literally.
It’s literally hailing. Right now. At my house, in Phoenix, AZ.
I love summer hail storms. 100 degree day, hail storm at 5PM in the afternoon.
Beautiful.
Storms like clockwork are nice, too. Did you ever notice that the “monsoon” storms we get later in the summer seem to hit at almost precisely 5PM every day, too? Beautiful.
I’m not allowed to bitch about the things in my life I want to bitch about. I’m not allowed to talk or type about this or that or the other thing going on in my life because for some reason I’ve begun associating with people who think privacy exists and have asked me to play along. It’s stupid.
And frankly, I’ve begun to break.
I’ve begun to let things slip here and there. Things that have no business being confidential at this point. Some of which I didn’t think had any business being confidential at the time. I don’t get it. it’s like a combination of dishonesty and shame, this secrecy business. I don’t do things I’m ashamed of, I don’t like being dishonest, I don’t like other people being dishonest to me, and my general opinion is that if people are ashamed of the things they’re doing that they shouldn’t be doing them.
So what’s with all these secrets?
Why do people live lives they’re ashamed of?
Why do people lie to each other?
I can understand a certain amount of discretion, a certain amount of silence around people with known intolerances, because you can’t change other people, but leading a life you yourself cannot tolerate (or tolerate others knowing you’re living it, which seems equivalent to me) — why do people do that?
Ugh. Another post about not posting about my life. I could tell you I’m less depressed now than before, but I can’t tell you about my life, my job, my friends, my love life, what’s important to me or what’s going on and been going on to push my moods around the spectrum. I am reduced to meaning less than this, to meaninglessness.
Less than this, but about to break.
(New Living Translation)
Wisdom for Life
1 A good reputation is more valuable than the most expensive perfume. In the same way, the day you die is better than the day you are born.
2 It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die, and you should think about it while there is still time.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us.
4 A wise person thinks much about death, while the fool thinks only about having a good time now.
How do you handle stressful situations?
- Anger
- Calmly working out a solution
- Complaining to anyone who will listen
- Moping alone
Ah, a more detailed answer. Ah, journaling on OKCupid… I suppose I’ll have to copy this over to lessthanthis.com, where I ‘normally’ do my journalling. Anyway, moving on…
I suppose it depends on how stressful the situation is for me; most of the time I’m able to calmly work out a solution to potentially stressful situations before they really get bad. Sometimes I’m not so lucky; usually when the source of stress is a human being, and moreso when it is a human being I care deeply about (and/or love). In those situations where, despite my best efforts, I am unable to work things out calmly, I take all three of the other options… not at once, not usually even serially, it just depends on the situation.
Like with a recent situation with an ex that became quite stressful and which she insisted remain secret: I respected her wishes and did not speak to anyone about it who didn’t already know, cutting off the ‘Complaining’ option in this case. I still cannot discuss the circumstances (I have yet to determine the statute of limitations on this secret), but getting angry couldn’t have solved or changed anything about the situation, so I didn’t really bother with that, either. Mostly I just kept quiet after offering what I could to try to calmly work the situation out, moping alone.
But when my new car started giving me problems three days off the lot and the dealership tried not to talk to me at all and then only to tell me the problems wouldn’t be covered – without even looking at the car – I was already stressed out when I had walked into the dealership, and after trying to work it out calmly, resorted to anger. My anger got the guy to at least look at the car and give me the time of day (actually, his name and phone number, so I could register an official complaint with his corporate masters later), though he still refused to help me. Luckily, even though I had already got angry, when I spoke for the nth time that day to corporate I was able to remain calm and explain (complain about) the situation again (to someone in a call center with no chance of controlling the guy at the dealership, but who at least listened and did something instead of listening and telling me to go to the dealership) and get the help I needed.
So… All of these. Depends on the situation, depends on the stressor.
You know, forming a hypothesis, designing an experiment to test it, performing (and repeating) the experiment, and comparing the results to the hypothesis to see whether it was disproved. Not consciously, anyway. Some might hypothesize that I do a lot of casual, subconscious science all the time, but I’m not sure how to design an experiment to test that hypothesis, or that any data I collected about myself would be valid.
My brain keeps … well, it’s like I have cravings, except rather than cravings for particular foods, they’re to design and perform a series of experiments, or to use experimental design to optimize systems… except I don’t usually have anything to optimize or clear hypothesis to test, and I just continue to go about my business. Which just makes me more frustrated next time the craving comes up.