Politics! Religion! Twitter! Things you shouldn’t talk about.

• After watching the second Republican Presidential Candidates debate last week, I think we can definitely rule out Newt Gingrich, Tom Pawlenty (after rather high expectations, he turned out to be a hesitant mess), Herman Cain, Ron Paul, and Rick Buttsex Santorum. Mitt Romney was assured and, dare I say it, Presidential looking — because appearance and looks are almost everything when it comes to the Presidency (although I can’t really explain Richard Nixon). But then he goes and ruins it… The surprise, for me at least, was Michele Bachmann: she didn’t sound the conspiracy-driven crackpot that she usually is… but days later, she’s returned to her old self and all is right in the world again.
• I’ve been staying up late (well, later than usual) in recent weeks. I started watching Big Love from the first season and am currently into the fourth season. I realise now that initially I was unconsciously prepared to dislike the Henrickson family for their Independent Mormon fundamentalists beliefs (or, to put a better way, not their beliefs but for being so foolish to believe such things), which includes the belief of plural marriage (polygamy). I found it reprehensible; now I find it incomprehensible but intriguing and I’ve been a little addicted to reading about personal experiences, like this one. Still don’t think it’s the best lifestyle, like open relationships — but that’s just me. Nevertheless, I could totally dig the idea of polyandry. Oh yeah.
• After quitting Twitter (yes, again) over a month ago, I feel FREE! It’s good to get away from the pettiness, the gossiping, the backstabbing, the lies, and the general bullshit that gets filtered through. People are weird: warm and friendly one minute, cold and aloof the next, and you’re left wondering what the fuck happened, what did you do/didn’t do, say/didn’t say. Of particular distaste is finding out that people were bitching about you – even though they don’t know you, never met you, let alone spoken to you. It’s a strange thing that happened to not just me, but others as well. Like I said, people are weird.

On a different tangent, I know some tweeps would argue that Twitter is a great source of comfort for battling loneliness and depression. I don’t disagree, I found sharing common life stressors with others made me feel less alone (although I always prefer actual human contact, face to face communication). That’s good.

But on the other hand, over and over and over, I would see people getting too attached to the online identities; pre-existing depression and anxiety would increase because of an imagined slight because tone and context is lost in 140 characters. People who flirt with others and were told to cease flirting felt rejected and despondent. And don’t get me started when love affairs go sour… Oh, there were so many scenarios, and I admit that on occasion I felt anxious, that whole “Oh my god, I went too far and now they don’t like me because they’re not replying to me!” or “Was that passive-aggressive tweet about me?” My point is, I often thought quietly to myself, “There are some people who shouldn’t be on Twitter… they’re not coping with it well.” It is a concern and I’d be interested to hear what others have to say.

But those aren’t the reasons I quit Twitter. It was simply because I was getting bored and also noticing my attention and concentration spans had gone to shit. A few years ago, Nicholas Carr, referring to Google in particular but which could be applied to Twitter,  wrote:

I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

Bingo. That was exactly what I was experiencing. When studying, I couldn’t concentrate for any longer than 10 minutes before I wanted to “see what was happening on Twitter”. Facebook never bothered me the same way (and someone asked me why. I don’t know why, it just never did). Twitter, I realised, had become an addiction of sorts. I would try shutting down the tab and moving myself to another room, but that was difficult as much of my study is online. When I was on Twitter, I’d be chasing links: listening to YouTube clips that people tweeted, reading links that they posted (even when it wasn’t really a topic I had any particular interest in), following particular hashtag conversations, following other general conversations, and so on.

As Carr notes, this is a widespread phenomenon; many others are experiencing or have experienced this alteration in mental habits. The realisation that I needed to completely quit — since I was incapable of simply shutting down TweetDeck or the tab in which Twitter was open — was the night before an essay was due. Instead, I spent 3 hours following the Marrickville Council debate over the Israeli boycott controversy.

THREE FUCKING HOURS! AND I HAD AN ESSAY DUE THE NEXT DAY! As it was, after the council voted to drop the boycott, the last thing I felt like doing, unsurprisingly, was my essay. I went to bed instead, feeling pissed off and beginning to think it was time to call it a day on Twitter.

So I did.

And that’s why I quit Twitter.

But wait, there’s more.

After I deleted my Twitter account, breaking the automatic response to “see what was happening” was strange and somewhat difficult, but gradually I realised I was starting to read articles and journals for research better — in the sense that I was concentrating easier and without distraction. Even deep thinking about my essays improved, instead of half-arsed thoughts and ideas that I then had to flesh out. Best of all, I’m reading books again. I’ve missed reading the most and it’s been wonderful to sit and read without a wandering mind for a couple of hours at a time.

