WARNING: This post is overly dramatic and somewhat depressing - like me. But, that’s because this post is about me. You’ve been warned.

Let me tell you something about anxiety. Anxiety is an ability animals have developed and mastered through evolution for predicting the future.

Don’t bother looking up the Wiki link to prove me wrong, because you’ll be disappointed that nobody else - not even our greatest psychological and scientific minds - has figured this out. Symptoms of anxiety would seem to be counter-argumentative against my claim about the power of anxiousness. Perceived fear, headaches, nausea, and other awful feelings are not typically symptoms you associate with a positive outlook. But, as I’ve discovered in my 35 years on this planet, our bodies do some amazing but fucked up shit.

Our default setting is decay. Every organism has one destiny, death. If you set a piece of fruit out on the table it doesn’t grow stronger, become better tasting, or improve in color. If you leave a room vacant for long enough it gains cobwebs, cracks, dust, rot, and an unpleasant odor. We’re made of defective material. Eventually, we all fall apart and become utterly useless. Our very survival depends on daily maintenance involving energy consumption in the form of food, and replenishment of the lubricant for our energy manufacturing system in the form of drink. When we go too long without we meet our end rather quickly.

Please, allow me to explain why our inevitable ending isn’t a bad thing.

Anxiety has its uses. It becomes a predictor of danger real or imagined (we haven’t perfected its cognitive potential). Anxiety heightens perception of our surroundings by increasing our sense of hearing, sight, and smell. We become more aware and focused. At least, once we master it, we will be able to manipulate this for good instead of what usually happens. Normally the back of your neck tingles, you sweat, get goose bumps, or simply freak the fuck out. In the distant future, we will learn to control these side effects and bend our enhanced senses toward our benefit. In the meantime, like a teenager who first learns how to masturbate, we only exploit the feelings for the wrong benefit because we don’t really know the purpose, and we let instinct do the piloting.

Not that many years ago I learned about social anxiety. But well before that my formative years were coming to an end as my self realization began. I began discovering a lot about myself. Mostly, and not surprisingly, I suffered from chronic depression. Not shocking since most of my life I’ve been overweight and somewhat anti-social. Depression is stronger and more resilient the less you interact with other beings. While I’ve maintained and developed countless friendships, ultimately I prefer solitude and privacy. Only, I had no idea why until the last decade. There exists inside my chemistry a flawed compound that produces a significant amount of anxiety on a fairly regular basis.

The technical term is social anxiety disorder, or social phobia. You would know you have it if you loathe public functions, have trouble being around strangers, break out into sweat around others regardless of the temperature, and think you’re constantly being monitored or judged (mostly for being too fat or being ugly, typically superficial reasons, etc). Chemicals in your body cause anxiety whenever you’re around others making it extremely difficult to cope in a society, something that’s pretty fucking important for survival purposes. You forget situations where you met a lot of people, their names, and the sequence of events. Emotionally you become more frustrated because you’re usually uncomfortable in your own skin. Matters only deteriorate because being awkward is impossible to avoid since you really have no desire to be present around people. Conversations become tiring because you can’t focus on the conversation; you’re always too busy wondering about your surroundings and how quickly you can find a way to get the fuck out.

Xanax and Zoloft are the two types of medicine I’m currently using to combat the chemical deconstruction my body wants. Not sure how they work, they just do. Don’t care to find out either. But, they make being social manageable. As the people in my life probably don’t realize and never will. They have no idea why I’m constantly sweating or being awkward. They just think I’m a dork. Trouble is, I really want to think they are judging me. Because that’s what social anxiety wants. Our bodies do some amazing but fucked up shit.

The worst of it - and I swear I would eventually get to this - is the procrastination. See what I did there? Procrastination is one of my least fucking favorite side effects of anxiety that I experience in life. Fear of being judged and the insulting amount of low self esteem cripple my ability to produce. The twist is, I have exceptionally high standards for myself and what I expect in others. I want to be beautiful, powerful, and wealthy - anything else is pathetic. Nobody is a greater judge of worth than myself. Nothing can compete with my desire to be successful. Well, nothing except my unerring ability to procrastinate. And it’s winning.

I’m capable of delivering the goods. You can expect me to provide high quality and demonstrate intelligence. When my work requires me to develop something substantial, it will get done. One caveat though. You have to be patient. I’m a quick study, understand things faster than the average person, but fuck if I don’t take forever to start producing. I’m not sure what it takes to be operating at 100% out of the gate. I’ll never win the race. I know we only have one life, and mine’s already statistically half over. What does it take to a light a fire under my ass? Whatever it is, I haven’t figured it out.

For starters, you might not get a daily or even weekly blog from me. But, you better fucking keep checking for an update. RSS feeds were invented for this very reason. While I won’t be providing much more than a rough draft, you may anticipate something thought provoking or interesting - and I promise to make it worth the wait. Until I’ve mastered my intense anxiety, and turn it into a super power, you’ll have to forgive me if my writing is flawed and chaotic. Truth is I don’t give a shit how you will judge me. I really don’t. I repeat in caps: I’M INCAPABLE OF GIVING A SHIT WHAT YOU THINK. My body does, although not my mind. Remember my instinct controls that. I’m not running the give a shit machine that causes me to sweat or lose my self worth. Fortunately, the part of me that is gaining control does give a shit about what I think. I’m judging myself constantly. And that makes me happy. Because, I’m a perfectionist and you can’t have a better judge than a perfectionist. And once I’m done procrastinating, I might just do something spectacular.

Hopefully, someone else, maybe even a stranger, will be around to see it. :)