The problem solving engine is that feeling in the back of your head that looks at something and tries to organize it without you needing to do anything. Its goal is to bring order and satisfaction to a world where everything can change at a moment's notice. The engine can be applied to basic survival needs or to that one boss in the video game that you couldn't get past and suddenly figured it out right before drifting off to sleep.
My problem solving engine has been focused on two questions: "How do I survive through the day?" and "What is wrong with me?" These questions are baked in analysis, fear, and necessity. The first question is rooted in the lizard brain; it's the thing that tells you that you need to survive today for the sake of living tomorrow. It's something everyone has to a reasonable extent, or we'd all stop eating and walk into traffic.
The second question is more pernicious. It's a kind of all-encompassing question that keeps turning back on itself, The question must be answered and it must be acted upon or things will never change. Without the knowledge required to answer the question, you would be forever trapped in time unable to move forward or backward or any other way that wasn't "all these things are wrong with me". The question itself has weight, power, and compelled me to act.
The only time I really got away from the survival mindset was when I found something that I really, really wanted to do. The problem solving engine could stop focusing on the ever-present questions and could start working on something else for awhile. I could forget anything else for days or weeks at a time and just immerse myself in a new game or a new place or just talking to a friend for awhile. The easiest way out was to solve a problem that was difficult and meaningful in some small way.
That was true a few months ago. It feels like an entire lifetime has passed since I finally had an answer to these questions. It's... freeing. The entire weight of my problems has been lifted off of my shoulders and is floating around in the ether somewhere else, never to bother me again.
I've been floating around in a daze. Everything felt like a dream that I could wake up from and go back to the cruddy way of life I was living before. I've been waiting for the rug to get pulled out from under me, just watching out for some small thing to set me back to before I could even think about getting here. That pernicious fear is something that has reared its ugly head, and I keep shoving it down until it drowns.
I'm mostly past that. So now what?
The past month has been mostly spent mired in nostalgia. It's been quite interesting seeing how much my preferences have changed. I've gone from escapism and guilty pleasures to unfettered creation - when my head allows it - and I feel like I've gotten more things done lately than I have most of my life.
I
had a kind of pathological aversion to something that I had done before.
It seemed like I kept trying to find something new and exciting or I
wouldn't have any purpose in doing anything at all. There's a kind of
hunger behind it; constantly seeking new information, constantly craving
answers that I didn't have to solve something that couldn't be done. That problem is completely gone and I can re-experience everything to my own liking.
The problem solving engine is alive and well. In fact, the problem solving engine is doing better than ever. I don't think I could turn it off even if I wanted to. This engine lets me feel useful. My body may be a steaming pile of crud, but it's all I've got and I can do anything I set my mind to.
There's nothing stopping me anymore. There's also nothing propelling me forward. It's been weird; the problem solving engine has applied itself to that dreamlike state of "what if?" and "this is my life now" and has mostly settled on "There's a 0% chance that things will revert so badly that I have a migraine for 3 months again." I want to say that is a relief... but in reality, it's nothing.
I wanted nothing. Absolute nothing, the inability to feel and change and be anything that could be real or fake or even remembered. That kind of absolution is unsatisfying and meaningless. The absolute lack of anything that had any real meaning in my current life meant that I had no frame of reference and nothing that I actually knew I could do. I can fix things when they go wrong and I can improve things when they're bad.
What can I do when they're good? The problem solving engine doesn't stop. It's a consuming feeling, gnawing at the edges of reality, seeping down to my very core. The feeling wants to be useful. It strives to improve my situation in all circumstances, no matter how good I may be doing. That kind of feeling doesn't go away with time; the engine hungers, never sated, always striving for satisfaction and perfection.
"What can I do when times are good?"
That question is what I've been wrestling with since the start of this blog. I want to do something with my life. I can't stand the thought of being reduced to a drooling pile of flesh that can't do a single worthwhile thing in my life.
"I can change the past."
That... is an answer that I did not expect. What kind of crazy answer is that?! It's completely absurd to try and change what was before. We have history to respect. There are lessons to be learned from the way that we lived and grew and did the best we could at the time. Everyone makes mistakes, some worse than others, and each time we make a mistake we grow and change our behavior or perspective with the inadequacies we've stumbled into.
The very nostalgia I had been swimming around in was the answer that I had come to. Things were different back then, and I have a different idea of how things should be in my head than they actually were. The amount of fantasy, just trying to improve something because I couldn't improve myself, was overwhelming and awesome and one of the only things I cared about. In fact, it's one of the only things I care about now; I can enjoy other things, but there's still a potential to be had from the worst sources.
Each and every piece of content I've been going through has gone through a process of reclamation. Entire years have gone to waste as I struggled to survive against everything that was going against me. I don't just want to see the works of our past for what they are. I want to see them for what they could be, what it might have been if they had just existed in another time.
The problem solving engine is taking one thing at a time and spinning it into a new creation. It's been overwhelming, but good. The creation process is pure and no longer tainted by fear. I think... I'd like to make something as a way of bringing everything together. Let's take my experience and turn it into an experience that I would like to share with everyone.
I don't have any questions left to ask of the universe anymore. I think that's for the best.