Meanwhile, Professor David Chalmers, director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, recently argued that Google was “actually making us smarter” and “turning us into superheroes of the mind”. I don’t disagree that the internet in general has improved our knowledge. I’ve learnt a lot of things online — but I still wonder how much trivia that I’ve read that I’ve retained. Things come at such speed, have I had the time to absorb that knowledge before I move onto the next piece of information or trivia? Still open to debate (with myself). How about you?

On a final note about Twitter: when I started contacting a few people who I wanted to keep in touch with about my intention to quit and explained briefly why, I was surprised at how often they understood, for they also found they were struggling with the same issue of concentration and attention, to various extents. All along I thought it was just me, thinking I didn’t have enough willpower or focus or some such to concentrate on my studies when required.

• This post took a week to write. What was that about improved concentration and attention spans?

Wanna pet?

When I saw the psychologist on Monday and after she picked up early on that I’m a “nurturer” by nature, she suggested I get a pet so that… well, I don’t know why, actually, but I assume to allow me to indulge in “nurturing”. Sheesh. That sounds embarrassing for some reason.

Anyway, where I live I am not allowed to have a cat or a dog — my first two choices. So what other pet can I get?

Definitely no ferrets. Never forget I have an extreme phobia of ferrets. Just thinking about them makes my skin crawl. And have you ever heard a ferret scream? Jesus fucking Christ.

No rats or mice, for similar reasons to ferrets. Although in the case of mice, I used to have a few when I was younger. Then they committed incest and had lots of babies. Then they ate each other. Then only one remained. After I got him out of his cage, he promptly bit me on my finger, leaving two puncture holes and a sobbing 10 year old girl. I dropped him onto the ground and he ran off into the bushes and that was the last time I would ever see him.

Or so I thought.

The bloody cat brought him home a few nights later, dumped him on the kitchen floor, half alive and soaked in saliva, and we all screamed (well, mum and I) and dad yelled, “That bloody cat!!”

Dad whacked the mouse on the head with a shovel to put it out of its misery (in the garden, not in the kitchen, otherwise mum would have whacked dad on the head with the shovel) and my cat was not allowed to sleep on my bed that night. Suffice to say, after that trauma, no more mice for me.

No frogs because they remind me of cane toads. Most of us hate cane toads, but I have a particular aversion to them. One evening in Northern NSW, I cycled to the corner store to buy some milk. It was almost dark, with just the faintest of light from the dying sun. I was on my bike, juggling to hold the carton of milk while cycling home and avoiding potholes. I could see a “hole” or a “lump” on the road in front of me, and I couldn’t work out if it was a pothole or a…

…TOO LATE! It was a cane toad. And I just rode straight over it. And squashed it. And its guts and liquids and fluids came spraying out, over my legs and bike and I felt some slimy goo on my arms and a little splash on my chin.

I have never peddled home so fast in my life, desperately trying not to throw up, because that would have just made things a whole lot messier.

Got to my door. Practically jumped off my bike while it was still moving. Not sure what happened to the carton of milk. Ran upstairs, screaming and yelling and alarming my Japanese flatmate, and jumped into a hot shower — still fully dressed. I held the shower hose and blasted hot water all over me, unable to look down at myself because I knew if I saw anything, I would spew big time.

So, no frogs, no cane toads. Besides, cane toads kind of remind me of Piers Akerman.

Snakes? I like snakes, actually. They’re cute. But I couldn’t look after one. For a start, I would not be able to feed it live mice. I will not be an accomplice to murder — even if mice deserve to die.

Secondly, after seeing a snake shit all over Fatty Vautin on The Footy Show a few years back… Well, you just got to watch this (fast-forward to 3.57 minutes):

Apologies that it’s an overwrought Steve Irwin tribute, but it was the only clip I could find with said shitting snake. Hilarious and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, but still no snake for me. (Unless… no, no. No smut here, please.)

What else?

I know! A pet rock! They don’t eat mice, they don’t contain venomous and gooey poison, they don’t hunt, they don’t look like Piers Akerman, and they don’t shit. They would also be allowed in my apartment.

And best of all, they aren’t ferrets.

