Recently I was walking down a not very busy nicely tree lined street on the university campus. I walk down this street every day on my way to and from school. This particular day was a thursday, in the spring time, around noon. I am walking down the sidewalk heading back home after class and its raining lightly, and I am insanely hung over. I look at the ground, and then I imagine myself stopping in my tracks and slowly lying down on the sidewalk. Lying there, the rain slowly soaking through my fashionable clothes the water beading up on my brainwashed trendy skin.
I would lie there and people would walk by, looking at me, someone brave would stop and ask,
"Are you okay?"
Without turning my head I would speak with my face into the ground "I'm fine. Probably. Well ... no, I don't think so."
And if I did lie down nothing would make me get back up. Not spaceships, not an volcano, not a hobbit invasion force.
This all sounds a bit dramatic. All I really need is some sleep, and a good solid week of exercise, good nutrition and sex with women I barely know. Of all those things, lately only the last one seems to be easy to manage.
I have been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately. Part of it is my generally bad reaction to pressure. I don't deal with stress very well, in fact I deal with stress kind of badly. When I feel stressed I get confused, and panicky, and I make impulsive decisions. I noticed this quality in myself a while ago and recognized the little cowardly things I do to compensate. It probably explains why I was so comfortable working for years at a shitty job. Because working that job I had no autonomy or authority and consequently almost zero responsibility. Which is a nearly ideal job for someone who reacts badly to stress.
But that job was going nowhere. So what did I do but decided to pack up my suits and cases and try to take my lazy ass somewhere, so I went back to college. The first time I went to college I didn't care what happened. I slept all day, drank all night, skipped class, half assed and phoned in my education. But every action has a reaction and screwing around has consequences. I pretty much lobbed a live grenade directly at my future, and now I am trying to put the pin back in.
So its not like the last time I was in college. This time its all for keeps. I can't fuck it up. And hence, the stress. This one's for all the marbles. No room for error. Do or die. Fuck shit fuck.
So right now I am stressed out, and I am also drunk about 50% of the time.
The problem with stress is that if you have things you want to happen, and you actually care if they do happen, then stress is unavoidable. And its also useless. So what can you do? I don't know.
Some people deal with stress by self medicating(me), some people take it out on their loved ones. I have also seen people succumb to stress and just cave in and let life happen to them. Poor bastards.
The world is full of examples of people who when they can't deal with stress it has disastrous consequences. Darth Vader couldn't deal with the stress that Padme would one day die on him, and we all know how that ended. Badly. And who got caught in the crossfire? The Wookies for one.
I guess the solution is to just get used to watching your plans fall apart and not take it personally when it happens. That is so banal its an almost worthless piece of advice, but I guess its also the only way to really think about it. I have a lot of plans, and despite my practically limitless power, astounding intelligence, and stupefying will, some of my best laid plans still could fail. I don't like the sound of that last sentence, but I don't like stress either.
I admit this last piece sounds like a lot of self indulgent bullshit, what do you care how I deal with stress? You probably don't. Me either. Yawn. Goodnight.