I am, once again, sitting on my balcony connected to the Internet via 802.11b, although, this time I am in Chicago. It seems that the air conditioning central unit may very well be generating enough interference that I can't connect to my wireless router at full efficiency. And also, the sun is going down. I should probably head back inside.

As I wandered the Northwest Suburbs this afternoon in search of sustenance, I had a lot of thoughts echoing back and forth through my mind, and, true to form, they have all somehow evaporated.

It was something about being at peace. Naturally I would forget that.

So I am trying. Trying to stop bitching and moaning about how pathetic my life is. No one wants to hear it. It's bullshit to some degree anyway. I mean, it's not like I'm not doing something worthwhile with my life.

Honestly, there probably is no good reason why I can't be content. (I was going to say "happy," but that may be going a little too far.)

Anyway.

It's probably because instead of doing something productive this afternoon, I immediately went to sleep.

I think I was going to make some tangential comment about learned helplessness.

Yeah. Something like that. How, for me, it's easier to just accept the situation, adapt to it, trying to accomodate it, try to be somewhat comfortable with it. But the thing is, sometimes that doesn't save you. Even then, things can still be unbearable. Worse, sometimes the rules can change midway. This is what makes me want to give up sometimes. A lot of my life, I suppose, has been following rules to the T, then finding out afterwards that the rules were a bunch of crap anyway. Learned helplessness. What the hell is the point?

So. Intellectually, I understand all this. There were never really any rules. But the only way that society can function... hell, the only way that any sort of relationship can exist between two people is that you eventually agree to a set of somewhat arbitrary rules. (Not necessarily completely arbitrary, because a lot of them have some survival value.)

There is no one way to live your life.

But through a mix of luck, pre-existing impetus from older family members, and my own stubborness, I have ended up on this path, for good or for ill, and while my brain recognizes that I don't have to do anything that I don't want to (except that, of course there are consequences), I don't think my heart has accepted the fact that the rules can change at the drop of a hat.

Anyway. This is getting wildly theoretical, and I don't really know what I'm getting at. And besides, it's dark out here. I'm going blind.