Thanks riku. Alright, maybe if you go through this with me (any of you, all of you, none of you, over a few days or weeks) it will help clarify some things for me. There are going to be a few "yes, but" 'ssss on my part. Maybe you will see something I don't in my rationalizations. Hopefully, after this first post I can abbreviate my responses considerably.
Here goes. First yes, but:
Yes, riku, I think that would be a great thing for me to do (actually, I think that is a wonderful idea, seriously), but I have a very bad track record of starting something and not following through with it. I tend to quit too soon due to boredom or loss of interest or anxiety or lack of sleep, something. Take trying to get back into shape by working out at the gym, as an example. As it is, I get NO exercise. Walking from my kitchen to my computer room to my bedroom to my living room is it.
So, this past November, I am talking to my grandfather (who turned 80 in January and is a smoker too and has had 3 heart attacks, but is a great man in my eyes). We decide to join the gym here at the hospital together. We do, at the beginning of December ($40 for one month). We work out together (bikes, treadmills, stairsteppers, that kind of thing). The first week we go on M/W/F. We take it slow at first. Everything's good. The next week we go on M/W. He has a doctor's appointment on Friday, so I go by myself on Friday. The next week, some other stuff comes up for him (my great-grandmother's will and estate, she just died). So, I go on M and W by myself. He's still busy on F. I don't go Friday. Next week, I go on Monday, for the last time, this time. The end.
This whole four weeks, I'm getting more and more tired of the same old thing everyday. Gradually, from week to week, I'm enjoying it less and less. We were going at 11:00 in the morning because he is a morning person, and I'm sooooo not a morning person anymore, so we compromised on 11. This whole 4 weeks, I'm having a harder and harder time going to sleep on the nights before the workout days. The less I enjoy it, the more trouble I have getting to sleep. My mind races while laying in bed on those nights, "Dog, I really don't want to go do this tomorrow. It's so boring. Dog, but you should, you know you need to. Dogdammit, I know I should, but I am sick of it. Well, goddammit, just call your granddad and tell him you you can't go so early. No, I've got to get up and go on time or he'll be disappointed. Well, fuck it all!" One night, I might wear myself out in this fashion and get to sleep. Another night, I might not, and I make that call. One day I go, even though I feel like shit after getting only 2-3 hours sleep. Another day, I don't go.
Eventually, after a week or two of this internal turmoil, when I feel I can't take it anymore, I call the whole thing off. Now, this is with someone I love and respect, my grandfather, who somewhat understands my situation. Who understands my depression. My anxieties. My angers. My fears. My weaknesses. My violence.
Now, take your example riku. Say I commit to going on these tours of elementary or high schools for people I don't know, don't love in the same way I do my grandfather. People who don't know me, don't understand me, won't understand why I'm not there on time, or there at all, when the time comes for me to give up. And that time always comes. If it doesn't, I break. Usually some thing or someone else.
This same pattern has been with me since college. Junior year is the first time I have a problem with this. I hate my college with a passion. It's a cruel and evil place, if you believe in evil. I'm always pushed just a little farther than I should be, in ways that noone should ever be pushed, by upper-classmen that are power-mad and too angy, too hungry, too much like me.
My junior year, I snap. I intentionally sleep through two early morning classes after having not been able to get to sleep the night before for similar reasons as the above. Mind racing. Anxious. Angry. Nervous tension. I even see a doctor on post about it. A Psychiatrist. For the first time in my life. It is hard to admit I need to. Almost impossible. She says I need to do more exercise. Inside, I call bullshit. There's no possible way to do more. I leave her and don't go back.
The next morning, I say fuck it, I'm not going to class. Fuck them all. Fucking cunts. This whole fucking place is fucking stupid. I can sleep finally (at 7:30 in the morning), and I go to sleep. I get punished for that, harshly. (This is West Point, if I haven't let everyone know that yet. U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY. I do hold a grudge). I get 70 hours on the area. That is several weekends in a row of walking back and forth on a paved area, much like a parking lot, in full dress uniform, rifle on my shoulder at quick time. No talking. No stopping. Back and forth. Back and forth. 2-3 hours on Friday after classes. 4-6 hours on Saturday, rain, snow or shine. Locked in my dorm room on Sunday (except for church services, of course). I have a choice. Submit somehow to their authority, or not. I choose not, to a degree. Irrationally.
I never miss another class, but inside I'm angry. I'm fuming. I'm ready to go further than sleeping through some stupid fucking classes where you sit at attention in a perfectly sterile classroom and listen to some perfectly sterile Captain or Major pound the lessons into you. I don't go farther though. Luckily or not. I no longer care about my studies. I begin to think that not learning is the only safe way to rebel against the corrupt, abusive, idiotic system. Those fuckers are never going to put me back on that area. I won't let them do that, but I won't buy into their stupid fucking system either. So, irrationally and very emotionally, I cut my own feet off. I stop learning. I stop trying my hardest. This is where it all started. This is probably where it's going to end.
Now, if you've made it this far, this pattern of getting angry and quitting has been with me since those years at west point. 4 years there. 4 years on active duty as a lieutenant. 4 years and 12 cvilian jobs from, let's say '96 to 2000. 1 year of living off my IRA's and retirement money. 5 years of disability for depression/anxiety/PTSD/ADHD, whatever the fuck it may or may not be. And every year, every occurrence of the above, I get a little weaker. I get a little more unsure of myself. I get a little more angry at myself. I get a little more disappointed in myself. To wit, today I am a shell of a human being, just trying to get from one day to the next. One tiny little success/battle to the next. Making time with my computer is battle enough, for now. I'm winning that battle. I'm losing the war. There isn't enough time. But I'm going to keep going for as long as I can. I'm not going to let them beat me.
Now, what's my next "yes, but?" I know you've got one. I know I need one.
