Onslaught in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

You know, things are good here. I like my job, I’m pretty happy with everything. Even though it’s a bit stressful, the amount of stress I’m dealing with now is nowhere near what I dealt with in California. It’s funny how having your basic needs taken care of frees your mind.

Unfortunately, that means my mind is free to dream-up scenarios to make me stressed. And that’s what this entry is about.

Being all alone means that I have no one to occupy my mind but myself, and I’ve suddenly accrued an onslaught of existential dread. Most specifically about death. Now, I’ve never really thought too heavily about it but now, especially at night, my mind starts spiraling. It’s giving me the worst panic attacks I’ve ever had in my life.

It first started idly when I noticed their calendar was different. They use a Buddhist calendar which means every document says it is the year 2564. I have somehow jumped 542 years into the future… and that got me thinking about the future. Which makes me think about the past.

I’ve usually been pretty good about not dwelling on death too much, even though I write about it quite often. But suddenly I get really angry about the fact that I’m even born. And I start spiraling. What will happen to my consciousness? My grandparents are dead. I’ll be that old soon enough. What will I be like? Will I be better reckoned with death?

Suddenly, I can’t breathe, my mind is racing, and my smartwatch starts beeping at me because it tells me I’m having a panic attack. Being reminded you’re having a panic attack in the midst of a panic attack is NOT soothing.

I honestly don’t know what to do. I haven’t had this problem since I was young. I remember being 15 and thinking these exact thoughts. I hate it. Not just the thoughts, but everything the thoughts mean. All of these politics and things are so pointless, people are dying. Their consciousnesses are being wiped out and you’re arguing about your right to not protect other people from dying? It’s stupid. I hate you.

I thought I had made peace with a lot of these things, having faced death so many times, but I realize that I just replaced that stress with more manageable stress, which isn’t a way to live. I can’t keep shuffling around my anxieties and funneling them into different chasms in my brain. I don’t know what to do about it.

It’s not good. Even though everything else is.