Lately if I could remember my own name, I consider it a success worthy of the Nobel prize. My mind has just been in a funk lately, uninspired to blog, uninspired to plan any new trips, uninspired to do pretty much of anything except roll into bed and sleep for a 100 years.
And I think I know why I’ve become like this lately. I have the kind of mind that needs to be stimulated in order to stay sharp, or in other words, to be challenged with a concept or a puzzle that forces me to engage my brain juices. The times I feel most alive are the times when I’m exploring something new (and hence why I’ve been infected by the wanderlust bug.) Uncharted territory that kicks my mojo into action so it can start processing this new, uncharted information and try to make sense of it all.
You know what helped in this regard? What REALLY helped a LOT? Having friends. Actual, living, breathing friends I could relate to, who were blessed with an intelligence that often challenged my own. It’s just a fact plain as day that close friends will make you see the world in a way you haven’t considered before, offering perspectives and truths that would have never even occurred to you. Think Odd Couple, Shawn and Gus (from Psych), Tango and Cash, Milo and Otis. There’s a biblical proverb about friendship: “iron sharpens iron…” that bore a simple truth as to why my mind was far more active, and why I actually FELT better whenever I conversed with my closest friends on a regular basis. They got me to THINK.
And now I want to kill them all.
Imagine if you will, your favorite restaurant opened a new place just down the road from you. And by favorite I mean every conceivable goodie that has ever blessed your taste buds, they have in ample supply. A restaurant so good God would be happy to build that same restaurant into your future heavenly mansion just because He knows how much you love it so. Not only that, but this restaurant has a book section, so you can go in, order your favorite whoopie pie with a stack of fried twinkies toothpicked on top just for good measure, curl up with a nice book, and engage your mind and senses in a immensely satisfying way. And even better, the fried twinkies are actually healthy for you (yes yes I know, but this is an analogy, so shut up, fitness freaks.)
But… imagine if suddenly, that restaurant changed its policy so that it’s now open only once a week. And then shortly after THAT, the policy changed again so it’s now open only once a month.
So what happens when you find the ONE PROVEN THING that can keep the gears in your head chugging along in blissful ease is now only available to you once a month? Suddenly, a mind once pondering Einstein’s theory of relativity is now either in a drunken stupor, or completely mad with blind, unhinged rage.
That’s me now. That’s what happened when “friends,” who once had all the time in the world for me, now have NO time for me because they need to tend to their stupid jobs and stupid families and other stupid obligations that have consumed their lives so completely that if I died today, they wouldn’t learn of my demise for another 6 or 7 months. What about ME, huh? What about MY needs?
And now that I’ve been thoroughly abandoned, I’m forced to find something else to occupy my mind with, except that now, I’m so unmotivated and drained of energy that I can’t even do that anymore. Maybe it has to do with having befriended another person recently I seemed to connect with, only to find that SHE has no time for me either. Seriously, why do I even bother anymore? So now, I’m just kind of coasting along on auto pilot, wandering aimlessly in the world (and more recently in Star Trek Online, where I’m currently engaged in a passionate love affair with my Borg officer), wondering if I’ll ever find another version of my favorite restaurant again that will actually stay OPEN this time.
Yearning, for my calorie free fried twinkies and whoopie pies.



