Epiphany

I just had an epiphany. Something like this could probably be the beginning of a blog article. Maybe I’ll write it one day. I don’t know. Anyway, today’s experience was pretty intense. I’ve been following the fitness blogger and motivation trainer James Fell on Facebook for a little over a year now and I bought his new book a few months ago. Now I finally got around to reading it regularly and, oh boy, the irony. The book itself is about sudden, life-changing moments and in it he draws on research by Kahneman, Tversky, Oettingen, Baumeister, Sunstein and other authors which I have also read over the past two years. He also describes the influence of chaos and uncertainty in the complex system we call life, which brings me back to Taleb, of course. At this moment I had the feeling as if a big circle suddenly closes and all the puzzle pieces fall back into their rightful place. During the past months I have often wondered whether my manuscript has any added value at all, as I have become very aware of certain weaknesses. But now I have realized that the basic statements and presented facts will not change, only the context in which I present them will have to be adapted. I have naively described many aspects in a rather mechanistic way, well aware of the inequality of correlation and causality. But I never mentioned the complexity of human existence in the original text in a way that would do it justice. Now I know I’ m going to provide a framework for the rest of the work at the beginning. The confusion, disorientation and uncertainty of the past months seems to have suddenly disappeared. I now have a clear goal in mind again and I know which passages I have to adapt and how, in order to convey the relevant statements. When I run through everything straight in my head, I am a little dreadful of the sheer amount of changes necessary, but fortunately these can be broken down into small stages allowing me to work my way up piece by piece. It doesn’t have to be a perfect piece. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I keep telling myself this phrase. I will certainly come across further information after the publication, which makes a revision seem reasonable. Perhaps in a second edition. Heavens, I am 27, of course I cannot know everything. But that was never my goal. My intention was always to help other people. When I think back in what desperation I lay on the floor of my room and just wanted to die, I hope my work can perhaps make a small contribution to reducing the suffering of other people. For many years I myself was responsible for making other people suffer because of my actions. I’m on a road to redemption. At least I hope so. I have done so much shit and hurt so many people, it is long overdue for me making amends. Maybe blogging will help with that, too. I don’t know why, but for some reason I’m getting more and more encouragement for my posts, even though the blog in its current form has only been around for about two weeks. It almost seems as if other people actually appreciate this mental chaos somehow. I have no idea why. I mean, these are all rather unstructured aberrations of my mental associations, which often take very strange paths. Moments when I can turn off my perfectionism for a moment. Yesterday I read an article by a blogger with borderline, in which she describes her experiences. Unfortunately, she doesn’t allow any comments on her blog, because I would have liked to have said “YES! THIS!” for almost every statement. Of course, a bit more eloquently formulated. But you get the point. Well, maybe one day she’ll get lost on my site and some kind of exchange will take place. I would actually find that quite exciting. I’m currently noticing more and more how much I’m absorbed in writing. The passion which has been there since my childhood for it is currently breaking up in ever stronger ways. What kind of obscure formulation is that anyway? Breaking up ways. Wtf. Seriously. Maybe I misunderstood something. Anyway. Where was I? Writing. It’s incredibly good. The advantage is, of course, that these free-writing sessions produce enough content to keep my blog updated. Obviously, popular science is a lot more tedious to write and even the fictional stuff which I haven’t even published yet needs a lot of preliminary work. Perfectionism and stuff. I’m curious when the blog entries will match the current date. At the moment I’m at the pages from May, so it will take a while until it’s done. I’d like to start with videos at some point, too, but I don’t really know in which direction I want to go. I don’t think I should just record these sessions, but rather do some more structured work. Will probably be more professional. Luckily, through my blogs I’ve gathered a lot of raw material over the last years, which can probably be translated into useful scripts. There is still a lack of some technical equipment, but that will probably be the least of all problems. At least now I already have a rough idea where it might go. Now I can finally resume the regular work on my manuscript, this aspect should also dissolve bit by bit. And if only ten people read it in the end, then maybe five of them will find some answers to their questions. If there are more, all the better. With less, I can still go to the next best corner in complete frustration and cry. Joke. Maybe. Not sure about that. Yet. You never know what surprises life might hold for you. I also wrote an email to James Fell earlier, thanking him for his work which helped me achieve my personal epiphany. I am very curious about his answer. In his FAQ he writes he unfortunately has no time to read any manuscripts or extensive texts. Should he answer that he would be interested in mine, although I did not offer it to him, that would be like wtf. Hype. Of course, I am aware this situation will most likely not happen, but you never know. How was it with Black Swans? In this case I would have absolutely nothing against a positive one. I just shouldn’t have the expectation, otherwise it would end up in disappointment very quickly. If the work becomes at least mediocrely successful in the end, he might even read it independently of me and then remember my mail. That would be pretty nice somehow. I would be even more curious about his reaction then.