Overwhelmed

My method of computing is unsustainable. Firefox boasts 50 open tabs spanning over half a dozen distinct topics including programming, philosophy, and politics. Mastodon blares at me whenever someone mentions me, tempting me into the timeline. Element bombards me with messages from a dozen chatrooms, goading me into messaging friends and acquaintances every moment. Emacs sits, waiting for me to continue writing my half-written essay, one-paragraph gemlog, or barely-started short story.

I can't focus on anything. I can't do anything positive. In a desire to do everything, I do nothing. When I want to program a new useful tool, I get caught up checking my email. While I try to I write an uplifting response to someone on the Fediverse, an enraging political post catches my eye.

Everything I want to do haunts me at once. Attempting to think of everything, my mind is vacant. I can't enjoy any one activity for fear of another being more important or fulfilling. But in the end none are. I end up less energy than I started.

A person can't live this way. We were not designed to have dozens of voices screaming at us at all times. We were not made to worry about the opinions of hundreds of people we've never met.

Humans are resilient. When we are pushed down, we can come back up higher than before. But if we're beat down over and over again, we don't have time to recover for the next blow.

Humans don't multitask, they multi-toggle, switching from one activity to the next. The more we toggle, the less time we spend on each task individually, until the progress on each becomes insignificant or unnoticeable. Focus and discipline are lost, and contentment vanishes.

I want to be free from this, to be unaffected by the stressed of these voices, but I also want to experience the pleasure of a warming community. The bombardment of voices makes me assume everyone is acting in bad faith. I think everyone is playing a game and has bad intentions in their every move. My attention to the multitude of voices, even honest and helpful ones, have limited my ability to maintain deep relationships with my own family and friends. I take on toxicity and pass it along. At best it's perceived as apathy. At worst, cruelty.

A person needs fewer voices in their life. Uplifting and encouraging ones. Ones that can be trusted and don't beat a person's heart into immobility. Quality over quantity. Kind people. Loving people. I have several friends like this (you know who you are ♡), but I don't spend enough time with them. Their are dear to me, but my soul has been exhausted to the point that I can't love them properly, and I'm worried I'll hurt them because of it.

To carry stones, we don't start by lifting a boulder before proceeding to grab a smaller one. No. We pick up a pebble, then another, then maybe a larger one when we've mastered carrying our few. If we carry weight far beyond our limits, we will be exhausted before we barely take a step. But if we lift just a little more than our ability, we can journey far, and get stronger along the way.

9 August 2021