Sleep Deprivation and Mental Hyperactivity

Over the last 2 weeks, I have hardly slept.

Work, Reservist and sheer need for mental stimulation have conspired to keep my sleep to less than 3-4 hours every single day. To add to that, I have decided to buy myself another notebook. This one has absolutely no lines. This is good. I am not big on lines in my notebooks, and this one lets it all hang out. If i get truly inspired, I might even start drawing something.

Night shift on exercise means long long hours in the wargame room with nothing going on, except attempts by near strangers to make time to pass by faster. This means talking about everything. In the time where I have space to think, on shift and I can't sleep, and I cannot read cos the commanders are around. I think, and I write.

Here's a voyeuristic peek at what goes on in this twisted brain when it goes on overdrive...

When one gets older, one starts seeking comfort. Being comfortable starts increasing in importance.

Maybe it's the amount of disappointments that happened over the last week. Can I proceed despite of all that's happened? I'm not sure. I'm feeling tired, uninspired.

Sunday I felt good to be in the office clearing work. Memory's getting short and thoughts disjointed.

It feels as if I have been disregarding people.

"Never waste an opportunity to shut up" Maybe I should start taking that advice.

What's truly important to me? So important that I'll push forward, despite of all the oppositions?

As time goes by, it does seem as if people are pushing me into a mould. Trying to make me confirm to "that which is right". Is it my rebellion an instinctive desire to lash out, rather than a conscious decision to forge my own path? The line between the 2 is thin. Distinguishable but thin.

I was talking to my church mate the other day and I gave him the condensed version of what he can do to figure what he really wants. Feels a little empty, cos I don't do it to myself. Or it's been too long since I did it.

What IS really important to me in the long run? What do I really want to achieve? How am I going to do it? Let's see if I can get a list.

There are a lot of characteristics that I see in people that I'd like to emulate. Don't know how to do do that, unless I understand the motivation behind which these characteristics develop.

How do I make consistency and discipline exciting and deeply satisfying? What do I need to tweak in my mind and others? How am I going to work that one out?

Often life is a balance of contradictions. The tension of trying to find the centre point between two apparent mutually exclusive qualities. Like dance. Techniques vs passion and expression. Get the technical details out of the way. Get the techniques internalized, so that expression can truly flow.

Yet the techniques must change, if expressions cannot be fully displayed... (Is that the right word? Fulfilled? Released? Visualised, come to being... I am lost for words...) by the current techniques, then do they then have to change, and new ways found? Then how would one describe discipline? If things can be changed on a whim?

Is life the same? What are the techniques, the technical details on life then? What does it take for us then to really and truly LIVE?

What does it take to get us to the next level? For every dream to be realized?

Are we then afraid of fulfilling out dreams?

Because by fulfilling them it sets us apart, gets us out of our comfort zones, comfort zones and boundaries dictated by the people around us.

Because when dreams come true, and we have reached the end of our journey, and we have nowhere to go? And we are truly terrified of that emptiness and lack of direction??

Cos we don't really know what's that one thing, we cannot explicitly state that one thing that we'll strive for for the rest of our lives?

If we had the power to fulfil all our dreams, would we take it? But we do, don't we? Dare we reach out and take that power into our hands?

What is at the end of imagination? Are we afraid that we might be inadequate, that we are not WORTHY of being the truly glorious beings we can be?

The higher we go, the more effort we need to expend to reach out to those around us, and possibly under us, to remain in touch with them, to connect with them. And though we resign to the fact that those folks may fail us often, and not live up to the mark they set for themselves, and we set for them, it is for a hope, the hope that we fight, that dream that one day they'll raise themselves to their full potential and realize their own glory.

If we lose that hope born of love, we'll have nothing to fight for any more.

A little something that I have on my computer desktop,
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, handsome and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some, it is in EVERYONE. And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. "

- Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love) Quoted by Nelson Mandela, then again in the movie "Coach Carter".

The devil's advocate in me suddenly things, but not everyone wants to be liberated. Some might find the darkness comforting, even desirable. Then how?

Enough... There's one more night on shift work. And sleep beckons, even if it's overwhelming desire is quinscient for the moment.