The GeekHiker

Lately, I’ve been having problems focusing.  Not to say that I can’t focus on anything; instead my focus keeps shifting throughout the day between a small cadre of subjects.

My alarm goes off in the morning, I think about how much I’m unenthused for work.  I slog through traffic, think about how I hate L.A., wish I were someplace else.

At work, my thoughts either go to the idea of the trip or to my own loneliness.  As such, I find myself surfing, either to travel sites, or lurking dating sites.

Even the idea of dating falls into two camps.  Sometimes it’s all about romantic love.  Other times it’s all about sex, wishing I were deft enough with women for the “score”. Then wondering if that’s what I really want and shifting back to craving love.

I eat lunch alone, and I wish I had friends amongst my co-workers.

I drive home, simultaneously annoyed and fascinated by the combative nature of traffic that crawls at 5 miles per hour.

[Seriously, you’d be surprised at the amount of effort L.A. drivers go to to cut off other drivers at ridiculously slow speeds.]

I go to the gym, feel fat and out of shape amongst the studs, then go home.

At home, I shift back to loneliness, wishing I had more friends, closer (distance-wise) friends, a lover.

I waste time on the internet, watch stupid TV shows, movies, read.  All distractions.

Then I crawl into an empty bed, and find myself yearning for company I’ve never had.

[I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of us feel like this sometimes: stuck in the proverbial rut.  The irony, I suppose, is that we live in a fantastic first-world society, where we don’t have the challenges of getting basic resources (food is just a drive-through away).  As a result, though, our lives have become so repetitive, our penance, perhaps, for having it so easy… but is that really a complaint?]

* * *

The problem with the lack of focus, unsurprisingly, is that I’m not getting a damn thing done.

I’m no closer to planning this trip than I was three months ago. If I could drop the other desires (love, sex, social life, career), maybe I could.

At least that’s what I keep thinking.

[Funny thing is, I still haven’t done much planning.  This worries me, not because I’m a planner per se (I’m not), but because I’ve read so many people who have said that if you don’t plan this kind of time off, it’s easy to let it slip by, and waste a lot of time and money in the process…]

Problem is, I get lonely or horny or whatever, and think about that. Then I feel guilty for thinking about that and all the time I’ve lost not planning the trip.

Catch-22.

I think, sometimes, that if I were planning the trip with someone, it might be easier. I’d have motivation.

This, in turn, sets me down the relationship thought path, and I start thinking “relationship” again.  Hell, I logged onto a dating site last week and emailed a couple of women.  Neither responded, but that’s not the point.  The point is, I was doing something yet again that wasn’t planning the trip.

And, if I’m planning to leave L.A., what the hell am I doing trying to get dates anyway?

* * *

All these things are connected, of course.

The desire to travel leads to the desire not to travel alone, which leads to the desire to find someone, which leads to looking at attractive women, which leads to thoughts of sex. Mixed into all that is job frustration, social frustration, frustration frustration.

Everything’s important.  All of them are valid desires.

[And if you buy into the theory that guys think about sex every seven seconds, then apparently I think through all this every seven seconds or so.  No wonder I’m so damn tired all the time.]

At the same time, all of them are distractions, pulling me in different directions simultaneously.  I end up in the middle, standing still.

I can’t seem to work on them all at once.  Hell, some of them run counter to each other: trying to find a long-term relationship while simultaneously planning a world trip is counter-intuitive.

Yet, I can’t seem to drop all of them in favor of one, even though I know this is what I need to do.

Standstill.

[I still feel this way.  It seems that whenever I look at other people leading their lives, they’re able to focus much better than I am and, in the process, accomplish a lot more.  I know people who have busy careers, active dating lives, and travel the world, and I find myself sort of staring at them, awestruck, wondering how the hell they do it. Moreover, it taps into a deep-seated fear: that I’ll never have as complete a life because I can’t seem to do that myself…]