Sunday, May 13, 2012

Slowly Quieting Down, Stupid Dreams

Sunday, May 13, 2012—Long Beach, CA

Emerging from the semester. Feeling the workload lessoning, that there’s something to me besides that job. I’m also beginning to think about what I think about and feel when I’m not just buried in work (work that only interests me in certain respects). I’m also feeling a little better ohysically: my digestive problems seem to be less severe (though I’m still fighting what has been a pretty unpleasant sinus infection). I’m beginning to wonder if they’re being exasperated by stress. I know, or am at least nearly sure, that they are physically rooted, but I’m no longer sure if that’s all there is to it. It will be interesting to see how I feel a month or so down the road once I’ve had a chance to de-school a bit. I’m also going to be using this time to really experiment with my diet to see if a food allergy issue might be part of it. Next week I will beginning a cleanse, where all I’m going to be eating are fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, and rice. Hopefully a week or so of that will give me some answers.

Still diving into Jung, as well as trying to delve into my dreams. I’m getting frustrated, though. Crazy gobbledygook is all my subconscious seems capable of churning out. (I’m not going to even attempt to write down what I’ve been dreaming lately—it’s all been so thin and scattershot that I couldn’t even find a starting point.) I’m beginning also to understand how little rest I’m getting when I sleep. My mind’s spinning fast at all times, spinning out the shallow dreams of shallow sleep. What am I so stressed out about? It can’t just be work. I’m feeling so alienated, from most everyone, yes, but also certain aspects of myself, which is far more worrying. I’m feeling as if I simply failing to connect with certain very basics aspects of life. My life is missing something, has been missing something for a very long time. But I’ve hit some sort of end point—I have a need to push past this point. I am not unhappy, just blank and floating. I know I’ve said all this before—just going over old ground from different angles. This may not be bad thing, though—I might find the right angle into something I’m looking for.

Finished Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Very interesting at times. Confusing and a little flakey at others. Like I said, though, perhaps a good starting point for further explorations. Currently reading The Portable Jung (edited by Joseph Campbell). And a big biography of Jung by Deidre Bair. Worked a tiny bit on a Sunshine Seas story I’m calling “Fatu Hiva.” It’s frustrating to have to just pick away at it. Writing needs sustained effort. If a writer can’t commit deeper connections aren’t made and it just becomes about words instead of stories.

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