Recently got back into reading some Tolkein. More specifically, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version narrated by Andy Serkis on my way to work. I’ve been experimenting with listening to other things other than music during tense, focus driven moments, which, for some reason, I personally include my morning commute to be a part of. I’ve really found that I can’t listen to music whenever my focus needs to be turned up and cranked to maximum. It’s a quite unfortunate really; music is such a beautiful source of inspiration and motivation, yet I constantly find myself sitting in the silence of my own head, without much acknowledgement or perhaps with much denial of what might be creeping just around the corner.

In the last week of February, right before setting out to write this post, week I went through a bit of a bracket gauntlet with the homies. I personally attended and competed in 3 Melee tournaments in a single week, and, admittedly, I didn’t feel even the slightest bit burned out, at least that’s what I told myself at the time. Since then, the flame has died down a bit, perhaps to return later this month. I expressed it openly that this level of competition has become a sort of coping mechanism for the amount of stress I’m dealing with at work. As much as I hate to admit that work is stressing me out, there really isn’t much else I can do about it other than continue to cope that it will eventually die down a little bit. Who knows if that will actually happen.

My mental health has really taken a bit of a dive in the last few months, and I don’t think that’s entirely due to the amount of stress that I’m going through at work. I am conscious and aware enough at this point to admit that there’s definitely more in the picutre that’s making me feel the way that I do. The question is whether or not there’s anything I can confidently do to address it at this point, to which I can currently say is far from plausible reality. I’ve hinted at it before here, but I really don’t think now is the time to try and be a hero about it. I don’t think anything is going to be done about it at this juncture, but maybe in the future I’ll have enough courage to face it head on. Maybe after a few hard thinking sessions, I’ll have the courage to write about it here.

I’ve been reflecting a bit on the coincidence and the irony of this situation. Tolkein’s LOTR is heavy on the themes of fate, destiny and chance, the latter of which is something beyond the control of even the greatest of beings. We all fall prey to chance, and by chance, I am here where I am today. I don’t think I can chalk it up to destiny or fate, because I don’t think either of those are really how I perceive how I got where I am. It’s all happenstance and chance that got me to where I am. It’s a lot of hardwork, but an undeniable amount of luck and being at the right place at the right time is definitely involved.

Today’s my father’s birthday. I’ll give him a call after this and put a bow on the post for this month. Things like these don’t have to be perfect, and nobody is likely to see it. If anybody actually does, I won’t know unless they explicity mention it to me. I suppose I hide my pride in the safety and solitude of this place; I’d like to keep it that way.