Nothing but hate. ‘Philosopher King’, my Aunt Patootie. Meditate on THIS, Mr. Do-Gooder Smartypants.

In an uncharacteristic act of deep diving into non-fiction (vs any kind of non-fiction dive – I hate non-fiction) I’ve been reading AND doing the exercises in “Journal Like a Stoic” by Brittany Polat, PhD.

Bite me, Brittany.

Stoicism? What’s happened to me? I don’t even know me anymore. Frankly, that’s a good thing. A very good thing. I’m just a little jittery and defensive, hence the preceding ‘bite me’s’.

Note: In case you haven’t twigged yet, I don’t mean any of the preceding Bite Me’s. MA and BP are freaking brilliant and resonant but allow me to get to that in my own time.

Note: If you don’t know what Stoicism is, google it. This diatribe isn’t about explaining the philosophy. If you think you know what Stoicism is, double check yourself. I’ll wait.

Done waiting.

I avoid non-fiction because my brain interprets it as yet another fruitless attempt to fix myself based on assumption that I’m broken and that I’ll never manage to fix myself ever, ever, ever so why must I keep trying? So, no non-fiction. Doesn’t matter if it’s history or a crock pot recipe. No non-fiction.

In an attempt to fix myself, I upped my game from the free version to a paid version of Insight Timer in order to subscribe to a course on fixing something about myself. Failed. BUT, the Insight Timer opening quotes that keep you engaged while the app loads were frequently from Mr. A. After encountering the requisite 7 quote minimum required to actually bust into my numbed, bombarded brain, I became conscious of this dude.

At first, I was all like, Roman emperor? That’s like that disturbing Caligula movie I saw at an impressionable age, right? Horrifying. I was young then and still able to be shocked but now I’m old and jaded and able to move past that shock to actually look up this dude. Who was he? Why do I find myself mulling every bite-sized meditation I read?

As soon as I found out a bit more, I downloaded Mr. Aurelius’ “Mediations” from the library and promptly didn’t read it. My abhorrence for non-fiction solidly re-asserted dominence. That’s not unusual for me. But, a concurrent not usual thing happened. I found myself peacing out wee bits at a time.

If you put your ear next to mine, there’s a cacophony of noise that’s more like ugly crying than cooing doves. It’s one of the snot-filled delights of being bipolar. Screaming monkey’s flinging poo are my constant companions. Most self-help non-fiction – read: all self-help non-fiction – forces caffeine and a bullhorn on those poor monkeys.

Unexpectedly peacing out is alarming.

Yes, I recognize the dichotomy.

Eventually, I also recognize the tangent read: rabbit hole of where was I and what was the point again?

Oh yes.

“Journal Like a Stoic”. Day 6. Filtering the nonessential. Blah, blah, meditation, blah, blah, interpretation, blah, blah, application, blah, blah, task. Okay, I confess, as I re-read the actual Day 6 task just this very moment, my Journaling like a Stoic didn’t actually address the Day 6 task. I turned it into something else but let’s pretend that didn’t happen for a sec. The task I created was to answer the grammatically irksome question: What can I replace non-essential activity with instead?

(Again, please google Stoicism if this seems super pithy self-help-ish. There’s a lot more depth and consideration than a surface read.)

I can replace non-essential activity with writing. For reasons. I don’t do it anymore because reasons. But, it’s essential. It’s one of the constants in my life that engages me in a positive, engrossing way and makes me nearly happy. When I write, I’m not tempted to play iPad games all day long and numb my guilty, confused brain.

It peaces me out.