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Offlinewatermelon mon
Willow Trees


Registered: 04/05/13
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox]
    #19224937 - 12/03/13 11:26 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

I had a interview at McDonalds they don't like me :lol:
it's all good  my time will come


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    :dazedandconfused:


Edited by watermelon mon (12/03/13 11:29 PM)


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OfflineDirtyTomFlint
( ಥـْـِـِـِـْಥ)
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: watermelon mon]
    #19224954 - 12/03/13 11:32 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Childhood, suicidal, therapy :/

Great now though lol.


--------------------




Know Your Body, Know Your Mind, Know Your Substance, Know Your Source


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Offlinest1llnox
dx'd PTSD/ADHD--please don't ask
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: DirtyTomFlint]
    #19224959 - 12/03/13 11:34 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Okay, you're justified in making it sound so dire then :sadyes: lol. Mine is ALWAYS hiring due to our herculean turnover.
Quote:

DatIslandLife said:
Childhood, suicidal, therapy :/

Great now though lol.




I'm glad you joined the shroomery and I'm glad you're doing well! You've racked up an impressive number of posts for being here like a week haha


--------------------
Back, bitches.
st1lln0x: so i'm on weed, temazepam, adderall, dexedrine, dxm, dph, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, tryptophan, GABA, and kratom
Cavemen_savemen: st1lln0x, do you feel like a robot yet?
st1lln0x: I feel like a fucking Gundam
Click to friend me on Steam for Counter-Strike
:crankey: IS LIFE SKULLFUCKING YOU!? HAVE SOME FREE MORALE! :awesomenod:
Click if you want to feel you alone can do it! Click if you want to feel confident and beastly! Click if you want courage to let go and move on! And click the message if you need someone to talk to -- I'll understand, even if we "hate" each other on here :hug: :sun:


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InvisibleBeside the Garden
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Registered: 06/03/13
Posts: 606
Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox]
    #19225016 - 12/03/13 11:49 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Hey st1llnox, I remember posting in a thread of yours about quitting weed..
Have you done this?

My advice is CHILL WITH THE DRUGS BROTHER, I say that with kindness I'm not yelling.
I have seen you post a few times and drug use seams to be something you keep tripping on (no pun) and you openly voice it.

Be grateful for things.. Say what your grateful for out loud and take notice in the moment..
let people know what is good about them and what you like about them, the more good you can see in others the more good you will see in yourself..
Recognize the everyday goodness like the blueness of blue or the brightness of light, the taste of good food or the way you feel during and after a shower..
All three of these things is about feeling good and gratitude, being grateful is key..

Omega 3 fatty acids (fish oil) get some, it works wonders over time. Maybe take some of the drug funds and invest them in omega 3 and multivitamins.
Work out, listen to positive loud music while doing it..
Meditation or something like it maybe yoga..
If you work keep it up, but find some social activity that is not drug centered..

Don't be to hard on yourself for set backs or beat your self down. Recognize the good and know gradual progress is still progress.

Lastly eat the mushroom and recognize it not as a drug but an excellent way to accelerate personal growth:mushroom2:
I want to hear about your life getting better:peace:


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Offlinest1llnox
dx'd PTSD/ADHD--please don't ask
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: Beside the Garden]
    #19225038 - 12/04/13 12:03 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Wow, thanks Beside the Garden. I like your name, BTW--are you related to Into the Woods? His is more of a direction than a location, but you've got to acknowledge the resemblance  :wink:


I quit weed a while ago but have started again recently. I'm definitely getting another 8th if only because I can fix my sleep cycle completely in 1-2 nights with it, plus its fun and I get bored a lot. However, strict (perhaps even regimented) moderation is going to be (and have to be) my absolute priority with this. If, as with DXM and Alcohol, moderation gives way to excess, then just as with those other two I will do something about it.

Alcohol and DXM are what I worry about. My hands/fingers tremble a little when I point or hold them out and I'm scared this is from DXM (it seems like it it was from alcohol it'd be more likely to be temporary). I'm anxious to see what happens with this.


It's wonderful you emphasize gratitude so much because it really is important and I definitely think I've forsaken it in focusing on the bad. I mean, as much as anything my attitude issues about my current situation can be seen as an egregious case of entitlement... I'm gonna focus on that half full part while I look for a tap :cool:


I'll try the omega-3s and your other (very good) suggestions. I think that trying to enjoy the baseline/unaltered human experience will help a lot, and honestly part of me thinks that my life is going to go from being divided in two (before and after involuntary psych ward ruined everything and introduced me to hard drugs) to being divided into 3: before hospital, rut phase, post psychedelic phase haha.

