"Now I myself felt his feelings were really not all that different from the normal, what one would call the well-adjusted, normal person, only carried to an extreme degree, to an extreme extent. I myself felt that one could really think of him as the ultimate conformist."
-"Zelig" Woody Allen

"Zelig" was and is a movie about a man who literally becomes the kinds of people he is around. "Zelig" is also sometimes used as a word to describe people who's personalities are unusually susceptible to change towards and based on their environment, like a depressed chameleon. I open with this quote because the movie makes me feel less alone in the world.

I've spent the past 36 hours binge watching. My eyes are dry, my back is sore and my brain is fried. I was watching a Melee tournament, but that's not the point of interest. What is of interest is that I was consuming a massive amount of media over a compressed period of time. I'm not sure if there's an easily articulable way to describe why. I like the game, sure; but that's not quite it. I find myself asking the same question over and over: "How do people binge watch television shows?"

Now I've watched a gigantic amount of film and a fair bit of television, but the level to which I see most people binge watch television sickens me.

As is my nature, I sought to become that which I did not understand in order to understand. I sat and watched like my peer said they did. It was fun to have my mind completely bombarded by stimuli. It was a numbing and overwhelming experience. I was relaxed. But there was a gnawing sense of existential dread that cropped up in the back of my mind every pause, every breath. I realized that this was my rock bottom. This is my place of repentance. This is my natural chaos.

I understand now, the draw of extremity. It allows you to turn of the thinky part of your brain... kind of. As stated before, it doesn't shut everything off. The guilt of laziness may not be a thing that "some people" feels. But for me, it self perpetuates through guilt and quiet.

As is my nature, what does that even mean? Am I really like (a?) Zelig? Do I just want to be normal? Why do I seek to become other people when I'm feeling lost or confused?

I'm doing it less and less. The most important things to help protect against this tenancy is saying "no" and keeping in touch with one's wants. Now those two things are tall orders for a person with habits diametrically opposed to them. Daily meditations and forcefully intent-full actions are helpful like free writing, sitting in quiet darkness, not reading Dostoevsky and reading Nietzsche.

This has been a momentary lapse of will. One that I've learned from, or maybe not. If there's anything I'm painfully aware of, it's the base level gaps in reasoning at the foundation of human knowledge. One of those things is the difference between regret and repentance. Regret being the feeling of sadness over an action or missed opportunity, and repentance being sincere regret usually associated with a change in behavior. Regret is a useless emotion, repentance is essentially a verb.

I'm gonna go put liquid tears in my eyes now and binge watch all of the show by Zefrank.