With each passing day I spend time on the internet I become a stronger proponent of going outside.
I've said it countless times before, but "social media" and most communication channels in general don't prioritize communication whatsoever, rather your attention, and they'll get that by any means necessary. Outside of your own feed, you'll be spoonfed some odd shit betwixt stuff you'd be vaguely interested in. I found that home robbery self-defense videos were more prominently pushed than stuff that'd fit my own interests/advertiser profile on X (the Free Speech App)-- in a sea of baseball, horses and pornography of the Grok girl-- mind you that this could be different for everyone. Case and point they try to incite strong emotion in you to stay longer and in turn encounter more ads. Nothing new that I haven't said before. You still have to think what prolonged exposure to such things does to your own psyche.
Nietzsche told me (personally) that my only good ideas occur to me when I'm outside, so I go outside on a leisurely walk every so often. I often carry my smartphone because everyone else does. Occasionally I take photos of wildlife and the cloud patterns but other than that I really have no reason to take this thing with me. Sometimes I find myself looking at the score of a White Sox-Rockies game or looking at my hair through my camera. It's a complete distraction and with my route being extremely close to where I live I began to see no reason why I even continued to carry it in the first place. I decided to let myself be completely alone with my thoughts and surroundings, ceasing to carry it altogether on these absent-minded strolls. This led me to rediscover some things about myself that I had maybe forgotten about outright.
It's no secret to myself that I have a vivid imagination. Maybe I can attribute most of my mind's hyperactivity as of recent to my long-running caffeine habit, but it's never not been true. It's also been to my detriment, often breaking my focus in places where I should really be paying attention. Critically analyzing these behaviors of mine led me to believe that I had some symptoms of ADHD for a bit, but really I believe it's just a result of my aforementioned habit paired with the amount of brain rotting sludge I've been subjected to over the past 3 years. These thoughts can also be rather intrusive to a point where I rattle myself. I haven't been able to sleep more times as a result of a sudden existential dread than me just not being tired. Yesterday, I remembered they could take form even when I'm active.
During this walk of mine, I could feel my heart begin to beat substantially faster and a splint on my side beginning to form for no reasons related to my physical health; recall that I am in rather well shape, which didn't stop me from beginning to lose my breath. It had to be something about being completely alone and only with my person, because these reactions werent warranted by any sort of stimuli I encountered on the walk-- nothing seen, heard, or anything of the sort-- it was almost certainly a stress reaction with my mind as my culprit. It acts separate to what I perceive myself. My ape brain is still alive and well, prepared to jump on every invisible threat I involuntarily hallucinate for myself.
It had been a bit since I suffered from unchecked aggression or paranoia, so afterwards I had to take a step back a bit and ask myself what, if anything, warranted this beyond face value. There were many factors that fit into this equation. The heat, for one. I had been directly in the sun for 30 minutes in the duration of that walk. It's no secret that excessive heat contorts the mind in a plethora of ways. It was Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken that taught me that. Once more it could've been caffeine but I had none before deciding to go out on my walk. The case of "phone withdrawal" is curious, because it wouldn't apply in the same way that it would apply to others. I hardly use the thing compared to most but I was still without a channel of communication regardless. I could see it: the subconscious fear of something going wrong without access to any sort of instant help. There were some people in my vicinity who could potentially come to my aid in the case of a cartoonishly instant emergency, but on that day it was especially hot, and only sickos (including me) were out and about at evening time. Could be testosterone too, I have a lot of that. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to run really fast or punch really hard with my life on the line, or maybe for death to take me quick before I start having e-sex with Grok. I digress.
Disregarding what was said above I feel like other important factors in the sudden onset of my persecutory delusions (or just plain old existential dread) is the fact that my adolescence has always been characterized with paranoia, beginning with the pandemic. It awarded me a level of comfort that was worrying as I had no obligations to anyone anymore (for the time being); I delved deeper into social isolation while researching ways I could become completely invisible or forfeiting my current identity altogether. My takeaways from this were learning how to use OpenBSD and also finding out that the latter was possible in Germany. Don't be mistaken though, the moment I get my Greek citizenship and access to the Schengen Area by proxy I will immediately set up shop and give myself a Filipino name. I'm thinking of "Kiritsugu Uriel Hijiri Grimmjow de la Cruz" personally. These tendencies were not an innate part of my character regardless of my exstacy towards the idea of physical pseudonymity, but rather a response or a learned hopelessness to the fleeting nature of my relationships in my early life thanks to the constant moving done by my family around that time. It didn't matter how I felt towards any one person knowing they would be forgotten not soon after. Even the idea of "keeping contact" didn't interest me much. Anyways that's how I probably developed ScPD.
... Which is yet again why I'm so confused about the crippling emotion I sometimes experience when I'm alone. Have I just been misconstruing what I really desire for all this time? It's not like I've done away with the idea of close companionship either-- I would certainly like my wife by my side daily-- it's just that, despite how normal this has been for me, this persecution I hallucinate never really seems to be done away with altogether, it comes and it goes, but it never leaves. No better or worse at present time but varying in intensity, usually related to stress, to where I often fall deeper into delusion. All of this to say that I should probably stay on top of my work when the time comes.
If I were in 19th century Europe, I would be able to morph these ideas into word salad metaphysical literature which would then become cult classics centuries later, but here we are on the trueblissfuldeath web site. Read my blog or I'll really do it.
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