Head Noise

The head noise is bad this morning. I got persuaded a long time ago that this never does stop. Meditation and other things do help, but in the end the noise is always there. It is more about what you DO about this that counts.

So at 5 a.m. I am wide awake. *I hate typing* And I start ruminating on the usual stuff.

Not all is bad and ugly,

For example, it came to me that the way to plow through the dissertation is to start with the main question, to elaborate that quite a bit, not necessarily by asking more questions, but posing it in different ways. Then, for each following chapter, restate in some form the main question. This is very effective when I consider the "Why SXM?" chapter. I could start that by asking "If I am interested in technology and how it affects / interacts with the informal economy and tourism then this place is good b/c ..." See how that works? History could start with something too - perhaps "In considering the present and how ITC and I.E. and Tourism intersect, it is useful to look at the past."

But most of it is bad and ugly.

But then the same head noise quickly degenerates into my issues around K and why the relationship isn't working too well, even though part of me knows it is working. The part I am more in tune with now has to do with this sense of having to compete for time and energy and affection. I do not like competition at all, never have, probably never will. But I feel like capturing her attention is a matter of competing for her time. Then of course this whole part spirals down into all the things I hate about myself, which I think I am at least a little better at managing now. That whole cognitive shift bit still is there, for sure, but when I am overtired, and far from home and not at my body best, it is a lot harder to try and avoid the painful parts and to stay aware of how that works.

Part of me knows with certainty that the underlying drive at 5 a.m. is due to the body factors - lack of sound sleep, uneven nutrition, too much wine, off cycle, etc.. But that's not easy to let go of when I am simply lying there wondering it all. It gets away from the rational mind really fast.

I've learned in the past that usually (but not always) simply getting up shifts it around in odd ways, and I'm left with this sense of "WTF?". But underneath that is often a funny sort of body thing - something is off kilter there and I have no easy handle on what it is and therefore even less of a chance to try and fix it.

How can one fix the head noise?

Meditation helps, but does not eliminate. I should do more, but the goals now for me are so different.

Sex is an odd escape. I often find that playing with myself, getting really hard, building the energy that way is a useful escape, but wonder: is it simply an escape? Is it a simplification of things in a way that, like so many other approaches, merely tucks it under the rug kind of thing, leaving the harshness of what it is or might be festering in the back rooms of the head?

Writing is useful at times, but I'm never really sure I can separate myself from the mechanics of it all - I'm left slightly empty by the fact that the damn interface is so limiting. Is it what I really think or feel or is it driven by the curse of whatever I happen to choose as an interface? I think at times real pen and paper wrk better this way, but not always. I lose something "in the translation" which is to say that I never quite feel I capture what is IN my head as Itry and get it out onto a page of any sort.