I get it now! Well, here is another half complete post. I am out of ideas. Read this at the risk of your own boredom, the peril of an active mind. I had intended to go back end remove everything that didn't matter, but couldn't, that would be the subset of everything below:
My mind is blank. I am looking at a 12 hour day today at work. I can think of nothing else. At the end of it I will know more than I previously did. That's all. It is small, but it is something.
I want to lie around all day and eat pre-peeled fruit while I casually browse magazines.
That, and play with the new camera. I have already discovered significant vignetting in one of my lenses when shooting wide open, at f1.4. It is the cheapest lens that I have, so... I hope things get better from here. I will have to start shooting in daylight more.
I have tired of being in the city, living like a half-witted Romany. I look forward to working from home again soon. It allows me to have and keep so much more of my life. How much can any of us handle?
I have run out of things that I want, at least temporarily. My mid-life crisis is rolling along right on schedule. I own 6 cameras and 9 lenses, and I'm still looking. Ever since Rachel bought a new car I want one also. Suddenly it seems to be the most sensible thing that I could possibly do, yet I hadn't really thought about it or considered it a few weeks ago.
Drinking one night did not send me spiraling into an unrecoverable alcoholic frenzy. So many people had told me how a return to it would result in previously unknown levels of abuse, no matter how long I've abstained. It was a guarantee.
Again, they were wrong.
I've been relatively patient and have listened carefully to what people have to say about drinking for four months. Now I am tired of hearing most of it. So much of it seems to be only temporarily true, or situationally so. People pass through different stages of their lives where they are vulnerable to overuse. Those stages seem to come and go for many, gradually decreasing over time for some, even as the effects of alcohol become more pronounced as people age. Myself included.
So many do not believe this, or can not. They must believe that any drinking results exclusively in self destruction through immediate escalation of intake, nothing else.
I don't know why it should surprise me to discover that people don't know what they're talking about. Or, can only believe one thing and insist that all experience reduce itself to that belief, their belief.
I will say this though, and I believe it to be true: abstaining is easier that moderating. I have tried moderating and was pretty good at it for periods of time. But then I would forget that was the goal.
It's too easy to not care, to negotiate with yourself. It feels good when drinking: the not caring, or caring less.
But the feeling does not seem to be what is actually always happening. There is a substantial difference between not caring and hating the sensation of caring, the weight of its responsibility; proving to some inner voice that you can do as you please. That is neither the same as caring or not caring. It is something different.
Managing grievances - real or perceived - seems easier when out from under the influences of alcohol.
So, there is that to consider.
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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Dylan
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