August was kind of a tough month for me in that I spent most of the month in the type of mood that is usually reserved for January: unhappy because I’m not doing any of the things I know make my mood stable, but too unhappy and unstable to get myself to do any of those things. I think it started when I ran out of my vitamin D supplement. I also threw up because I accidentally took zinc on an empty stomach, which isn’t related to my moods, per se, but is a thing that happened to me this month.
I recently decided that maybe I need to lower my dopamine tolerance. As a 20-something, it’s weird to hear the words “lower” and “tolerance” used together with “I need to” in a sentence, but that’s exactly what I have decided to do this week. I read this wikiHow article, because why consult a professional when you have the internet? After skimming approximately half of the article, I made a list of the six things that I thought would have the biggest impact on my life: limit music consumption, limit shopping, limit tv, limit social media use, limit caffeine, limit alcohol, fill time with hobbies or enjoyable activities. Basically, I set out to make life completely suck, so that the little portions that don’t suck would seem infinitely better.
Monday
The whole plan was to start this experiment on Saturday so that I’d have a full week’s worth of findings to report by Friday, but I didn’t start on Saturday or even Sunday. I debated postponing this idea again and just worrying about it next week, but I’m trying to push myself to get past my perfectionism and just do things anyway. Nothing about this newsletter has been perfect or even good up until this point, so I don’t see why I should put so much pressure on myself to start now. I’m writing this during my lunch on a Monday and I’m going to commence experimentation now. Every day until Friday, I’ll be incorporating two more of the six tactics I picked out. Each day’s new habits will build on the last so that by Friday, I’ll be doing all six of the things. Did I explain that well? I sometimes think I’m really bad at words, which is not ideal for someone who started a newsletter for no reason. Since today is half over, I’m obviously going to choose the two easiest options, which are ‘limit music’ and ‘limit shopping,’ which is kind of sad because I do mildly enjoy both of those things. If you read this issue, then you’ll know that I recently watched Bo Burnham’s Inside. I am thrilled to report that I’ve had all of the songs from that amazing special rotating in my head since publishing that newsletter, with no sign of letting up. So I guess I’ll just be singing to myself for the rest of the day. I have nothing to shop for, though I’ve recently realized that I spend a lot of my time and energy on wanting. Wanting a new couch, another cat, a bigger butt, a house with a sunroom — wanting, wanting, wanting my life away. In any case, I no longer have a job (as of Sunday, per this issue), so shopping doesn’t really make sense for me right now anyway.
Monday Evening
Avoiding music proved much more difficult than I first anticipated. After having the same song stuck in my head all day, I just wanted to listen to it while I cleaned my apartment after class, but instead, I swept in silence and then sang to myself while folding laundry, which of course resulted in a headache. According to the wikiHow, the point of listening to less music was to be more mindful about the ways in which I consume it, rather than to eliminate it from my life entirely, which I think I achieved. I definitely do depend on music as a space-filler when I’m alone and need something to listen to other than my own thoughts cosplaying as nascar (loudly chasing each other around in a circle). Not shopping also turned out to be more difficult than anticipated because I somehow lost(?) one of the only two pillowcases I like, somewhere between my bed and the dryer, and now need a replacement. But I’m making do with the one I can find for now.
Tuesday
Raising the stakes today, I am restricting my tv and social media use. Without my two most mindless pastimes, I definitely feel like I have a ton of time today, something which I often feel I lack. The unfortunate thing is that I ticked off most of my weekly to-do list yesterday, so I don’t have a ton of things to fill my newly acquired time with, leading me to feel like I’m squandering it. Somehow, I did just pass an hour without realizing it. I guess I’ll read. I’m currently reading City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it’s one of the thicker books I’ve read in quite some time (due to my frequently-mentioned decrepit attention span). It’s thick enough that it is mildly intimidating and kind of kills my motivation to read, but this seems like a good time to make a dent. I’m getting a headache again. I got a headache yesterday around this time. I wonder if it’s related to hunger or time of day or boredom. Apparently being bored is good for your brain, according to both people I’ve talked to in real life and people I’ve seen on the internet.
Tuesday Evening
Today ended up being the one singular time in my entire life that I’ve gotten into bed early. I read almost a quarter of my book and didn’t actually miss social media or tv. I guess it turns out that using social media is a lot like eating cake or masturbating: it’s easier to not start than it is to stop without finishing. The only thing is that — thanks to the algorithm gods and auto-play features on every single streaming service — tv and social media have done an amazing job making it nearly impossible to ever be finished with them. I wonder if that’s the very thing that makes social media so appealing — the desire to reach the end of whatever it is we’re supposed to be accomplishing on it, but that end never comes and so we just scroll and scroll forever. I’m quite sure someone has had that thought before, but I’ve never come across it in writing, so it feels new and brilliant to me. I really don’t mean to demonize social media — it is, after all, where I receive much of my life-sustaining external validation. But I can’t help but realize how much better my life tends to be when my time isn’t consumed by absently scrolling through pictures of people I’ve never met, or even worse, people I have.
