i am about to swear a lot. you have been warned...

i am so fucked. seriously fucking fucked. i've found myself in what you might call "something of a pickle" if you were a polite sort, or if you're more... well, like me: "a steaming pile of shit up to my fucking eyeballs". the nature of my problem may be amusing to some, confusing to others, or if you're The Becca, So Very Raven. my problem is as follows:

i've been in a good mood. things have been going... well. i have, in fact, been something approaching "happy".

no, seriously, this is an issue. happy is bad. happy is counterproductive. i have too many things to get done to waste my time being the happy little centre of my own universe.

the problem, dear friends, is that when i get happy i get complacent and when i get complacent i don't have the drive to make the difficult decisions or to effect changes that need to be made and right now there are a lot of changes i need to make. what i actually need in situations like this is a stockpile, or steady influx, of raw and barely contained rage.

let me try to explain. you'll have seen those movies with the guy who's going out after the mob, or taking on the drug cartel, or working valiantly to bring down a corrupt government official. picture that guy in your head. odds are he's going to be a gestalt of Bruce Willis from Die Hard, Denzel Washington from Man On Fire, Aragon and (if you're a gamer) Max Payne. is that a happy man? fuck no! he's pissed off! his family's been killed or threatened, or he wants to save a little girl from kidnappers or he's had a really bad day, doesn't get to have sex with the elf and really needs a shave and a bath. now, you're not going to wake up on a bright sunny morning, kiss the wife, have a nice cup of milky tea on the back balcony with your pipe and slippers and think to yourself
"hmm. you know, today i think i might put on my dirty old mack and go out and fight terrorists barefoot in the mud with a spade and a toothpick and likely get shot."
no! you're going to finish the coffee, go for a nice drive in the country and make sweet sweet lurve to the missus and her friend-from-uni-who's-open-to-experimentation in your airy Studio Apartment with View of the Fucking Harbor and Easy Access to Local Facilities. you're fucking happy with your nice, neat little shit so why the fuck would you care enough to change anything?

happy people do not sell off their belongings, quit their job and buy a one-way flight to the other side of the goddamn world so they can go adventuring! they buy a fucking package holiday, save up some cash or get a loan and go off with a hawiian shirt and their camera around their neck while wearing sensible shoes and a floppy fucking hat! if they bother to go at all.

i'm resigned to the fact that i have a different viewpoint on all this. i've been told enough times that i'm wired up wrong that i take it as a compliment these days. take my taste in music - In Flames (screamy swedish melodic-death-metal) puts me in a great mood. Death Cab For Cutie (easy-listening fairy-boy semi-emo alt-pop) makes me marginally irritated. anything by Andrew Lloyd Motherfucking Webber (purveyor of the musical equivalent of sawdust-bread to the masses) makes me want to confiscate people's thumbs using power-tools and a butane torch. my brain works differently to yours. be grateful for this.

the thing is that when i need to Get Things Done i need to have the stockpile of rage that i've captured and distilled into a crystaline ball of utter malevolence which i can then draw upon at appropriate moments to give me the strength to stand tall and smash through any obstacles in my path. a happy man does not go out and change his life, and that is what i need to be doing right now. i need to move out of the house i've lived in for nearly 4 years. it hasn't been a good house - it's been a fucking great house. i have some staggeringly awesome memories attached to this place and it has been Home like nowhere else has been in most of the last decade. i do not want to leave this house, but i have to leave this house. similarly, i have some really nice stuff i've collected this stuff over the years, a piece here and a piece there and put myself together a comfortable environment where it's all pretty much how i want it.

it has to go.

i need to do things which i will not want to do if i am happy. i need to be angered to the point of insanity and frustrated to a level of madness so that i can do these things and not look back, or think too hard before i do them - draw upon my wellspring of hate and drown everything before me in screaming rage and bile. i cannot afford to be complacent lest i lose momentum and not achieve the escape-velocity to actually go through with the plans i have put in place.

the other big killer is that when i'm happy i get stupid. i'm pretty sure i've discussed this idea before, in a previous life. when i'm angry i'm situationally aware. i'm alert and i'm on the fucking ball. get me in a good mood and i slip and when i slip up i screw up. i've done it before - let things slip and suddenly the whole house of cards collapses around me. i need the stress somewhere in my life to keep the balancing act alive. now i've gone and managed to get everything rolling beautifully and there's a smile on my face. how in hell am i going to maintain clarity when i'm in a warm fuzzy place?

it makes me so fucking mad i could put my face through concrete...
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actually, that'll about do it. much better.