Stress & Distractions

Lately, I've found my life settling into some sense of normalcy for the first time since my time on active duty in the Army which began in 2004.  That is, I've got steady work and a stable home with little likelihood of seismic, life-altering events in the future.  And gradually, I've begun to take better care of myself, eating better, drinking less, exercising more regularly.  Recently, it even occurred to me that I should resume my meditation practice.

This shift revealed one of the chief coping mechanisms I employed during that stressful period--distraction.  I got through active duty by consuming too much bourbon, Playstation 2, and Reno 911.



Immediately after Katrina, I found myself, while completely exhausted, nonetheless staying up to all hours, refusing to sleep, and learned of other New Orleanians doing the same.  And in recent years, my once voracious news consumption has been replaced with a voracious comedy consumption.  The news itself seems like a joke, jokes with many set-ups but the same punchline--The wealthy and powerful are fucking over everyone else.  Now if I'm going to consume jokes, I prefer ones that will make me laugh over those that will make me cry.  Of course, what all of these practices have in common is a desire to avoid reality, to give myself something to think about that is immediately more pleasurable than the horrible circumstances around me.

Over the last few weeks, I've found myself once again in stressful circumstances at work.  There, we're on a tight schedule to turn an exercise in research and development into something that is operational and sell-able. So when I initiated the next task at hand, I thought it would take me a day.  One day became one week then two and three, and gradually, I felt myself move from frustration to confusion and then panic.  And as my stress escalated, I found my good habits eroded by those bad ones.  My distraction low point has got to be one of two events--seeing the Green Lantern movie or playing the old Atari game Adventure.  (Man, were those Atari games shitty.)

Of course, I have fixed the problem at work which is why I'm taking time to write this.  But what's interesting to notice is how, when difficult circumstances arise, those difficult circumstances can overwhelm the entirety of my reality.  In this case, while work was proving frustrating, the rest of my life was fine; it just didn't feel fine.

On the local front, Nicole and I are experiencing the bizarre local weather of June--almost constant, pea-soup-like fog with temperatures never getting higher than 12 C/ 54 F.  I'm not thrilled with it, but I tell myself at least I'm not sweating my ass off.  Nicole has a bigger problem with it.

But speaking of sweating our asses off, we will be in New Orleans from July 22-30.  We hope to see you then.