I'd like it a lot better that way. I am also quite likely going to be visiting Zann and some others in Philly and dropping some LSD with them... would this be as good?


Anyway, sorry for the ramble and thank you VERY much for your GREAT advice. I was already feeling a lot better from starting to run and quitting cigs, but like now that I'm not drinking either, I feel good. Like... GOOD, and it's almost strange but I'm sure glad to be feeling this way.


--------------------
Back, bitches.
st1lln0x: so i'm on weed, temazepam, adderall, dexedrine, dxm, dph, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, tryptophan, GABA, and kratom
Cavemen_savemen: st1lln0x, do you feel like a robot yet?
st1lln0x: I feel like a fucking Gundam
Click to friend me on Steam for Counter-Strike
:crankey: IS LIFE SKULLFUCKING YOU!? HAVE SOME FREE MORALE! :awesomenod:
Click if you want to feel you alone can do it! Click if you want to feel confident and beastly! Click if you want courage to let go and move on! And click the message if you need someone to talk to -- I'll understand, even if we "hate" each other on here :hug: :sun:


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Offlinedanlennon3
LivingIsEasyWithEyesClosed.....
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox]
    #19225112 - 12/04/13 12:29 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

There have been a couple times in my life where I went 8+ months in mental agony. What really helped me the most is exercise, especially yoga. It healed my mind, damage I thought was irreversible. Yoga truly saved my life! Other than that, just living a healthy lifestyle.. like moderating drugs... only good drugs and not hard ones... eating right.. and another REALLY important thing is to allow yourself to step out of our comfort zone! If you get nervous around girls for example, throw yourself into situations where you are forced to do the things you are normally afraid to do. Hobbies, keeping busy, keeping the house clean and not a huge mess, reading, BUDDHISM, meditation, nature walks, LSD... I could go on but that pretty much sums it up!

And nox... when I say my life and mind were so fargone... I am making an understatement. There were times where I felt like there was absolutely NO WAY of rebounding, but somehow it did and on multiple occasions. In the past 4 years, there were around 3 times where I was in the WORST pain in my life for 6-8 month spans. When it comes to getting off drugs or alcohol, it takes time... But I PROMISE you with all my heart that there is ALWAYS a light at the end of that tunnel. It can be very hard to even fathom a positive outlook when life gets you so down... But with enough practice, life can spring back ten fold:heart:


--------------------
"Psychedelics should be used not to escape reality, but to embrace it"



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InvisibleBeside the Garden
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Posts: 606
Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox]
    #19226100 - 12/04/13 10:55 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Thanks,
And no don't know him..

Well get your sleep right this is a must, A MUST. And if you must smoke weed maybe use it at the end of the night after all other important things are out of the way I promise you will like it better because your not neglecting stuff. Even if you don't have anything going on that day give weed a time and place and purpose, end of the day chill before bedtime ritual:lol:. Working out allso helps good sleep and so does simple things like not watching tv an hour before you go to be, maybe sit and read a good book or get your meditation in. Just get your sleep stable.

But yeah moderation has a way of becoming a habit quick.. So in time maybe quit, like I said before there will always be more weed.

LSD is also a awesome way to grow your self, I have no experience but have read others.

How you see your self as separate and fragmented is false, you are one just divided within but thats part of the lesson. Not like I have this shit figured out myself but we share ideas, reach out, grow and learn..:peace:


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InvisibleBeside the Garden
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Posts: 606
Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: Beside the Garden]
    #19226131 - 12/04/13 11:04 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

danlennon3 is right about the comfort zone thing but I would like to add. Get certain thing in order first don't just throw yourself into situations that your not equipped to handle, that could mess you up and do the opposite of what you need. The point is to overcoming the uncomfortable to experience a richer deeper life not being overwhelmed and crippled by the unmanageable.

"Know your limits Master Wayne" :lol:

and yeah good food:thumbup:


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Offlineshivas.wisdom
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox] * 1
    #19226173 - 12/04/13 11:17 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

I think it is part of human behaviour, to form daily routines and patterns--familiarity is comfortable--but yea, it's only a matter of time before you fall into a rut of doing the same things over and over without really feeling like you are experiencing them anymore--yet unable to change direction because of how deep the rut you are in is.

