Friday, May 17, 2013

Over-Analysis, a poem

It is bone deep...
Even in the marrow, and
No amount of running
Will excise it--
It simply delays the inevitable:
Mind-numbing, endorphine producing
Silence.

It returns...
Throbbing, pulsing, oozing
The digits fall off one by one:
Goodbye Hope; Goodbye Comfort
Goodbye Certainty.
Replaced by Should I have...?  What if I...?
What about...?

The happiness drains
In a slow drip.  Drip.
Drip.
Who am i to want, to succeed?
Who am i to strive, to conquer?
What i most dreaded
Has now come to pass--
i AM my own worst enemy.



This reminds me of an episode of ER, where the geeky bald dude with the glasses starts dating 2 ladies at once.  When one of them, a psychologist from the Psych ward, finds out about it, she puts a rubber-band around his wrist and says that this is a strategy that they use with the OCD patients to help them break obsessive thoughts.  She then pulls the rubber-band back and lets it go, telling him, that, whenever he get's the idea of dating two girls at once again, he should snap it.

For me, at least, working in Academia has one huge hazard--over-analysis.  I'm paid to think critically and to sift through data on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, I tend to do the same thing in my personal life, and the process sucks all the joy and fun out of life...when I look at the world with child-like wonder, it is a beautiful, joyful, enjoyable place that I love to be a part of.  I think I need a rubber-band.

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