This is a part two my post ‘how to defeat a chaos demon’
Being practical is how you defeat chaos.
How does one be practical?
I’m going to do something a little different with this post. I’m going to keep it very short and very simple. Stay out of the abstract and instead list the practical ways I became a less chaotic human being.
Then I’ll add a list of how I became a less chaotic writer.
First list: human being
First rule of chaos: the more rest I needed the more chaotic I was. If I had to work at night I would spend most of the day ‘resting’ in the form of doing nothing. Then after work I’d also need to ‘rest’ by watching a show or maybe going out for a drink.
This excessive ‘resting’ creates a lot of chaos. Because I needed so much rest just to endure work. It is not sustainable.
First rule of practicality: I bit down very hard on the bullet and I took on three jobs.
I worked everyday for about five months. Was it terrible? Yes.
And then no.
Five months was too long.
But working every day for a period of time eliminated my excessive resting. It made me much more productive. It made me need less to do more.
And it made me far more content in the long run. Because nowadays instead of ‘resting’ before work I get so much done and it makes me feel so peaceful and it gives me so much more actual free time because my life is in order.
Second rule of chaos: addiction and chaos are very good friends.
My addiction was cigarettes.
Cigarettes are tricky things. There’s a great deal of happiness in them and a great deal of misery.
Smoking was very fun, but also very awful. Nothing could be enjoyed unless I got my cigarette.
Here’s a good example; when I went to Thailand I got massively ill from the water there. I was up all night in agony.
There would be tiny little moments where the agony would subside and I could rest finally. Those tiny moments were euphoric. Absolutely euphoric because of the relief.
That’s what smoking is like.
And I imagine that’s what a lot of addictions are like.
Misery to euphoria is a breeding ground for chaos.
Second rule of practicality: quit addictions.
How do you quit an addiction? I don’t know. It’s a very personal thing. I quit because I really wanted to quit.
I wanted to quit so bad that I would have agreed to murder people if that’s what it took to quit smoking. (It didn’t take that. I did not murder anyone)
That’s how I quit my addiction. Really wanting to.
Third rule of chaos: avoidance is how it grows.
I was very good at avoiding things.
I could avoid paying bills and looking at texts. Sometimes I’d text the guy I liked and just like hide from my phone for days.
I actually think avoidance is a very useful trait that I appreciate in myself but that’s for a separate post.
I’m being practical right now. Not theoretical or abstract.
Practical.
And the third rule of practicality is look at avoidance.
I did that by looking at everything I had the instinct to avoid. Not facing it. Not solving it. Just looking at it.
Even the dumb silly things. Like let’s say I want to avoid asking someone for help because that person will then talk to me and I don’t want to talk to them but I actually desperately need their help. (this happens to me a lot)
I’ll look at it. Not go ask for help.
Sometimes I’ll still find an elaborate way around asking a chatty person for help. But I won’t totally avoid it. I’ll consider ways I could ask for help and still escape chatting.
It is incredible how much of difference it can make in life. Just tiny things like that really open up the brain.
Just the act of looking at something the brain wants to avoid and only considering doing it will make the mind stop defaulting to avoidance. It will actually start searching for multiple solutions automatically.
And suddenly life gets easier and much less complicated.
First rule of writing chaotically:
Nevermind.
I’ll do a part two. It’s time for bed.
Jess lanai 