My parents had shelves of “self-help” books when I was growing up before they divorced. Obviously they didn’t help, haha. I read a bunch of them though. It’s been a while, so I forget the names but looking around the net now I remember a bunch of them were M. Scott Peck books like The Road Less Traveled. It’s funny remembering my dad being so fond of them because he admitted at some point that he was addicted to smoking and/or drinking and somehow I think that made Dad feel like it was okay. It’s been a while since I read The Road Less Traveled,  I think I have a copy here somewhere, I should pick it up for nostalgia’s sake. I know going back and reading Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance last year (as in 2006, as I think it’s 12:04 right now) was a good thing as I picked up on a lot more than when I was younger. I still consider myself a bit of simpleton, so as I’ve looked a bit about the discussions about the psychology online I don’t get any of it, but that’s fine.

In the end though, I don’t put a lot of stock in the books. I don’t thinking googling for “dealing with emotions” gets me anywhere either. Generally my tactic is to go see a movie or something and lose myself in whatever is going in that. Over the years I’ve gone to counseling a few times, mostly due to my parents taking me for “traumatic events” like the house fire/divorce/dropping out of school. A lot of the times it makes me feel really alone in the journey, as I don’t really feel like I relate to many people. I put on a pretty big show, so very few people know me and what goes through my head (my rambling stories at bars that don’t go anywhere don’t really count). It’s tougher too as the person that knows me best is an ex-girlfriend and it’s pretty impossible to separate emotions from that to get any sort of “counseling” experience out of. My most recent counseling experience was actually pretty great, but it’s on hold for various reasons right now which is probably poor timing as I decided to tackle some old baggage that’s pretty messy recently and it’s leaving me pretty torn apart without a viable outlet at times.

I went and met an accountant today to try to sort out some back tax mess. He asked me some stock questions, one of which was about if I had bought a house since I moved here. I didn’t laugh out loud or anything, and of course he doesn’t know me so he doesn’t know how absurd that seems. Generally I feel trapped in a world where everyone’s looking forward to what they’re going to spend money on next and I just don’t feel like I fit in. I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up wandering around the world, distracted by the next adventure rather than dealing with any of this, as there just aren’t people in my life with the time, inclination, desire, and open mind (not oversimplifying everything to “thats how life goes” or whatever bullshit.)

Anyways, I really need to suck it up and get back to the party I think. I totally cut back on the drinking tonight, which I’m thinking was a mistake. Blacking out certainly isn’t a textbook way of avoiding your problems, but I feel like it would have been the easiest tonight.