You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Microdosing Day 3: Don't Fuck With Lucy
Wow. Trying to find the right chemical cocktail to balance our own being in a way that maximizes our potential is the ultimate hero's journey it seems. I've done some reading about the applications of hallucinogens in treating depression, but your very detailed experience with microdosing was a new realm of possibility for me to think about.
There is a manic tone in your post. It reminds me of that crushing anxiety I feel when I am working up to actually change what I am doing. Floating along in a pattern is much more comfortable, but doesn't yield contentment in the long run.
Thank you for sharing such a transparent look at your experiences. I hope all goes well in Vegas for you:)
I don't know if it's the ULTIMATE hero's journey. More like the hero's side project.
This is one of those things that when you see someone else doing it, you're like "why don't you just snap the fuck out of it?" But when you're stuck in your own thought loops, it's much harder to see things from an outsider's perspective.
That said, I read something a long time ago by a famous author that stuck with me. Someone asked him how he was able to create such amazing work so consistently. His answer was that there is no substitute for suffering real-world consequences when trying to accomplish something.
I feel like microdosing is kind of similar, at least for me. If I don't spend my mornings doing EXACTLY what I know I SHOULD be doing, then I feel awful. And if something comes up later in the day that DEMANDS attention, then I will pay attention to it EVEN IF it makes me uncomfortable, because NOT paying attention to is EVEN MORE uncomfortable. Does that make sense?
You know, it really does make sense, it's almost like your microdosing effort is trying to get you to a level where you can cease being mired too much in thought loops and get on with the getting on of accomplishment. To find a level of supplementation that balances your motivation and decreases rumination and procrastination (too many "tions"!).
That said, are there ever moments of comfort in the cycle you are describing? I mean, when you accomplish your goals there is elation, but it also seems like there is always some unfinished task hanging over you when you are a hustler. How do you check out so you don't burn out?
Perhaps I better quit asking you questions and just read your blog posts.:)
That's a good question. I think it comes down to looking at the bigger picture vs focusing on individual tasks. When your overarching goal is big enough, then you'll slog through the shit to get there. You won't feel it quite as much and you'll have less of a desire to seek out comfort because you know it will just slow you down on your way to where you want to go.
I find that this addiction to comfort that people seem to be obsessed with only comes when they either don't have any goals, their goals aren't big enough, or they're just not doing shit with their lives in general. Or they're just doing the minimum to get by.
It's not like there are two categories of people, but more like we all go through different phases of one or the other. So one day/week/month I may be super focused and work like a maniac for what I want because I'm focused on the outcome, and the next day/week/month I might lose sight of it and barely eek out the minimum and then just fuck around for the rest of the day.
I've never really thought about it until just now, but I would say that I prefer the first option. Yeah it's more work, and you do have that feeling of things hanging over your head. But I prefer that to the second option.
When I live for pleasure, I always feel like shit. I end up smoking too much weed, eating too much unhealthy food, neglecting my appearance and in general just let myself go. When I have something I'm working towards it's just better overall.
I think the biggest problem that people face today isn't that they don't know how to find comfort, it's that they just haven't picked a goal. Literally any goal will do, something that will get you through the day that you can make legitimate progress towards. But people get stuck in jobs, relationships, whatever and just keep showing up day after day to do the bare minimum. Happens to me too.
TLDR if you're turning to escapism, your goals aren't big enough.
So, I have to offer at least twenty-two apologies for taking five days to respond to you, believe me there was no escapism happening to explain my absence, more like the opposite, ha ha!
I think I might have used the wrong word when I said comfort, because I absolutely agree with you when it comes to people seeking comfort as a goal. Living in a society that worships instant gratification and escapism offers a constant goal sabotaging path to slog through it seems. Instead of comfort I was thinking more about wellness, the aspect of balancing productivity with overall health so that you can perform at your peak consistently rather than devolving off into burnout land.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. My nephew was up from college this weekend, I say nephew, but the guy is only six years younger than I am. He's getting his PHD in Nuclear Chemistry, and we were having a discussion about a presentation he was working on. It involved injecting gold nano particles into blood samples and bombarding the samples with magnetic light. It was in that moment that I was having a quite in-depth discussion about nuclear radio chemistry that I had a wtf epiphany, for I don't think I have picked big enough goals.
My form of escapism is taking care of so many people and tasks that I don't focus all (or most) of my energy on accomplishing that big goal that I know I can do. I let my focus be fractured on the mundane instead of balling up and attacking the big goals that I know I am capable of. In that way I am no different than you on one of your weed smoking , garbage food binge-fest fugues. Even though it's tough, I feel better too, when I focus on the first of your states of your phases than the other.
It sucks that this happens to us all, I know that I am excellent at hanging out in comfortable ruts. However, having rambling existential discussions about kicking our own asses into goal accomplishing gear is a nice side effect of thinking about the errors of my way.
Thank you for your thoughts by the way, I've enjoyed them:)