Quote:

st1llnox said:
what enabled you to get out of it



Sell everything you don't need--put what you can't carry into storage--pack a backpack and travel somewhere--go by yourself and don't contact anyone back home for the first month--go somewhere you've always said you wanted to go and reinvent yourself




It's good for two reasons--one, it gets you far away from your own rut--fresh ground to break--an incredible liberating feeling and as long as you don't just stay in your hostel all day, guaranteed to break you out of a rut.

Second reason is, by going away by yourself to a place where no one else knows you, you find yourself living without anyone projecting preconceived notions of who you are towards you--parents, friends, associates--over time, people build an idea of 'who' you are--oh, he's the jokester--she's the airhead--etc etc--and it can be hard to escape these roles--to the point that, though you have changed, these outward shells remain in place--holding back your growth--getting away from it all cuts away this shell of external preconceptions of who you are--allowing you to reshape yourself to better reflect who you actually are.


Be careful on the return--I've left my area of origin about five times or so now--each time with great success while travelling--but within a week of returning, i find my tracks still there--deep ruts in the road--and i fall back into my old pattern within a week--though you may have changed, life back home will still be the same--be vigilant in holding onto your newfound awareness--i've given up being able to do so myself, and don't plan to return again as more than a visitor, when i take off again in spring


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Invisibleabltsandwich
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19226189 - 12/04/13 11:23 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

What happens in the mind, happens in the body.
What happens in the body, happens in the mind.

You can't so easily change your mind or else everyone would just think their way out of every problem in life.  But you can change your body and what you do with it.  The act of getting out of the rut physically will invariably cause the mind to follow suit.

One must escape, to escape.


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InvisibleBeside the Garden
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: abltsandwich]
    #19226233 - 12/04/13 11:33 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

shivas.wisdom is right on.. So true about that outer shell of preconceived ideas people project on you, so true..
abltsandwich is also on point..
This thread is full of good stuff:aliendance:


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InvisibleTrentBoyett
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19231378 - 12/05/13 01:55 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

shivas.wisdom said:
I think it is part of human behaviour, to form daily routines and patterns--familiarity is comfortable--but yea, it's only a matter of time before you fall into a rut of doing the same things over and over without really feeling like you are experiencing them anymore--yet unable to change direction because of how deep the rut you are in is.

Quote:

st1llnox said:
what enabled you to get out of it



Sell everything you don't need--put what you can't carry into storage--pack a backpack and travel somewhere--go by yourself and don't contact anyone back home for the first month--go somewhere you've always said you wanted to go and reinvent yourself




It's good for two reasons--one, it gets you far away from your own rut--fresh ground to break--an incredible liberating feeling and as long as you don't just stay in your hostel all day, guaranteed to break you out of a rut.

Second reason is, by going away by yourself to a place where no one else knows you, you find yourself living without anyone projecting preconceived notions of who you are towards you--parents, friends, associates--over time, people build an idea of 'who' you are--oh, he's the jokester--she's the airhead--etc etc--and it can be hard to escape these roles--to the point that, though you have changed, these outward shells remain in place--holding back your growth--getting away from it all cuts away this shell of external preconceptions of who you are--allowing you to reshape yourself to better reflect who you actually are.


Be careful on the return--I've left my area of origin about five times or so now--each time with great success while travelling--but within a week of returning, i find my tracks still there--deep ruts in the road--and i fall back into my old pattern within a week--though you may have changed, life back home will still be the same--be vigilant in holding onto your newfound awareness--i've given up being able to do so myself, and don't plan to return again as more than a visitor, when i take off again in spring



Thanks for this, I've been in a "rut" for a while and I've been planning on doing what you said sometime in the near future(gotta get off of probation first).

Glad to hear it worked out for you, I hope it will for me as well:thumbup:


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OfflineEllis Dee
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19231443 - 12/05/13 02:15 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

shivas.wisdom said:
Sell everything you don't need--put what you can't carry into storage--pack a backpack and travel somewhere--go by yourself and don't contact anyone back home for the first month--go somewhere you've always said you wanted to go and reinvent yourself




HOW DO YOU FIGURE BECOMING A HOMELESS DRIFTER WILL BENEFIT THE OP?

:sploosh:


--------------------
"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,


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OfflineEnvix
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: st1llnox]
    #19231451 - 12/05/13 02:18 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

yes, when i lived with my parents

Quote:

st1llnox said:
More importantly, what enabled you to get out of it




by moving out

Quote:

and could you tell it was going away or did you just one day realize "shits good again!"?  Did you do deliberate things or did it just happen?




a rut is a state of mind. changing your life will change your mind, and you will no longer see a rut.

how many times 'til you get the message, st1llnox?


