Neurocide in instalments

I'm slowly going brain dead.

Coining a new term like 'neurocide' shows that there just might still be some worthwhile activity happening in there, but my neurons are like a species dying out. Leaving aside all the various chemical challenges I put them through, they are probably beginning to feel more and more redundant. Like an appendix. Somewhere in the book of my life, "...and he used his brains (see appendix), which became a rare event thereafter..."

I mean, I need challenges. Mental stimulation. Not that my job is bad as such, but it doesn't really offer much of this. I know hardly anyone has a 'perfect' job, heck some might even think I have a great job. 9-6, 5 day week, not much work really, p4 comp with broadband, and paying pretty fair...might constitute many people's idea of 'wow'. I've even been told so.

But the biggest kick I get is putting my brain to work, and getting the job done better, faster, easier, or cheaper than someone else could. Just because I have good reasoning/analytical/strategising skills and I use them. Last night, I was wondering if I should just go to Business Development or Strategic Acquisitions or some other such department and ask them to hire me. Just so I wouldn't feel so dull, slow and useless. Just so I could be interacting with young, intelligent, hyperactive (hell, ACTIVE will do!) minds.

Spent a month doing nothing. NOTHING. And now, when I'm given work, the boys upstairs refuse to budge. Inertia. Ennui. Jumpstarting, shock therapy, physical/chemical stimulation, electrodes...nothing seems to be working. Ernst and Young was bloody brilliant that way. I was learning every single day I was there. My ability to think fast, analyse quickly, and ideate and articulate was appreciated. And it was exciting just to be able to do that. A conducive environment. I HAD to be thinking constantly, be on top of my game, stay sharp. Now, the grindstone is worn and my knife grows duller by the day.

I remember lunch on my first day here. I sat quietly, listening to the discussion around me. I found myself thinking 'Oh my GOD! What the F**K am I doing here??'. So used was I to discussions, even lunchtime ones, of a completely different nature, that I found these so inane. Now, I find myself listening and actually contributing. Damn.

My biggest fear is that I'm going to become like everyone else around here.

I was hoping moving out would give me the time I need to relearn all those things I've all but forgotten how to do. Read. Listen to music. Live without television. Read. Converse. Spend time by myself. Read. Practise my guitaring and finish my compositions. Write. Read.
I'm not sure how much of that I'll be able to do now.

December wasn't too bad. There was the movie, DD News, house planning, band planning. Enough to keep me going. I've always known about my humongous starting trouble. With anything. My breaks are always longer than my productive periods. But enough. It's high time I did something about this situation. My brain needs to go back to its roots (ha ha). I want to put it on one of them transporters on the Starship Enterprise and say 'Energise!'

There must be some kind of way out of here...