Dude. I've gone so far into p4tagonia today that I feel half-crazy and can think of nothing else. I am kind of manic and keep pushing more and more weird ideas around. I feel sort of lonely out here like there is no way to explain my "logic" or association of ideas and yet it all seems clear on some level. And it's so trivial in a way that I am embarrassed. But it gets like this... I'm not happy with just talking about one or two things or associating a couple of ideas and supporting everythning strongly with lots of evidence. I feel like a general who has pushed way too far into unknown territory and has lost touch with the supply line. Logical reasoning and military logistics... I'm sort of doing my poetic non-reason thinking but trying to be coherent about it and explain everything. But it woudl take a whole book of explanation. I think some ideas take a long, long time to explain and that is what I find interesting. Some people write whole books with only like, 5 really good ideas that could be explained in much shorter time -- where summary is possible and in fact might be better for some purposes. (for example that j. R0ughgarden book which was so great, but full of filler).
But to see a big idea intuitively before you can really explain it is kind of torturous!
I conclude two things:
Scale back my scope. it's exciting and I'm pushing myself actually because it's exciting that F.M. would understand my weird leapy ideas. But I can focus more tightly and that will end up being easier and clearer; a tight focus and then I'll foray off here and there with my wackiness. Maybe I'll do somethign weird with subheadings or sidebars to achieve this.
Chill out for now. I've now met my goal of generating vaguely organized babbling. there are not always complete sentences and there's no transition from idea to idea. And I will probablyl have to throw out half of it and put in new stuff or just lots of explaining. But. That's why it's called a ROUGH DRAFT and it's not even due for 2 weeks. Revving down the engine. Calm the brain.
you know... I realize also i used to be LIKE THIS almost all the time. Every night i would rev up with Giant Ideas and would get very excited and be unable to stop writing and then it woudl be 2 am and I'd be all wacky-brained and edgy and wanting to talk all night long about some inexpressible Thing. jesus. sleep was near impossible. I'm so happy for my sleeping pills. I went off them for various times of being pregnant and it was hell (which i blamed on hormones and stress but could just as well been my normal state of being when not sleeping). When I started them because of fibr0myalgia (which you get because you're not sleeping right, basically) I was afraid about losing that edge and that manic joy. I would become so boring! and yet i was so exhausted that I understood why writers drink themselves to death!
And I have really become more boring but you know... it's a sweet relief. I'm so much healthier. I still have fabulous ideas all the time and I'm able to slow down enough to express them. i enjoy life more for sure.
I haven't thought about this for a long while as it's been like 10 years and I'm so happy in my usual state of being now that it just doesn't occur to me how different I am (and not just how differently I'm living)
a bath - a drink - some tagamet or something as I think i'm giving myself an ulcer today or something- food made me feel quite ill. i must now try like hell to stop thinking of this shit or I will be up at 2 am like last night reading about epistemology, schopenhauer and nietszche and looking up chile in the 1914 britannica and realizing i must quickly write something crucial about the history of border disputes and rock formations that look like fortresses near the Beagle Channel.
Chill! chill! chill!
Have you read Paul Shepheard's The Cultivated Wilderness or, what is landscape?
Might be useful. I'll bring it with me to BtVS on Saturday.
Posted by: whump | November 30, 2004 at 11:59 PM
I have to say, from this distance and just being a reader of all your great ideas and the astounding number of things you accomplish in one day, it's hard not to jump to the conclusion that you are m4n!c or some variation thereof.
So it's good to hear that your present state is actually a good outcome from the successful treatment of problems you had in the past. In other words, good to hear that you're taking care of yourself and that we, your worshippers from afar, aren't just witnessing the spectacular burst of light preceding a burn-out.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | December 02, 2004 at 03:40 PM
I don't think I was like, clinically manic or anything -- just excitable enough to make me have problems with insomnia!
That could be part of my grand delusion that I'm not nuts, I guess. But no. I think just part of aging/maturing. I wouldn't want to be around my younger self very much -- even if I liked her, which I probably would, I would be unable to keep up.... The unruly toddler of the self.... etc.
Posted by: badgerbag | December 02, 2004 at 10:20 PM