--------------------
smack a hoe out this dimension
continue my ascension
-bhad bhabie

rip. todcasil, acid sloth, st1llnox, zappaisgod, big worm (sketch), tim b


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Offlineshivas.wisdom
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: Ellis Dee]
    #19231605 - 12/05/13 02:54 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Ellis Dee said:
Quote:

shivas.wisdom said:
Sell everything you don't need--put what you can't carry into storage--pack a backpack and travel somewhere--go by yourself and don't contact anyone back home for the first month--go somewhere you've always said you wanted to go and reinvent yourself




HOW DO YOU FIGURE BECOMING A HOMELESS DRIFTER WILL BENEFIT THE OP?

:sploosh:



he's in a rut

in my experience, the best way to get out of a rut is to change your environment
he doesn't have to live like this perpetually--but i explained the benefits in the rest of my post which you chose not to quote


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Offlineshivas.wisdom
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: TrentBoyett]
    #19231628 - 12/05/13 02:58 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

mjmihalov said:
Thanks for this, I've been in a "rut" for a while and I've been planning on doing what you said sometime in the near future(gotta get off of probation first).

Glad to hear it worked out for you, I hope it will for me as well:thumbup:



It'll sound cliche, but the hardest part is the first step--the moment where you decide to leave everything behind (even temporarily) and go off on your own--immediately afterwards, everything starts flowing :smile:


--------------------


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Offlineshivas.wisdom
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19231661 - 12/05/13 03:05 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

i think this essay is relevant:

Behavioural Cut-ups

Our civilization prizes linear progress and development, in which an individual sets goals and pursues them; but there is another kind of growth, another kind of learning, in which an individual broadens her frame of reference. Focusing only upon linear progress, a person might work his whole life and attain all his objectives without ever expanding his awareness of life's possibilities. Indeed, in this objective-oriented society, it is difficult not to develop tunnel vision; and even if you pledge yourself to a life of exploration, in which everyday is to be an adventure, routine is bound to set in sometimes.

That's where behavioural cut-ups come in. A behavioural cut-up is a method for making the familiar unfamiliar, and thus jerking yourself out of the grip of inertia. In contrast to product-oriented activity, the practice of behavioural cut-ups implies that it could be important to achieve something you can't anticipate. Unlike most of the recipes in this book, behavioural cut-ups are not useful for achieving specific ends, but rather for establishing perspectives that can indicate new beginnings. Behavioural cut-ups offer a way to uncover the adventure and potential hidden within activities that are normally shrouded in habit.

Instructions
Behavioural cut-ups are comparable to literary and artistic cut-ups, in which existing texts and materials are disassembled and reconstructed in new ways. Dadaists used to cut up newspapers and books of poetry, and generate new poems by drawing the pieces out of a hat at random; likewise, the behavioural cut-up artist applies scissors and glue to personal or social text, reconfiguring commonplace aspects of life in extraordinary ways. A behavioural cut-up is not a randomization of life so much as a means of departure for unexplored territory; as such, it can require careful deliberation. Choosing the most promising adjustments to make is a rigorous science, if not an exact one.

In the most basic form of behavioural cut-up, you attach a stipulation to some formerly mundane aspect of life: for example, you decide not to pay for food for a full month, or dedicate yourself to climbing every single oak tree in the county, or commit to sending your family one postcard every day for a year. Such stipulations focus fresh attention on matters you had taken for granted, sharpening your awareness, limbering up your sense of self, and revealing new possibilities. Venturing outside the circuit of your daily life, you temporarily enter a parallel world in which you are a different person, and learn all the things that are banal to that person but brand new to you.

Behavioural cut-ups are not as unusual as their esoteric name makes them sound. In traditions stretching back to the dawn of civilization, warriors and shamans have practiced them as a form of vision quest: mimicry of animals, ritual use of intoxicants, ecstatic dancing, public nudity and other taboo acts, rituals of exhaustion, deprivation, and pain—these are time-honoured techniques for psychic and social experimentation. Even in our prosaic age, people engage in similar activities, to varying degrees: fasting during the month of Ramadan, building a fort out of cushions in the living room and refusing to come out all evening, going to a Halloween party dressed up as Fidel Castro and spending the whole night in character, all these are cut-ups, however unconscious or unoriginal. Many people have first-hand experience with simple food cut-ups: becoming vegan, for example, focuses new attention on food, transforming social interactions and often resulting in increased interest in cooking or gardening. It only remains for us to develop a deliberate practice of behavioural cut-ups for their own sake, as tools for education, inspiration, and liberation.

