My Restless Mind
While I am fortunately surrounded by amazing introverts who value alone time, substantial conversations, and small but real relationships, I am very far from being even close to their view of the world. Like I said in my earlier post, I am the exact opposite.
I have a restless mind that craves constant activity and interaction. I get bored very quickly even when I am talking with a random so I would prefer five randoms talking with me at the same time.
I live for arguments and debates. I would even argue for ideas that I don't even believe in. I just love the verbal and intellectual sparring involved in the process and I am totally energized by it.
I genuinely love asking people questions about themselves because I am truly interested in learning new things about them. So most of my conversations are 99% about the other person and just a mere 1% about me. This is because, my mind goes into a frenzy when It gets filled with new information that I can expound on, connect to other ideas, and so on. It's an unquenchable thirst for stimuli that propels me to great heights like a drug.
So yes, alone time doesn't work for me. Perhaps, someone should create an app that will argue or converse with people like me anytime, anywhere.
People like me are very impatient. That's why I hate long lines or waiting for my number to be called at the DMV. I would rather be incontinent than spend half-a-day registering my vehicle. That explains why we don't have a vehicle!
To keep my mind active, in the event I find myself in an unavoidable alone time, I conjure up various projects and plans. Yeah, really big ones like recording a new double-length album, touring, writing a novel, shooting a film, learning more languages, self-teaching myself Java Script, putting up a restaurant dedicated to the miraculous powers of pork fat, establishing a religion. I would be so thrilled with all these made-up projects that I would actually start working on them. I would fire up the recording studio, outline my plot, write my script, Je lis un livre, code on text edit, cook some chicharrones, and examine my conscience, respectively.
In the end, I would have done all these, although in a much smaller scale. Maybe a single instead of a double album, a short story instead of a novel, a music video instead of a feature, French instead of Spanish, French, and German, putting up a blog instead of coding script, cooking for Sheryl instead of feeding a thousand, and preaching to my bandmates instead of a congregation. But the point is, something always happens and it is often at break-neck speed.
I know it's not healthy to be so and I am jealous of my friends who are chill about everything. When I see them taking their sweet time, I get teary-eyed. Why am I in a rush all the time? What am I thinking? Nobody is waiting for my next album or my book or film? Who cares? So why pressure myself in doing all these just so I don't get bored. But the fact of the matter is, I am physically and mentally incapable of doing otherwise. I just can't help it. It's that or misery.
So forgive me if I have so much going on. And pardon me if I am very difficult to catch up to. I am still learning how to pace myself and accept the fact that taking it slow, listening to my own breath, savoring the meal, smelling the freshly brewed coffee, absorbing the music, walking slowly with my wife, laughing with friends about nothing, and just pausing for a while and realize that life is not a race but a stroll.