Good Morning Heartache

Last night, I tossed and turned and next thing I know, it’s 5am. I just could not sleep. I couldn’t shut my brain down. Even when I tried to think of “happy” thoughts, I still couldn’t relax. I wanted to sleep — desperately — but the medication won’t let me. I was told this might happen and to “ride it out”. I have felt positive benefits from the new medication (less anxious, for a start), but the sleeplessness is killing me. And then I worry that I won’t be able to be productive at work at all, or am unable to concentrate on anything. And then today I felt so utterly defeated and exhausted and I couldn’t go to work — again. That bothers me so I have to keep reminding myself, they understand at work. They know I’m not skivving off. They know I’m in a bit of trouble at the moment — because they (my manager and team leader) heard my panicked, scared and sobbing message I left on my manager’s voicemail last Monday morning, when I was in the middle of my worst and biggest crash. I can’t remember what I said on that message, all I remember is trying to stay in control and failing.

But they know I’m trying hard. I was at work until 8pm last night — whether that’s a wise thing or not is open to debate. I instinctively knew I was going to have a rough night anyway. I was tired, yet so wide awake. I was tired, yet I could think clearly, even while my emotions are still a jumble. But I still feel terrible that I need to have time off work.

Here’s hoping by next week my body has adjusted to the medication and I can start getting into a routine again, no matter how difficult it is. Those of us who have suffered or currently suffer from fatigue know it’s a terrible, horrible thing. It makes things worse. It makes us cranky, frustrated, want to scream in anger.

And so it was for me today, around midday, feeling terrible that I called in absent at work because “I really need to get some sleep” — except once I woke up this morning, I couldn’t get back to sleep, save a disturbed, half-sleep, half-awake snooze for another 2 hours. Then the fucking fire station across the road decided to blare their sirens and that was the end of that half-arsed snooze for me. I might as well have gone to fucking work, after all — if I had the energy to get out of bed.

Eventually, I threw back my doona in frustration, swore heavily and before I knew it, I was in deep anger, stomping around my apartment and falling into the habit of blaming myself, being hard on myself for neglecting myself for so long that I’ve ended up in this shitty position. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Oh yeah, that’s right, the shrink said that the other day, didn’t she? OK, fine. Fine. Alright. I won’t be angry with myself. But damn, I’m angry and what or who can I let that out on?

Washed the dishes. Anger bubbling up in me. Tired. Fatigued. Frustrated. Angry. I couldn’t think clearly anymore.

Then, in my irrational anger, I found a target to focus my anger on. An easy target.

Men.

Fucking stupid, whiny, needy, pathetic, cold, indifferent, immature men.

That man who smashed his bourbon and coke glass against the wall in the nightclub because I wouldn’t dance with him.

That man who couldn’t tell me upfront that he had a fuckbuddy on the side.

That man who hit me above my right eye because I wouldn’t give him our rent money so he could go drinking with the boys. And making me cover it up by saying I walked into a door. Oh, and he ended up stealing the rent money anyway, causing me to have to ask for a loan from my parents to pay for the fucking rent.

That man who stalked me for a few days after I went out once with him and decided I didn’t like him that much, scaring the fucking bejesus out of me, causing me to call the police to have a word with him.

That man who stood me up on our second date because I wouldn’t sleep with him on our first.

That man who thought I was passed out, drunk, and tried to fuck me in the arse, not knowing I was still slightly awake.

That man who, day in, day out, eroded my confidence and self-esteem with emotional abuse.

That man who said he really, really cares for me and is not going to do anything to hurt me, and will sort himself out and make sure that it turns out well for both of us. And then changed his mind. 

That man and that man and that man who wanted me to hold their hands while they went through various stressful circumstances — and then grew distant because they didn’t need me anymore. Don’t fucking use me.

Men are so fucking feeble, emotionally erratic, inconsistent, untruthful, toxic, obtuse, piteous, fickle, histrionic, and vain. Dickheads.

They are not good for women.

Then I laughed as a sudden thought hurled into my head: men probably rant and rave about women from time to time. Shit. Oops. Wrong target for my irrational anger and frustration.

Irrational

-adjective

1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.

2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.

3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical.

I calmed down, felt the anger ebb, watched the beautiful sunset and thought of all the men I’ve known and loved and hated. I can’t blame any one of them. There will always be dickheads, just as there will always be bitches. The problem is not with men; the problem is not with me either. There are no discrete problems, but rather a mish-mash of problems, not all involving men, all verging together to create this irrational anger, my crash, my depression, my sleeplessness, my boredom, my frustration and my despair as well as my hopes and my dreams.

And I thought about the men in my life now and realised I have more male friends than women. And it’s the men who have been most vocal and supportive of me in the past week. Women have too (hi Michelle), but the men have surprised me to an extent with their understanding, compassion and support. Thank you.

I love men.