Behavioural cut-ups need not be grandiose; indeed, the most powerful ones rarely sound good on paper. It may not seem like a big life change to commit to something trivial like initiating a conversation with a stranger every morning, but the cumulative effects can be startling. More extreme behavioural cut-ups can bring you into conflict with your fellow citizens—indeed, the other meaning of “cut-up” is misbehave—but in the long run, such conflict serves to keep life interesting for everyone.

A Few Behavioural Cut-Ups for Would-Be Beginners
Make two lists: things that bore you, and things that are terrifying to you. The former should be easy to compile, while the latter may be difficult even to admit to yourself. Randomly select an item from each list. Invent a practice that combines them: for example, if you picked “commuting” from your boring list, and “public speaking” from your frightening list, you might dare yourself to deliver an oration every morning on the subway. Keep a journal of your experiences and interactions.

Select an activity that has always struck you as absurd or unjust and refuse to participate in it, no matter how complicated this proves. This may sensitize you to tragedies that were once invisible—a few months into veganism, you enter a leather market and experience it as a grave robbers' bazaar—or reveal the excesses of your society to your fellow citizens, as in the case of the ascetic who carries with him all the trash he produces.

Give yourself a special relationship with a location by associating it with a specific activity. For example, you could decide that whenever you are in Germany, you are a runner who gets up at dawn to jog around the city.

If your outward appearance has always provided you with the privilege of passing as a “normal” human being, paint or dye your skin, or shave off your hair and eyebrows, or dress in drag. Don't make any attempt to explain yourself if you want the full benefit of learning what life is like for those who attract attention whether they want it or not.

Go without something you have taken for granted your whole life. For example, learn to recognize all the edible and medicinal plants that grow in your region, and spend a season living outside, subsisting on them. Refuse to set foot in any buildings for the duration of this period.

You can get in touch with and establish power over your fears by means of a variety of rituals: try being naked with your friends and then with less familiar acquaintances, being intimate with people of the sex opposite the one you are used to touching, taking blindfolded tours of familiar and unfamiliar environments, starting frank conversations with strangers, climbing the ladders of water towers—nothing can multiply your capabilities like confronting the limitations you have set for yourself.

Take a well-known tool—for this example we'll use a toaster—and turn it back into an object. Take it far from the kitchen, perhaps to a mountaintop or abandoned grain silo. Say its name continuously for thirty minutes: say it fast, say it slow, spell it out, sing it to the tune of your favourite childhood song. Now take it with you to the bank. Wear it as a shoe. Run a mile in it. Exhausted, curl up with it for a long nap. Remove one of its shiny panels and write a letter upon it to a friend with whom you have lost touch. Invent a dozen other uses for it, and utilize it thus until these are habitual and toast seems strange.

Violate unspoken social laws about the application of space. Squat one of those vast 24-hour super-marts for a few days. Conduct experiments, play games, graze on food in your “pantry,” find a quiet corner to sleep. Pick a neglected category of items (green plastic things, paraphernalia of insecurity, materials not produced by slave labour) and, cartload by cartload, establish a new section for it. Use stationery to write letters to friends, use the phone to invite them over. Throw a party—guests need not bring food or gifts. Take a disposable camera off the shelf; after taking some unusual photos, repackage it as a gift to its future owner. Add to this list of things to do as the days go by and your derangement intensifies.

Become a guru. Go to a public place where you can set up camp, and establish a constant presence there. Bring a project. It will have to be a project that creates ripples of notoriety—rumours should spread about your presence. People will approach with stories for you: give them time, listen. You, above close friends, will be told of injuries, secrets, dilemmas, desires. Do not try to solve problems or offer advice: your role is to hold the stories as if you were a hiding place. Your visitors will return to sort through them, to make amendments and new deposits, to revisit old ones. They will offer you food. Occasionally they will ask about your life—but remember, they do this only out of politeness and habit, for they know that you are a magic person, you have a project. As your relationships grow, your needs will be increasingly met by the offerings of your visitors. These gifts carry with them the power to cast spells on their behalf. Heal them, make them well.

