Lately my posts have taken a more maudlin direction. I promise to make it up to my readers by writing something more engaging. For the meantime I ask for you all to wait until I can invoke a fit of buffoonery worthy of placing on the printed page.
Today we were given an opportunity to finish where we left off for an exam for intro to electrical engineering. Even so, I was only able to complete half of it. The nights I poured into it out of preparation went to naught. I left feeling dreadfully hopeless about my future prospects and my overall competence. On the drive home I turned to this song in order to soothe my nerves. It took some of the edge off but I still had to overcome a sort of hollow sensation that comes from having your chest and guts scooped out.
After driving for a short while I realized that this new disappointment which made its debut on the center stage is completely overshadowed by all the others which formed the definitive backdrop of my life. All of the time I lost in my youth to this paralytic sinking feeling of powerlessness and inadequacy came back to me. This recollection did not consume me but rather, it reminded me of a very profound quote from the Doom Eagles:
All of creation suffers, young ones. Only in accepting our own mortality can we make a difference. Only in bearing the burden of our failures can we find the strength to go on. Only in detachment from glory, or honour, or jealousy... from life itself can we hope to spare others from grief. We are Doom Eagles. And we are dead already.
+++ Librarian Secundus Thryn of the Doom Eagles +++
A sense of relief came from being (more than) well prepared for dealing with this attack on my spirit. Like a fencer who was caught briefly unaware, I recovered my footing and gathered myself together. My thoughts were such “Right now I am truly in my own element. This is my domain. I am home.” Things then took a turn for the better. This despondently invigorating realization served as a confirmation of being alive. You'd be surprised just what sort of things you would welcome just to upset the bland progression of day to day life.
Regardless of how welcoming we are of it, a toxin is still a toxin. So I dealt with it in the same manner I treat another mild toxin that I am fond of. I lied down and let it run its course. I guess you could say I was drunk on self loathing lol. When I awoke I began to briefly review the material that gave me a hard time and then took a break from it to blog to you all. A break which must end soon seeing how much time I devoted to writing about the experience rather than actually fixing it.
This Saturday I was driven to desperation by a similar sort of fit so I searched online for anything to get me out of this rut. A friend of mine who is a modern military enthusiast noticed my fascination with neuroscience and my recent preoccupation with the science of memory. Lately I have been touting working memory as the very backbone of cognition, so he shared a very illuminating article which prompted me to get this book. I recently abandoned a similar personal project so I could devote more time to studies and internet wanderlust. Seeing that article confirmed just how much more attention I must devote to strengthening the very thing that is most vital to my success. I must now abandon Lumosity and stick to more classical methods. It's only fitting for someone who has always been a fan of the classics.
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