Wednesday
Loyal readers of this newsletter will know how my brain detests caffeine and yet my body continues consuming it. It should come as no surprise then, that I am both excited and wary of giving up caffeine for the rest of the week. I have been trying this new thing where I go to bed at my usual time (or early, like last night) and don’t set an alarm, just to see when I’ll wake up. So far, I haven’t woken up much later than my usual alarm time, but I have felt much more rested the past few days, so hopefully, I don’t crave caffeine the way I did last week. I am also giving up alcohol for the week, about which I have no specific feelings. My only goal for this evening is to do one of the hobbies I keep saying that I enjoy but never actually make time for.
Wednesday Evening
I feel gr8 with a capital 8. I didn’t have caffeine this morning but did have a pumpkin cranberry muffin from Colectivo’s new fall menu and it honestly got me through the entire day. Actually I just kind of generally had a good day. Sorry if this isn’t interesting. I feel like nobody wants to hear me brag about my good mood but also nobody wants to hear me complain about my bad mood and I don’t want to talk about anything but my mood! So here we are. I mentioned on Monday that each day would be building on the previous day’s habit, so today was the first day of including all six. I honestly forgot about the internet when I got home for the day, and just started embroidering instead. I even called my mom (hi mom). To be honest, I’m sort of excited to do this all again tomorrow.
Thursday
I’m putting everything together again today; limiting tv and social media and alcohol and caffeine and I might as well stitch myself a bonnet and become Amish. I’m not going to lie, I am getting bored. I’m not really sure what to do with myself. I do think I like my new not-using-an-alarm thing because I was not tired today at all. I literally yawned as I typed that sentence. Irony! I think sometimes I yawn when I’m hungry. I’m having trouble unearthing the motivation to start on any of my hobbies because I can’t decide which one I want to do and somehow they all feel like a waste of time? I can’t really explain why that would be or why I’m worried about wasting time when I have actually so much of it today. I’m going to read. Executive decision. K bye.
Thursday Evening
I did read nearly 100 pages today, so like, that’s cool. I think if I’m going to have all this time on my hands, I need to go into it with a plan. Not having a plan is what makes me feel like I’m letting precious minutes fly by unharnessed. I think my fear of wasting time comes from the notion that I need to be 100% productive, working at 100% capacity, 100% of the time. I don’t know where this stems from, but I would like to blame my upbringing and schooling. It is difficult to shake, and it certainly isn’t adding anything to my quality of life. I have seen a few things lately criticizing people for merely acknowledging their own shortcomings and doing nothing to fix them, and I want to make it known that in this case, I plan to do just that.
Friday
Did I succeed with lowering my dopamine tolerance? Impossible to tell, really. Did I succeed in creating an extremely boring week? Absolutely, though I can’t say it was entirely unenjoyable.
I keep putting myself through this cycle where I’ll be really diligent about protecting my mental health for one week and then let it steadily decline for anywhere from three to twenty-seven business days, then do something drastic (like this) to make me feel like a real, live, functioning human again, before ultimately abandoning every practice that helps me, in favor of staring at my phone. Now that I’ve started forcing myself to write about it every week in these silly little newsletters (motive still unclear), I am realizing how frequently I go through this cycle, and how exhausting it probably is for my friends and family to witness.
If this week’s issue reminds you of this issue from a month ago, that’s probably because they’re structured the exact same way, and include many of the same steps. Turns out the secret to having better mental health is not wasting all of your fucking time on the internet. Now that I’ve figured that out, I guess I don’t need this newsletter anymore. Jk I’ll definitely be here next week doing the exact same thing.
I have been slowly digging through the archives of Haley Nahman’s newsletter, Maybe, Baby, and have been liking how she has a cute lil graphic for her “15 Things I Consumed Last Week” segment, and decided that maybe I need one for my poems. I don’t have one of those right now though, so….
POEMS
my teacher says “dichotomy” a lot
I try to meditate but I just end up
laughing about the last thing
you said to me
and thinking about binary code
sometimes I think I’m so in love
with the world and everyone in it
with eating ice cream straight
from the pint
and the way you laugh at my jokes
I keep getting Colectivo and there’s nothing I can do about it
turning twenty five is a good way to remember
I’m lamentably alive and sobbing
about the disposability of my life again
everything is over before I get to enjoy it
my youth, vacations, this latte
savor what you can and cry about the rest
I want dessert but I finished it yesterday
I want to write a poem but
I can’t stop thinking about chocolate
I want to buy a house but
I don’t want to leave my apartment
I want a god but
I actually meant dog, but god applies too
I want to be less selfish and
I want to want less but
what else is there to do?
Before I go into my world-famous photo dump, I want to take one single humiliating second to say that if you for some reason enjoyed this and haven’t already subscribed, please boost my ego by clicking the button at the bottom of this page and getting my weekly complaints delivered straight to your email, and telling your friend or cousin or mom about me. I love when moms like me.
Thanks for being here and reading whatever this was. Next week might be better but I highly doubt it!
lol (lots of love),
serena