convictions

If you've ever read The Lathe of Heavan by Ursula K. Le Guin, it'll be easier for you to understand how maintaining conviction of belief is a constant challenge and stuggle for me. I can go through an entire day holding a firm belief. But once I sleep, the belief can vanish.

This is a nice feature when the belief involves paranoia, which I'm prone to. It's nice to wake up the next day and not think SBC is refusing to switch the phone into my name because somebody in the government has altered my records in retaliation for a letter I wrote the president. As if I were important enough to matter to anybody. Perhaps paranoia is when your brain makes perfect sense out of nonsense. For me, at this (st)age, my thoughts are rarely controlled by the paranoia, it's my emotional state. I feel that it's true even though I don't think that it's true. Usually, once I sleep, it stops feeling real. Without exertion of effort, the feelings influence my choice of actions, and I say and do weird things.

When it's resolve to take some action that will improve my life, it's really frustrating for the resolve to vanish with a night's sleep. This is why my album isn't done. I'll have complete faith in my writing, then next chance I get to work on it, my own words are meaningless. One day I'll take a strong position on an issue, and formulate a statement. The next day I'll read it, and want to dispute my own claims. It's not the ideas that betray me, it's the feelings. I'd really like to trade my emotional circuits in for a less fickle model.