definition of insanity
Listening to: “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” by St. Etienne
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result
Albert Einstein
Hope is a tricky thing. I’m not sure why I’m feeling hopeful that anything will change at this juncture, considering that I’ve done nothing to change my approach.
Frankly, I’ve been pretty good at setting myself up for the fall.
Which reminds me of something I wrote four years ago:
It isn’t until now that I appreciate the deceptive nature of the month of May. I suppose that ever since I was a chile, May has always meant endings, but also the promise of new beginnings. The final full month of school, with glimpses of the summer ahead. But I’ve grown to learn that, more often than not, such promises never come to fruition.
The Promise of New Beginnings • 2013 May 13 • Norcom Basic Notebook
As I survey the disaster area known as my apartment, I fantasize about buying a flamethrower and just burning away all my crap lying around all over the place. This is too much. It would be easier to give up and just start over again. Time to enter the witness protection program, change my name, and move away.
Reality continues to ruin my life
Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes
I don’t know why I’m such an extremist. It’s either all good or all bad. The fulfillment of all my dreams versus complete and utter disaster. I’m really not very good at picking the middle road. I’m always catastrophizing. (Is that even a real word?)
With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out.
“Long-term or short-term?” she asks.
Both.
“Long-term,” she says, “we’re all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we’re going to live happily ever after.” Really?
“Really,” she says. “So don’t sweat…. Can you just relax and let things happen?” I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen?
“And Joy,” she says, “and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment…. You don’t have to control everything,” she says. “You can’t control everything.”
But you can be ready for disaster….
“If you worry about disaster all the time, that’s what you’re going to get….”
The whole world is a disaster waiting to happen….
“No matter what happens,” [she] says, “no matter what you do… it’s the right thing.”
from Survivor by Chuck Pahlaniuk