InfiniteTides

Hello.  My name is Keith, and I’m an attention whore.  It’s been five minutes since my last status update or tweet seeking the attention I long for.  Obviously I’m not being completely serious.  It’s probably been closer to thirty minutes since I’ve posted something.  I understand that people may perceive me as someone constantly seeking attention (at least online).  What they may not also grasp is that there’s something inside each of us that seeks validation, recognition that we are important to someone else in our lives.  Sure, some of us take it too far with our goofy Facebook avatars, corny status updates, and off-the-wall blog posts, but for the most part, it’s only a small part of our overall personalities that makes us do these things.

I wonder why we do that, why we look so hard at our overall personality, for one trait we think will describe the dominant side (as though there is one) of our being.  I see quiz results on Facebook telling people what color, soda pop, sports team, and vegetable (no offense to the handicapped) they are.  All of us wonder what other people think about us.  It’s human nature to do so.  I frequently find myself not posting status updates and comments to friends’ walls because I don’t want to give the impression (probably too late!) that I’m someone who constantly needs to be the center of attention.  The truth of the matter is that I post a lot, because I’m online and bored a lot.  (I am Keith’s defensiveness.)  In the offline world, I could easily go days without speaking to anyone, especially at work.  I’m not a social butterfly, but I play one on the interwebs.

Our emotions often drive what we are thinking though we would like to believe it’s the other way around.  I don’t recall who first said it, but humans are emotional beings who think, not thinking beings who emote (and use smileys).  If you don’t believe me, just consider what happens when we get upset.  We often say things we don’t mean.  We lash out at people we love.  Our emotions flood our brains, and we stop thinking about the consequences of our words (and maybe even our actions).  Our emotions drive our thoughts about what others think of us, thereby driving our behavior in ways we might not even realize, like how often we post on Facebook or Twitter.

Each of us has just about every personality trait under the sun within us in varying amounts.  It’s rare that one of these traits actually dominates all of the others.  As human beings, we like to pigeon-hole everything.  We subconsciously classify and categorize everything and everyone.  Whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, our emotions are attached to, or even direct this classification.  It’s why we feel nostalgic about inanimate objects.  Emotions are often attached to memories of just about everything and everyone.

I suppose I’m off the track a bit.  What I’m getting at is this, everyone is/can be/has been in pursuit of attention from someone (maybe it’s your cat’s aloofness that’s pissing you off).  So please don’t judge me too harshly when I spam your Facebook wall or Twitter feed with my witlessisms.  With that said, I need to find a cabin in the woods somewhere that has internet, because with this post, I’m seriously off the wagon.

I see from what I’ve been writing about lately that I have become more aware of my blog’s audience, perhaps too aware.  My hope is that this awareness does not cause my writing to become overly appeasing.  My goal with this blog has been and continues to be the pursuit of honesty and clarity of my own thoughts and emotions through writing.  If I begin to hold back (and I suspect I’ve begun to do so), if my writing becomes less blunt, too measured, vague, and reserved, I will have failed myself as well as those who might read these little blurbs that I post.

My grand hope is that although readers may not always agree with what I write, they might at least see the honesty and self examination in my posts and gravitate a little more toward applying those principles to their own thoughts, beliefs, and interactions with the world.  Therefor, as I write future blog posts, please don’t hessitate to point out any indiscretions of dishonesty or over indulgence you might perceive, because I need you all to keep me honest.

It seems that every time I get a three day weekend, the preceding work week drags its feet, making it seem more like 7 days than just 5.  This week has been no exception.

Thoughts of how I’m going to squander the three day weekend make the work week seem longer than it really is.  So it’s probably just my perception of time that’s all messed up, not time itself.  Before Wednesday, I thought my two days of training in Michigan were going to be unbearably long, but the two guys who I went with made that time fly by.  It’s frightening how silly three guys in a van can be.  A well developed sense of humor is important when spending 10 hours a day with the same two people.

I’m planning on a lot of video gaming, at least on Saturday.  I want to complete the Rock Band 2 Endless Setlist, 84 songs in a row.  I’ll endure 7 to 8 hours of “playing” a plastic guitar if I don’t take too many breaks.  If it ceases to be fun after 3 hours, I can easily see myself bailing on the marathon, but I’m looking forward to the challenge even if I’m only playing on the medium difficulty setting.

The rest of the weekend will be spent relaxing, taking it easy, maybe watching some favorite movies.  I need to check out the original Metropolis, but I have to find a version with English subtitles.  I MIGHT get around to playing some Bioshock.  The game lies unopened on my desk in my bedroom at the moment.  Maybe I’ll even finish a couple of blog posts that I started earlier in the week, that is, unless I decide to delete them.  I often do that.

Whatever I end up doing this weekend, a computer won’t be very far away.  I think I’ve earned some downtime.  I’ve earned this three day weekend, and I don’t want to squander it…but I probably will.

Most people would describe my life as fairly simple, no wife, no girlfriend, no kids, low maintenance.  They’d be right.  I’ve successfully avoided most of the sticky messes people refer to as relationships.  This has been the plan, not an accident.

Recently my life took a bit of a turn, a sharp pivot away from the course I had plotted for myself.  This plot twist caught me completely off guard, ensnaring me in exactly the entanglements I had consistently dodged.  For whatever reasons (which I’ll not go into)  and as all things do, this relationship fell apart.

The hard part, the breaking up, that part is done and over with, done deal, the end, but a lesser entanglement remains.  Although warm friendly feelings were evidently still present recently, the residual friendship has become an emotional drain on me.  Without pointing fingers or placing blame, I’ve concluded that I’m just not a very emotionally capable person.  Some feelings weigh too much, and drag me down too easily.

I’m going to work on my cold robot soul and this quantum entanglement I still feel.  Maybe there’s still some room in there for something other than gears and wires.