Unwanted change (circumlunar.space), 12/06/2019
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Recently I've  changed. I  didn't plan  to change,  I didn't
want to change.  I'm not entirely sure why I  changed, and I
don't understand  the scope of  the change, but I  know that
I've changed.

I'm not  sure I like the  change, but I somehow  know that I
can't go back. I suppose  some great philosopher has already
noted that  we can  never go  back, establishing  the ground
rules for our understanding (thanks great philosophers!).

Do I  need to understand  the change?  I'm not sure  of that
either. Part of me feels like it doesn't matter so much that
I should  lose sleep over  it. I can probably  continue with
life, and work on understanding  the change in a synchronous
way rather  than stopping  everything. That's  good, because
I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to understand.

Since  I don't  understand, it  would  be futile  to try  to
explain  the  change;  but,  I'll make  some  vague  attempt
anyway, because I'm not opposed to futile struggles.

This  year,  I'm  not  finding joy  in  whiz-bang  Christmas
movies;  you  know  the  type, like  "Elf,"  or  "The  Santa
Clause." The kind  that don't have any depth,  that are just
for  fun. That's  odd for  me, because  I've always  enjoyed
those  kinds of  movies.  It's doubly  odd  because I  can't
really  think of  any reason  for  the change-  it's just  a
change in my brain, like part of me broke or something. It's
not an important part, I think, but it was noticeable.

Over the last few months  or longer, I've not been motivated
to participate as much online. I don't mean on the web (that
motivation  died a  long time  ago),  I mean  on pubnix  and
gopher  and the  BBSes. I  guess part  of it  is, I  have no
idea  what to  contribute, or  if  there is  anything I  can
contribute. The change here is primarily this: that I didn't
use to  worry if what  I added was  of any value.  My mental
approach, in the  past, was to simply  contribute whatever I
felt like contributing, and not  worry if it meant anything.
I was doing it for the joy of doing it, and that's all.

Man, that right there is part of it, it has to be. I need to
get back to that, I don't want to lose that.

My z80 projects were a part of that. They happened mostly in
isolation,  and I  phlogged about  them with  only a  little
feedback (for which I'm super grateful!). Too esoteric, even
for pubnix I  guess (or, the z80 crowd  is more introverted,
or some other reason). Or  maybe there was simply nothing to
be said about what I was doing (which wasn't ground-breaking
anyway).  Regardless, the  point here  is that  I *did*  the
projects and I  wrote about them, because it  brought me joy
to do the projects and to write about them. That was enough.

If I could  hold on to the "being enough"  part right there,
but it feels  so ephemeral! How do you go  through life, and
let  everything you  do  be enough?  I'm  positive that  I'm
missing a piece of the puzzle here.

Life has also gotten a little harder recently, mostly on the
family side of things. The kids are growing up, turning into
little adults, and that change has been tough. We're finding
that,  like  their  parents,  our  kids  have  psychological
challenges that  they will have  to face. Perfect  angels as
children,  the loves  of my  life, yet  they are  only human
after all,  and I have  to help  them face that  humanity. I
feel like  I have  to help  them learn  how to  tackle those
things that rise up like  monstrous spectres in their lives,
at least  while they're  still living  with me  and probably
beyond. It's rough, really  rough, to see the transformation
from innocence to understanding.

And without  knowing, that  has changed  me. The  battle has
changed me. It is changing  me still, I suppose. That's part
of it.

Well, I  still don't feel  like I  understand, but I  feel a
little  better writing  about it.  And in  the end  (of this
post), I do  feel like I've gotten somewhere  for my (small)
effort.