turn away from a topic for the sake of turning away because an old point has reared its head again. I keep thinking these things for a reason. Because they /are/ relevant to me right now, and I /do/ need to keep working through them over and over until they are cleared away and I am completely free of whatever is still dissatisfying me.