I just had the nicest little chat with scott. (Why do I lowercase his name? (That is, when I'm not referring to him by the now somewhat anachronistic title of scottgalvin.com.) Because he does. Except once in a while when he doesn't. It's that simple.)

He asked how things were going, and I admitted that I've been having trouble focusing all day, and in fact all week. Sometimes, it's like my mind just goes straight into the code, and I'm not even really making an effort, but I get huge amounts done in a short time. Other times, it's like today. Every stupid little line is like a giant uphill battle.

He made some suggestions, some of which I had already tried (like going outside for a few minutes), and we talked a little about ways for getting around these kinds of blocks. I mentioned that I really wished I had gotten more done by now, as the deadline is getting closer.

At that, he was like, don't worry about the deadline. It's just a rough idea. Just do a tiny little piece each day, and we'll launch when it's ready. The deadline was just a rough guess anyway.

He also suggested that it might do me good to just go out and chill for a while, turn off the monitor, or have a beer or something. "Relax."

Ironically, after that little talk, my mind was loosened up enough that I actually did get a little more done (though still nowhere near peak efficiency).

This is what I like about working for scott's company. Though he can be nutty sometimes, and I don't always have confidence in his business plans, he is never uptight about anything. I can talk about shit that's troubling me, or even flat out disagree with some of the ideas he comes up with, and he's totally cool with it.

Also, in other regards, this whole week, like so many weeks of my life, has been totally bizarre. Tobias got a new scrape on Monday. Did I write about that? No I didn't. It happened in a parking garage. In an impatient effort to avoid pedestrians, I took a corner a little too tight, and came into contact with the wall. It took a little paint off the door; cosmetic damage only, but I was still annoyed at myself for being so clumsy.

A book I had ordered arrived just hours later. Reading from it got me totally energized about not only my future, but my present as well. Kudos to CrimethInc. An anti-cult worth joining if I've ever seen one. Their stuff goes so directly to the heart of the matter that I almost can't help but be utterly inspired and galvanized by it. Maybe too much so. Is too much ever enough?

I began taking more little steps toward reaching my dream of dropping out, and (for a while) becoming a vagabond. This felt very exciting and liberating.

Then, somewhere along the line, at some undefinable point, my inspiring vision shifted imperceptibly, but drastically. Before I recognized what had happened, dropping out turned into yet another little action item on my todo list. One more burden to take care of. The more I thought about it, the more huge it became. (If I were going to guess when it happened, I would put it somewhere in the range between last night and this morning.)

This is bizarrely ironic, because the entire point of dropping out, as far as I am concerned, is to let go of the burdens. Yet somehow, I had managed to turn dropping out itself into an even bigger one, as I attempted to calculate timelines, figure out possible ways I might get rid of my crap (it's not nearly as easy as it should be, at least if you're me), and plan out my strategy to make sure I'll be all safe, secure, and ready when "it" happens -- "it" being defined as the moment when one lets go of safety, security, and embraces life, in all its unpredictibility, to the fullest.

"Free your mind."

This supposedly unpredictable future I have dreamed up for myself is yet another piece of fiction.

To those who think I am truly losing it now, I hope you are right. I want to lose it. But the more I try, the more "it" clings to me. Let me quote a brief passage written by the imaginary leaders of the nonexistent underground:

The lengths the child of the bourgeoisie must go to in order to shake off his conditioning are incredible. It may be that for some to begin they need a myth to believe in, as some recovering addicts claim to need a "higher power."

If sometimes you still need us, then so be it -- "we" will drag you kicking and screaming into the new dawn, bearing all the blame for the suffering you have been yearning to bring upon yourself: for the one who wants to be born must first destroy a world. But you cannot arrive until you divest yourself of your crutches. In the end you will turn to thank us, and find you are all alone.

Alright. Enough of you, Mr. Durden. My mind needs a break. Seriously.

As of now, I'm going to mostly forget about dropping out for a while. That doesn't mean I'm cancelling the road trip whose exact departure time has not yet been set, nor does it mean I won't continue to gid rid of my "stuff", little by little. I still intend to follow these courses of action.

What I don't want to do is get into a rut of looking forward to some magical, far away moment when my absolution from the system finally becomes complete, or even if it doesn't become complete, reaches some apex of mythical perfection in balance between being "in" and being "out". The traps my mind has laid for me are absolutely insidious.

I have to face the possibility that "it" may never come, even if "it" is defined as the moment I find myself able to let go of "it".

Ahem, ahem, ahem. Who's lost by now? How many readers were lost from the first word on? How many are looking in from outside this little rat maze I'm in, and can see so much more than my vision allows that they wonder at how I can go in so many circles while still getting nowhere?

Sometimes it's a fun nowhere. Sometimes it's torturesome.

Finally now, I think I shall go outside. I'm kind of bummed that none of the theatres in this town are showing Before Sunset. Not even the Landmark ones. I was sort of hoping to see it this weekend.

Oh well. I guess that's one less temptation to be a mindless consumer.

There I go again with the pseudo-puritanism, dropout style. How does one shake this?

(And yeah, I could see Spiderman 2, which many are saying is wonderful. But I dunno. I don't think I'm really in the mood for it. Maybe I will be later. Maybe I won't.)

The usefulness of adding more words here has officially expired. I am going outside now.