Concoct and carry out your own rites of passage. Invent a series of games to play with your friends, and announce a month during which you will change your own lives in preparation for the following years of changing the world. You could begin with elaborate scavenger hunts, and conclude with a sequence of challenges: Starting at noon Friday at Danielle's house in the placid suburbs, who can get arrested first? (This particular example is tailored for the privileged children of the bourgeoisie; there are other equivalents.) Who can write the most fantastic novel? (This is how Mary Shelly'sFrankenstein was written—it was her first.) If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do today? OK, on the count of three, go do it. What do you fear most of all? For the final exam, confront it, live through it. The ones who survive will be ready for anything.

Account
Schwabisch Hall, Germany was a world away, but when we left home we brought along our clothes. We packed our language, and friends with whom to speak it; and since we brought all that, we couldn't forget our habits, personalities, and histories. We dragged along grudges, we smuggled in crushes. On the runway, the airplane fought to gain speed, its belly stuffed with our baggage.

As I stared out of the window, the trip began to seem less like an unimaginable voyage and more like a visit to the ocean floor in a little submarine. It seemed clear that for the full promise of travel to unfold, we needed more than an unimaginable place like the small town in Germany for which we were headed; we needed to be unimaginable ourselves. After some deliberation, it struck me: “In Germany, I am a runner.” Selma thought it was a good plan—and like me, she had the qualification of not being a runner anywhere else. So we made a pact to behave as though we were runners from the day we arrived until the day we left, a full two weeks.

The next morning, for the first time in our lives, we woke up at a quarter to eight and embarked on an hour-long run. Afterwards, exhausted, we sat down with pen and paper to make maps. Though our two maps were of the same path, they bore little resemblance, but both showed the waterfall. We had taken a long and overgrown trail to the west of town. Just as I was aching to turn around, the air had become mysteriously cool; the sound of rushing water pulled my mind from my suffering and my eyes from my toes. The waterfall was luminous and green, thick with moss that guided the falling water and made the face of the cliff look like the bearded face of a gnome. Too winded to speak, we let the scene wash away the words and the pain. Yes! We had travelled.

To be in an unknown place is to be disoriented, inspired, exalted by the unknown. But being receptive to the unknown means becoming unknown. Travelling to Germany presented an opportunity to be free of inertia, free of the part of myself that only notices what I expect to notice and only does the things I know myself to do. What I searched for there was a possible me, a version of myself who, in that case, ran every morning. In that foreign space I noticed what he noticed and thought his thoughts. I found a waterfall on a tangled path, an abandoned tunnel covered in vines and graffiti, the ruins of a castle, and a foggy morning on which, at the peak of our run, the mountaintops looked like islands. I found my body reinventing itself for new challenges.

In going to Germany, I could have stopped speaking, I could have decided to dance in the streets without reservation, I could have confined myself to a wheelchair, I could have become a poet or a stand-up comic. I can only imagine the places where those experiments would have brought me. I do know that there are people who will live and die in Schwabisch Hall without ever seeing the things we've seen. I am also reminded that there are just as many waterfall, sanctuaries, and castles in Pittsburgh—I've simply not yet been a runner to find them.


--------------------


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InvisibleTrentBoyett
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19231702 - 12/05/13 03:13 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

shivas.wisdom said:
Quote:

mjmihalov said:
Thanks for this, I've been in a "rut" for a while and I've been planning on doing what you said sometime in the near future(gotta get off of probation first).

Glad to hear it worked out for you, I hope it will for me as well:thumbup:



It'll sound cliche, but the hardest part is the first step--the moment where you decide to leave everything behind (even temporarily) and go off on your own--immediately afterwards, everything starts flowing :smile:



The whole thing sounds a little cliché honestly, but that's never stopped me before.

...and I hope so!


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OfflineEllis Dee
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: shivas.wisdom]
    #19231796 - 12/05/13 03:34 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

shivas.wisdom said:

he's in a rut

in my experience, the best way to get out of a rut is to change your environment
he doesn't have to live like this perpetually--but i explained the benefits in the rest of my post which you chose not to quote



So your cure to a rut is becoming a vagabond for a while. I guess if you're in a rut you think being homeless will help somehow instead of making it worse? Did you ever take your own advise or do you just advise homelessness as a life change for other people?


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InvisibleTrentBoyett
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Registered: 11/29/12
Posts: 16,000
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Re: Ever been in a rut for a long time? [Re: Ellis Dee]
    #19231848 - 12/05/13 03:43 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

If you can't understand how a change of enviroment can help someone, than you guys might as well just stop now.

Even if the change is not to something ideal, it can still help. I've experienced this a few times, never quite on the scale Shivas is talking about, but still.


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