Don't stop dancing.
If you dance hard enough
They'll let you live.
Now and then
You can dance
Through a cool shower
Or into scented dusk
But whatever you do
Don't stop.

Don't stop dancing
It doesn't matter if your shoes fit
Or if your breath
Comes in gasps
Or whether
You can hear the music.

Recent events in my life and the just-passed U.S. Memorial Day holiday have me pondering the nature of my connections with those who are no longer alive.

By association, that made me think about connections with those who are not yet alive.

When my CBD flares up, it can be like negotiating a narrow causeway that divides two unsane and ineffective ways to deal with negative experiences.  One side is the dark quicksand that makes all the world's craziness my problem(s), and the other is a superficial, escapist flight from responsibility and effort.

Do an Internet search on "too many choices" and you'll find, well, too many choices about which article or study result or video TED talk or book review to click. There's a fairly copious body of media accruing on the issue of how choice- particularly "too much" choice- can have a negative impact on our mental state.

If they'd-a asked me, I coulda told 'em.

The memory of that paper came swimming up from long-term storage because in recent days the same conversation has replayed, in various versions, involving my own pain, and that of others. Here's a capsule version:

"I'm in a void. Could/should be doing something important. Feeling negative, stagnant. Reaching for meaning, experience, fulfillment, satisfaction."

(Part One: The Sensation Brain)

In my Prof's paper, he discussed the challenges of building an economy based on incremental growth, and small-reward structures like cooperatives and micro-enterprise that rely on local sustainability. No one gets really rich, improvement in economic well-being takes a long time, and some needs go unmet while the community builds its own capacity. For those seeking a quick turnaround, a fast recovery, or a dramatic growth curve, it's frustrating and unsatisfying. It seems like a lot of effort for little return.

Who likes anxiety?

Not me, baby. I hate the "hammer about to drop" feeling, the troubled sleep, hyperactive startle reflex, hair-trigger exaggerated emotional responses, the restless sense of something wrong, the grinding strung-upness of it all.

I won't even go into the long-term physiological problems of having that much ACTH, cortisol, and unnecessary adrenaline circulating in my system.

I've always prided myself on being a detail person. I can make a small picture look pretty good for a limited time without much difficulty.

The problems with that are obvious. Those three words: "pride," "small," and "limited" expose them clearly. Without a sense of the Big Picture, or at least the Grand Strategy, the accomplishments of tactical competence and logistical expertise are ephemeral, at best. Sometimes even counter-productive.

Yesterday was weird. I'm grateful for the experience, I think it'll come in useful, but it was pretty peculiar. 

I was fine when I woke-- not great, but nothing's been really bad the last few weeks. Sunday can be a bit iffy as I do some of my least-favorite chores. But things seemed normal.

I'm eating breakfast, and all of a sudden I realize that the (metaphorically speaking) barometric pressure in my head just plummeted.  Bang.