Change.

Once again, after an extended and unplanned hiatus, I'm back and posting again. I've noticed that only two blogs on my list have even been active in the past year, so I guess I don't feel so bad for slacking... if I can even call it that. The truth of the matter is that sitting down and writing this blog is a true pleasure for me. It's something I enjoy, and like to think I do quite well. In the past while I got my writing kicks from posting little quips on Facebook, but the status bar was really not designed for extended monologuing, and I've had a lot of things on my mind.

Today, I'd like to talk about the difficulties of changing.

Now, as I'm sure I've mentioned in previous posts, I am a staunch advocate of personal growth and improvement. I've spent the past couple years really looking at myself and trying to make better what I see. I'd like to think I've been quite successful in that regard; I'm happily single for the first time in my life (and not just kidding myself this time), I've made leaps and bounds with regards to my social anxiety, and I've crossed a lot of thresholds in my personal life, that I was never quite sure I could.

That said, I still do have some things to work out. I still have a metabolism that stunts my ability to have a normal social life, and there's really no end in sight where that's concerned. I've been told I don't have hyperthyroidism, but I have a friend who was told the same thing, and we're both displaying numerous symptoms, not just the increase in appetite. I'm considering a naturopath, or maybe just a second opinion would do.

Beyond that, there's another big problem that I've got to come to terms with. It's something that's put me in the not-so-good graces of my current, and previous employer. Now, let me start at the beginning. In 2003, my graduating year, it occurred to Mrs. Smith, the best teacher at my high school, that I was an extremely slow reader. I mentioned how late I was up every night working on homework (usually 2-3am) and we got some tests underway. I was given special leniency when it came to the English provincials, and that was the last I thought of it for many years. Now, I've been considered a pretty slow worker at just about every job I've had; I was let go after a week of dishwashing, I was never called back after a week of labour working for my Dad, and everywhere else, I've just gotten a lot of harassment about my pace. Now, a lot of that, I think, can be chalked up to low energy levels... which has just become a norm for my life. I've had people admit before that they assumed I was perpetually stoned because I'm so chill. Lack of sleep can account for a lot of it, but I think that the lion's share is the result of my day to day lifestyle. I need to push myself to be active if I ever want to be consistently energetic.

But it's more that just the energy thing... at my last job, I was a cashier, and I would always be hounded for processing sales too slowly. However, when it came to the end of the night? Perfect cash-out. Almost without fail. So what's the problem here? I sacrifice speed for accuracy. Do you want the job done fast, or do you want it done right? I've never had the slightest success while rushing a job, and if I can stay within my limits, not only will the finished product be superb, but I will not have stressed, at all. But we all know the world doesn't work like that. Nobody wants to pay you overtime, and no one can risk the liability of allowing you to work off the clock (even if you are okay working for nothing). About a year ago, my old boss called me up to the office and informed me that a customer complaint had been filed against me. I had failed to ask some lady how her day was, and I then had the nerve to neglect to offer her a shopping bag for her things. I was suspended from work for a week. I then came back to 10 hour workweeks, down from 35. I began looking for work, all the while trying to make things work with the job I had... I was a little shocked. What an overreaction! Things continued like this for about a month, when my employer finally figured he couldn't dodge severance with me (a common strategy for the Rootcellar... don't let anyone tell you that a ma' & pa' business will be a better job than a corporate one) and finally gave me the axe. What was I to make of this? For the first while, I was fully content to believe their batshit crazy reason for firing me... poor customer service. Sure.

But now that I'm running into problems at my current job, it's starting to make a lot more sense. My old boss was looking for an excuse to fire his slowest employee.

