Month: June 2017

What Might Have Been Adventure Can Show the Rust

The illusion of progress is revealed to be one-dimensional if the necessary steps to proceed are taken in an incorrect order.  Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word, “illusion,” and it’s a word that’s interesting because it reminds me of fantasy themes where magic illusions sometimes enter the conversation.  Unfortunately, a more telling example of illusion, in the real world, is when what’s holding together the bigger picture becomes illusory and therefore is fragile.  Like when your nine-to-five gig, whatever’s paying the bills, turns out to be a little more illusory than you would have liked and pretty soon you are out of work, owing to shortcomings which turned up at a time which proves inopportune (the illusion is no more).

If you have an applicable skill set, you probably wouldn’t find yourself holding the reins and coming untethered, but the odd time, I think it’s probably happened to most, you wind up out of luck and what was an illusion of success is revealed to be bogus, which is when you’re back on the streets.  This week’s WordPress photo challenge is an essay on transience, which, if adversity prevails and you can’t master holding down a job or otherwise making ends meet, is where you find yourself if ultimately you meet your doom.  I’ve toyed with transience in my lifetime and it can feel like a bleak spot to live in, but fortunately I’ve remained afield of the game by taking a role in operations at a not-for-profit which entails caretaking the grounds in good weather, and also maintaining on the internet a digital experience, chiefly with Facebook.  You can find Maple Lawn Cemetery, our not-for-profit, on Facebook here:  

www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

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Despite my position in the not-for-profit, at times I still feel the grip of transience, the hold it sometimes seems to want, and it is with some pleasure that I express the aptitude for transience I gleaned from this week’s photography essay.  The concept that an illusory sphere around me, which guides my hand in this lifetime, I am relating today because you can feel sometimes, I think, how the illusion could come apart and leave you in the lurch, with plans for the future cast into disarray and a scramble ensuing to pick up the pieces of a work culture about who you tiptoe.  I am certain that without initiative, in addition to persistence and ability, it wouldn’t take a lot to hit the skids and see chaos prevail.

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Dedication to making any kind of living requires some hard work.  It’s a little not-for-profit, which refines some expertise and adds some structure to the big picture.  I’m not sure it would come apart if it wasn’t in place, but it provides some community building and in general, it’s a wholesome pastime, however tidy it comes together.  The feedback about the cemetery is upbeat.  I thought I would show a couple of photos today, as well as inviting you to, “like,” “comment,” and/or “subscribe” to this blog.  We proceed as a transparent not-for-profit, although we’re not held particularly accountable, as long as we heed some rules and regulations which are important to the operation of a cemetery.  There wouldn’t be much care given to such a spot if we weren’t handling it.  We’ve been doing it four years, and we don’t anticipate much change or much trouble as we keep on going down this road.  We’ll see how our future turns out, but in the meantime, it is not just an “illusion,” that we’re exploring, it’s a reality.

If You No Longer Need Your Depression Meds, Here’s a Common Strategy to Leave Them Behind You

Consider that a guideline for reducing psychiatric drugs you take, according to http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/759-tips-for-tapering-off-prozac-fluoxetine/ the website which informs of such a guideline, encourages users of psychiatric drugs to effect a ten percent rule.  The rule is to reduce a dependence on psychiatric drugs by ten percent per month, which is sometimes known as tapering off, to avoid withdrawal, as in feeling adverse consequences from no longer taking the psychiatric drug.  The site I’m referencing is detailing Prozac, which is the oldest antidepressant available, having been prescribed to patients who need it since 1987.

 

The WordPress Daily Prompt for today is the word, “taper,” and that is why I have looked up the definition of withdrawal referred to by the expression, “to taper,” or, “tapering off.”  I don’t take Prozac, but I have occasionally in my adult life been prescribed antidepressants, usually because work type stressors were bothering me and I needed some extra strength.

 

Friday afternoon a friend of mine of about twenty years gave me a phone call, and in the course of the conversation, he mentioned that depression concerns are overwhelmingly detrimental to members of the workforce, who run afoul of them constantly.  I had some idea already this is true.  I’m not on medication for depression and at the present I don’t suffer much depression, but my friend does, and he’s been with the same employer for what I think he said is twenty-nine years, and for several months now he’s been avoiding working owing to his problem with depression, and being paid seventy percent of the wages he would get if he wasn’t bringing up his depression to his bosses and continuing to work.  He said the situation is tolerable.

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He doesn’t blog, but he takes an interest in both Facebook and in Instagram.  I’m not on Instagram, but the gentleman and I share our friendship together on Facebook, and he is an unabashed anti-social, which leaves me feeling that he is more interested in toying with Facebook than he is in any sustained effort at a BFF kind of relationship (“best friends forever”).  He’s a lot older than me, and that’s fine.  We’re just not having a bromance together.

 

I feel a little bad for him, that he’s kind of tanking, but at least he’s bringing home most of his wages, and he’s responsible and doesn’t waste his money or other resources.  He’s a gentleman with a dog, who I suspect is his true best friend.  Dogs are lovely animals, and sometimes fill the role of a guardian, and I know his dog is dear to him.  I wouldn’t tax him to give me more of his energy, particularly as he is telling me when he does talk about his depression, and I respect his right to manage his life the best he can without unduly aggravating his state of mind.  For everyone, life’s a hard journey.

 

I don’t particularly want to go down the same route in life as he has gone.  I try to work smart, and I use medication to better my performance, rather than to make work bearable.  I enjoy working, I’m “Type A.”  I just feel that pacing yourself is a better strategy than struggling day after day with an enormous workload that results in ailments such as depression, and other kinds, too.

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I just thought I’d bring all this up when I saw what today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is.  All I’m doing here is posting an example of what I am encountering in my day-to-day life and I am not offering advice or recommending you change, even though I suspect if you are on psychiatric medication and you want to stop taking it, you should use a guideline, not unlike the ten percent reduction rate.  If you feel some comfort in reading this post, feel free to, “like,” “comment,” and/or, “follow,” so I know you’re out there.  I wish you well, and if you are suffering from a psychiatric malady, good luck with your recovery and with a better future.