If youth is wasted on the young...

Then it should be said that experience is wasted on the old.

Calamitous Paralysis

The nightmare was bad enough. A device not unlike a record player but significantly larger, and featuring a round, sandpaper like material instead of a vinyl record. It spun rapidly. A man held my elbow to it. Flesh and bone were grinded away. After my elbow was reduced to immobility, the man held the palm of my right hand to the spinning surface, and my flesh began to be rapidly grinded off, strips of dermis sent flying into the air.

I woke up screaming.

I woke up into an episode of sleep paralysis. I still do not know if my entire body was shaking, or if I had the sensation of my entire body shaking. I also wasn't in my body. I slowly floated down from above my bed towards it. Every sound was magnified, loud, my computer was a jet engine and the traffic was a train. Reality was distorted and that was the most innerving thing, that sounds I was wholly familiar with were suddenly, inescapably wrong. The world I knew around me I suddenly did not know. The shaking became worse. I could not move. I was possessed, demonic.

My body slowly fell into place and I stopped the shaking, or the sensation of. I could move again. I rolled over.

The nightmares would follow me the rest of the night, I danced in and out of sleep. I sit at my desk, shaking, for real this time, from an utter lack of sleep. At least I am inside my body.

Alone

The present author has demonstrated, both in 'real life' and via this blog - which also happens to be some manner of 'real life' - an inability to do things alone. This inability has robbed certain activities - pleasurable ones - from the present authors routine, including, but not limited to; movies, new restaurants, and travel. The latter of those is the most aggravating, as it presents a real and present danger to an activity that has largely fueled the entirety of the present author's new experiences. Considering the financial burden and time commitment it - that is, travel, - requires, the present author is under no pretense in which there is always someone to travel with. Given the present author's state of anxiety, however; to travel to a foreign country alone, one that does not speak English, and accomplish both memories, photos, and social connections, seems an incrementally impossible task. That the present author might be in the near term future forced to weigh these anxieties against the possibility of more travel, and that these anxieties directly represent the enjoyment of a trip - vis-à-vis wonderful sights, wonderful cuisine, and wonderful conversation - creates a challenge that will either render a sudden and penultimate defeat at the hands of stress and worry, or a victory over fear. The latter, it can be assumed, is the lesser likely.

If America is Proof that Democracy Works

It is also, simultaneously, proof that it doesn't.

Before We Got too Old We Wanted to See the World

This August, the present author plans to embark on a trip of 3 weeks to Asia, consisting of, tentatively, China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. This trip has been a massive, many year can kicker for awhile, in that it has been theorized for about 5 years, but now appears to finally be taking shape. Anxieties, of course, are apparent and plentiful, but given good company and cognizant travel plans, the trip should ultimately be an enjoyable and enriching experience. The present author will endeavor to escape an ever present comfort zone as much as possible. The author will also endeavor to have fun. The latter is something that we all endeavor to do but often fall short of doing.