smut

so, i've calmed down a bit lately--i haven't felt as neurotic or anxious. i think a lot of it had to do with work slash over-thinking. too often, i try to pick apart every facet of my being and it always results in me spazzing out because i feel like i'm losing myself, in one way or another--that i'm somehow losing control over what makes me essentially me. generally, these are qualities i treasure--things that come naturally to me, usually having to do with some form of self-expression (i.e. my ability to write, to talk, to make people laugh). the problem is, once i start thinking about how i do something, the actual process itself, i feel like i can no longer do it. and this might have something to do with me forcing something that otherwise isn't forced or doesn't need to be forced--like i said, things that come naturally--so that, i'm no longer doing them automatically, but trying--actively trying--to do them in a self-reflexive state of mind--like a severely debilitating incarnation of metacognition. really, though, i think i just need to relax. indulge myself by going with the flow, so to speak. i need to stop trying to control everything and just let it happen. it doesn't do me any good to consciously deconstruct my own essence because, at that point, it dies.
a friend of mine put it this way: try to dissect something and it dies instantly on the table. we were talking about art--specifically, the science of aesthetics and trying to pinpoint the universal quality of "good art" but i think it's still applicable in this case. the moment i stick the knife in, i die. i lose my train of being--my momentum. maybe it's not immediate--there's a brief period of intense pain before finally succumbing to a fatal wound--and maybe i can still recover, but it's still something i'd like to avoid.
i'm not going to say i cease to be myself the instant i start to question why and how i do things, that self-reflexive contemplation necessarily leads to the murder of the self, because, even when i try to act out of character, i'm still me, i'm still performing out of character as myself--that's something i learned a long time ago. try as you might, you cannot abolish the self. still, it'd be nice to not have to worry about these things. i guess deliberately avoiding my own neurosis sort of contradicts my whole "go-with-the-flow" argument, but...whatever. no matter what i do, i will always be me. nothing will change that. maybe i'm just supposed to be fucked-up. but i know i can get better, that i've felt better, less anxious, than i do now and i'd like to feel that again. it's hard to put into words--my strategy--but i'm going to try so i can avoid getting into scraps like this later--so that i'll know how to deal with them when the time arrives.
anyway...