The Hourglass Sand is Slipping Through ….

He was trying to buy more sand for his hourglass. I wasn’t selling any.

Recently, it’s been difficult to sleep. I’ve always had atrocious sleeping patterns, but they were usually resolved by staying busy. I had a theory, and a successful method that the more I worked my body in a day, the easier it was to sleep.

I could avoid my usual nightmares and just slip straight into Non-REM.

I don’t like dreaming any more than I do wasting time in a revolving door. Both don’t really serve a particular function to me, and I would rather be conscious, creating actively, than filming something imaginary in my sleep.

The fact that they are always fleeting memories, irritate me to no end, and I can’t help but think that the residue of feeling left behind by a dream is more frustrating than anything meaningful.

I will say though, that the longer I stay up, the more troubled I am, the more internal conflict I seem to generate.

That is my conduit into writing well. The closer night is edged away by sunlight, the faster and more sharply I write. I’ve always considered the hours between 2am to 4am the best time for me to genuinely feel inspired to craft long personal soliloquies about my struggles.

The night is silent, my thoughts are loud, and there is only the sensation of typing to accompany both.

Beyond recent lockdowns affecting my mental health and moods, I’ve noticed that I’m a lot quieter and louder at the same time. I don’t seem to have the same grip on myself as I normally do.

I’m reticent in the sense that I don’t talk as much, yet vociferous at the same time, because when I do, all I hear is rubbish spewing out of my mouth.

Somehow I’ve reach a level where my mind is simultaneously silent inside, devoid of interesting thoughts, yet brash because it prattles on too much, about nothing.

Much Ado About Nothing is very much the name of the game for my own development nowadays.

2 years of lockdowns have worn me, as a person, down to such a boring state of mind. I find myself letting go of things, giving up easier and struggling to find motivation to do simple tasks like exercising or eating.

Hell, there was a moment where for an entire hour, I sat on my bed deliberating whether I could actually taste food properly. Everything seemed to taste flat and I was puzzled by the lack of flavour in my palette.

It was then, I realised that I had sunk into such a funk, fallen from such a height, that my body was now reflecting how I felt mentally.

I’m not a person that can be cooped up inside for very long. I’ve realised that about myself a long time ago, when I strived to achieve a better work-life balance. It is only ever self-destructive for a person of my attitude and fortitude.

I need to be active, treat every day like I am about to collapse from exhaustion. Ensure that every 24 hours is spent maximising myself to the limits. Whether it is reading a chapter of a book, working hard for 8 hours, writing difficult prose, slamming a racquet against a ball towards a wall, pounding my feet on the pavement with a plate carrier … I need to be doing multiple things a day and kept busy every waking moment.

Before the lockdowns, that was my routine. I did all of those things in a day. I was determined to make the most of my life. I felt alive knowing that I was pushing my own personal limits and that my routine was contributing to a greater goal of mine.

But this latest lockdown has caused a strange deterioration inside of me. I can see myself becoming more nihilistic, a bit more despondent, troubled by strange things and unsure of what to say to people. My mind, once empty and reactive, is now full and insecure.

I can sense my mind overthinking too much nowadays, a definitive weakness that I never had to deal with before.

Overthinking leads to insecurities, and an increase in my insomnia. It makes me less charismatic.

I’m scoffing to myself now. It’s funny how when I write these things, I discover more about myself. I’ve always known that I express myself best through words than any other means. Writing will forever be my therapeutic self-discovery tool of choice.

Less charismatic.

That is the perfect way to describe how I feel about myself nowadays. Whereupon once I could easily draw upon my bountiful self-esteem and ego, both metaphorical wells have been depleted by my lack of engagement in life.

I’m frustrated that so much of my life is out of my control. I take my use of time so seriously, that to lose 2 years of my life to some disease beyond my supremacy is difficult to console in my mind.

2 years of potential growth, progress and dreams, vanquished by some disease.

Even now, I am furious about that loss. But that anger does not mean that I should give up on everything else. Just because I lost a lot of time, does not equate to me giving in to nihilism, which is exactly what has been happening to me for the past 2 weeks.

I need to pull myself together again. I need to take charge of myself and recuperate, recharge and re-energize.

There is no pleasure in pity.

I’ve been pitiful and allowed the sands of my hourglass to slip through my hands for long enough now.

It is time that I’ve flipped the damn thing and let time reset itself again.

I need to look after myself more and start getting busy. All this mulling about, napping unnecessarily and eating extravagantly has to stop.

I’ve always considered my ability to analyse myself, become aware of my self-destructive nature and put a stop to it all, one of my greatest strengths.

I will never let myself stray too far from my own lofty goals with such savage self-analysis.

Because at the end of the day, there is no one to look after me, but my id, ego and superego.

I can’t be charismatic if I feel like crap.

I can’t be fit if I continue to balloon up.

I can’t be deadly if I don’t get serious.

The way I see it there’s two types of people, those who spend their lives trying to build a future and those who spend their lives trying to rebuild the past – Max Payne 3 (2012).

And I’m done trying to rebuild a past where I’m some loser.

Pandemic or no pandemic, this isn’t the time for me to lose the plot

This was actually the time for me to cup the sands of time and wrestle back my damn destiny and luck.

Luck is never luck, if you are in control of your life.

It just becomes fortune.

~ Damocles