Here's how the story goes from his perspective: Hiring a new cashier, at about a dollar above starting pay, because as a recent manager, he's clearly overqualified. New cashier picks up the duties and price codes reasonably quickly, so all is well... but after about two years, the cash manager finally gives him his 6 month review (lol) and all of a sudden, everyone notices that he's still working at the same pace as a newbie. This isn't good, get the managers to talk to him about it. That'll work. Okay, we've had a lot of cashier turnover now, and this guy actually has considerable seniority... and we need more supervisors. Maybe if we give him limited authority and hint that a cushier position is available, he'll be motivated to work at it... ah, this isn't working, let's demote him. This is a lost cause... if only I had some excuse to cut his hours and make him quit... what's this? Customer complaint? Bingo!

So there you go... still a little crooked, but truth be told, I'm a problem worker, and a significant part of the problem is my meticulous nature. I work in produce now, and that's an even bigger problem... whenever a display looks bad, or some product is going off, I'm compelled to deal with it. If it's a couple of ratty looking bunches of spinach, I've just gotta go to the back and sort them into better looking bunches. And I don't feel like I'm being unreasonable here... we don't have the freshest produce around. I've definitely had people ask where a product is, only to point it out, do a double take, and then tell them they can have it for half price, if they really want it, otherwise, I'm just going to throw it out, because it's practically compost. I feel like I'm the only person there that takes pride in the quality of the things we sell, but I have my boss and the other produce staff telling me not to be so particular, and to just get the stuff out as fast as possible. I was complaining to a friend about this the other day, saying I'm too OCD to do things as quickly and poorly as is expected of me, and she said I should just be less OCD about it... at which point I thought "Well, if I could be less OCD, then it wouldn't be OCD, would it?"

...and that's when it hit me: People say OCD these days like it isn't even a thing... but it's a real mental disorder... and what if I'm actually diagnosable? You hear about extreme cases, and I don't think I really fit the bill for some of the repetitive action symptoms, but just look at this situation. I can't bring myself to half ass it at work. It takes so much willpower for me to even get through a section without checking every little thing for spoilage, and when I do just go nuts and pull the skin off of every onion, I find a dozen bad ones, and that just reinforces the idea that the way I'm doing it is the right way...
I don't know now... is it that I actually have a disorder, or is it that I'm just so fucking stubborn? Because I feel like that plays a part, too. At this job and my last I justified my sluggish pace with the refrain "I get results!" and became so rigid in the belief that my weakness was a strength. When it comes right down to it, I'm proud of how precise I am in my actions, and I don't want to change something I'm proud of. I feel like I could change if I wanted to.
If I wanted to.



On a side note, it has come to my attention that a friend of a friend of mine knows me as "the guy with that hilarious blog"... now, I don't know if I should take that as a success or a failure. I mean, I'm flattered that someone enjoys the things I write, but at the same time, it sounds like that's all I've got going for me. Maybe I should get out more.

What is love? (Baby don't hurt me)

Well, after a long and unexpected hiatus, I have returned to deliver unto you the world through my eyes, in text form. Much as I'd like to say things just got busy and I had no time for this anymore, I'm no liar. The truth is that I stopped writing because of girl troubles. While I wouldn't say we had a well defined relationship, the fact of the matter was that we were into each other, and it simply (or rather, complicatedly) didn't work out. If you've read from the beginning, you may have an idea of the toll this sort of thing takes on me.
When I've been single a while I'm able to be more pragmatic and positive about my given lot, but when somebody gets my hopes up and shit goes south, I am the embodiment of negativity.
Days, weeks, and months after this altercation I tried to sign back in here and start writing again, but all my words were bitterness.
Sure, this is essentially a public journal, but I don't think it's my place to publish trash talk about my exes to the world. I could tell I was still seeing the world through my rage-tinted glasses, so I held off.

Now here I am again, a week after Valentine's Day with one more relationship down. Around this time of year, I tend to re-watch a few old videos on the subject. There are a couple Danny Domino videos I get a kick out of, but I can tell you right now, they're not for everyone... possibly not for anyone.
But then there's this video, which I actually do recommend.

