The Living Rube Goldberg Machine

I don't know if being social is a new need that I've developed, or something that I've had and previously suppressed, ignored, or satisfied by other means. As a random thought, though I hardly saw any of them, when I had three roommates I think that idea of sharing a living space with others helped. In any case, I've come to realize that one of the best ways to get out of a rut is to just get distracted for a bit. Getting stuck in my own head makes it hard to distract myself.

And while this may seem obvious, I really don't think it's been true in the past. Previously, being social while stuck in a mental rut made me feel more stuck, not less. It felt like a struggle to play by the right rules while already under my own pressure. Perhaps it's just a long-needed improvement for myself, but as much as I enjoyed social situations, I felt a great bit of trepidation, too. It was much more like a gamble, something that could as easily make me feel better as worse.

I know that a bit of this change is because of my "new" job. I am now in many more ways at where I wanted to be in life than I have at any time in the past. Much like latter Final Fantasy games, the early parts of my life have always felt very linear and constrained, with a certain specific path set before me with only little room for variation. But I'm now free to explore more, given a choice on how to balance my life and career, my future and present.