This actually ties quite decently into the topic I really wanted to get into today, so let's get right into it.

As I mentioned, I just got dumped... again. And I'm not kidding anybody, it hurts a whole lot. Are we not men? If you cut us, do we not bitch about it on our blogs? In all seriousness though, this time around, I don't really have any harsh words to utter. I'm not angry with anyone. Not even myself. It was just one of those situations where you're at a standstill. There's nothing you could've done better, and there's no way you could've changed her mind. You can't fight a feeling.
So for those who haven't put it all together yet, what I got was the "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" speech. This of course, is a complete vagary to me. Perhaps some of you can relate to the notion, but for me, it's completely alien. I'll admit, I've left someone because I didn't love them before, but there were concrete reasons behind it that I simply didn't have the heart to elaborate on. It's not often that I lie, especially to someone that I care about.
Make no mistake, I am not calling anyone a liar, I just believe the two of us operate with completely separate concepts of "Love."
I'll admit right now, I am very quick to fall in love, and while I've experienced many varying degrees of attraction, I am loath to isolate any of them and christen them "not love."
You may draw from this that I am a romantic. You may draw that I am naïve. Or you may deduce that I've never really known love. Maybe you're right.
Here's the thing though. A very big part of the way I perceive life is through the lens of skepticism, and with a mind of logic. Every notion is something to be explored and challenged. Be it the existence of a God, or how the fuck David Blaine do that shit!
With that in mind, take a minute and think about the idea of soul mates... or even souls. Do these ideas make rational sense? We've pretty well proven that everything you are inside can be traced back to your brain. I understand that people want to believe that their essence will outlive their bodies, but based on the current pool of evidence, these notions are patently false.
What am I getting at? As I see it, the experience of love isn't any more spiritual and transcendent than a bowl of weed. It is a series of chemical reactions that, if you're lucky, coincide with the presence of a truly complimentary and supportive mate. It all boils down to biology, and I'm okay with that.
So what does it mean when somebody says they love you but are not in love with you? Clearly a physical attraction is there, and clearly they like you as a person. Is this a case of incompatible pheromones? Have they felt stronger reactions with someone else, and are now convinced that whatever this is, it's not "real" or "true?"
I don't know, I don't think the whole mind is being used to examine the problem. I think things are being omitted, and feelings aren't being traced back to their sources.
Well, that's just my opinion.
I know not everyone's comfortable admitting that their love is nothing more than an exchange of molecules, but I've got to point out, the second part is the most important. The complimentary and supportive mate.
I know history may not back me up on this, but with experience, I've become pretty discerning about who I get involved with. With all these things in mind, hopefully it'll make sense to you when I'm in a new relationship, and I can say after a few weeks with confidence, "I love you."

Just one last thing, too. I recently watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and a little reflection has spurred me to comment on the ending. So if you plan on seeing it but haven't yet, SPOILER ALERT, and if you don't plan on ever seeing it, I THINK YOU SHOULD RECONSIDER.
Okay, so at the end of the film, the couple hears recordings of all the awful things they had to say about each other in their previous relationship (which has been since erased from their memories). They know that individually they have a lot of issues, and there is a good chance that down the road, they will both become bitter, once again. They decide to give it a go anyways.
Some people will look at this and think "well that's unhealthy" and based on what I said before you might expect me to peg this as a poorly informed decision made under the influence of this very chemical effect I've been talking about. But I think some people are missing the point.
I think christian marriage has told us that if you get into a relationship, it had better be for the long haul. Why is it that our only gauge for the quality of a relationship is time?
I think the point of that movie's ending was to show that these two people lost their entire relationship, memories and all, and even knowing what they were in for, it was worth it to them to go ahead and make those memories again. Maybe it wouldn't last, but it's all about experiencing that love.
I bring this up because I just got out of an incredible relationship that I'll never regret, and though it was short, and it didn't end the way I would've liked, it was amazing, and I'll never forget it.