• About Me

justin robbins [dot] net

  • Racing Thoughts

    January 31st, 2017

    Words.

    Words are one of the most important things in my life. I pride myself on my vocabulary and vernacular. I have the ability to express myself in great detail, and with ease due to this mastery of the English language that I claim I have.

    Words are dependable. Words are reliable. Words are ever changing and evolving like a living species. I love words, and they never fail me. Until they do.

    Racing Thoughts.

    My words’ natural enemy. There’s nothing more terrifying than having my words stolen by racing thoughts. The kind of thoughts that make my brain move so quickly that the words fly away like a bird in a tree after you’ve begin throwing rocks at it.

    Stop it.

    I’m not throwing rocks at birds. (Although, that does seem like something manic Justin would do.)

    Hey you stupid birds; gimme back my words!

    I feel as though to most, this is something that’s hard to relate with. I mean, it’s not as if everyone has the same passion for words that I do.

    So imagine this: Take the one thing that you do to express yourself, the one thing you do over any others. Do you sing? Dance? Write? Yell? Shoplift? Pick your nose? Do the Hokey Pokey? Whatever it is, picture it.

    Now, imagine it gone. Yet, even though it’s gone you can still see the distorted fragments of what it used to be.

    It’s like the busted speaker playing your favorite song. You can hear that it’s your song, and you know that you love it. Yet, the melody is faint, the bass is hollow, and the crackling has distorted the song until it is nearly unrecognizable. Allowing you to hear it, and realize that you love it, but the sound from the speaker makes you hate it.

    I love words, but when my thoughts are racing… it makes me hate them.

  • New Year, New Me, New Website!

    January 29th, 2017

    It’s a new year!

    This year I’ve decided to try my best to better myself. I’ve come to terms with my bipolar diagnosis and I’m currently on medical leave, working on myself through an intensive outpatient program that specializes in mental health. It’s going fairly well I think, I’m learning a lot – and processing a lot.

    I’ve taken up journaling to document emotions I didn’t know I had. You’d think it’d be fun since I’m a writer, but it’s pretty intense. I’ve written some deep stuff, and some cool stuff. My goal is to start sharing some of the things I write in there, and engage myself more in writing overall as a form of therapy or meditation or what have you.

    Because of that I’ve decided to once again, redo my website. This time I’m falling back on my old pal WordPress. I’m currently working out all the kinks and pages and designs and whatnot. At any rate, I’m really excited to start writing again, and even moreso excited to once again start blogging.

    Here’s to it. It’s a new year and with any luck a new (and better) me!

  • Why, people?

    April 11th, 2016

    People, in general, are selfish, shallow, greedy. People lie, they cheat, and they steal. These are among a number of grievances I hold towards people. What’s interesting however, is that these same grievances rarely ever carry over to the individual. A person, for all intents and purposes remains separate from the collective. A person has his or her emotions, hopes, dreams, wants, desires and so on. It is the complexity of these and other emotions that literally removes a person from the collective and creates an individual. It’s the reason that one might say he loves his family, but can’t stand Uncle Bob, or how one can say he loves his mother but isn’t very fond of his family. There is a disconnect between a person and the collective, which isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s a great thing. A person is quite alright, but basically, people suck.

    Take for example, dating websites and phone apps. For the purpose of this blog I’ll use Tinder as an example. Theoretically Tinder is designed to connect you to other single people for dates, love, and whatnot. You upload 5 pictures of yourself and try to wrap up your identity into just a couple of sentences in a bio section that will more often than not, go unread. The issue with Tinder isn’t so much the idea of Tinder itself, or any dating app for that matter. The problem lies in the fact that it causes individuals to join the collective. During a face to face encounter we are generally polite to one another, and hold legitimate conversations. If you ask a person to describe his or her perfect mate to you, the responses are overwhelmingly related to personality traits. “I want someone who makes me laugh” or “I’m looking for someone that will go on adventures with me” are two popular responses I’ve seen, personally. In essence, if you ask a reasonable individual to give you a reasonable answer to what he or she is looking for, the responses are typically of a personal, connective nature. We respond with attributes that describe who would best fit us emotionally, and ignore, for the most part, physicality.

    In the collective, however aesthetics rule. When one logs into Tinder he stops being an individual and joins the collective. The anonymity of Tinder allows an individual to plug directly into the collective. We’ve convinced ourselves into believing that we’re searching for our “partner in crime”, the one that will “make us laugh” but it is an illusion. On average, about 3 seconds is spent reviewing each new Tinder “flame” before swiping left or right. A guy (or girl) pops up, and a judgement is made almost instantaneously as to whether or not he is attractive enough to even converse with you. Swipe left, swipe right, and the cycle continues until it’s a never ending game of “Hot or Not” — Who is worthy enough to speak with me? Personality is cast aside when it comes to Tinder, at least until the initial match is made.

    It should be noted that this is not a judgement, but merely an observation. I’m guilty of it, and so are you. It’s not your fault, we are all part of a collective. We are, after all, all people. It’s just that the advent of the internet, and with it Tinder, it is becoming increasingly difficult to transition between your collective self, and your individual self. The internet removes the personal interactions that build bonds, create friendships, trust, etc. and once you’re plugged into the web, it’s hard to unplug. A collective of over 3 billion people, all shouting for attention, and that’s the problem. On the internet, you’re anonymous. The only unique thing about you on the internet is your IP address.

    I don’t mean to imply that the internet, Tinder, or any dating service is some sort of terrible popularity contest. What I’m trying to convey is that we, as individuals, have allowed the collective to dictate how we approach dating. It’s incredibly difficult to make a true connection to a person via the internet. The pressure is great, and attention-spans are low. You’re no longer yourself, you’re simply one of 3 billion people. All hope is not lost, however. The last time I checked people still went outside. Try saying hello to the person standing in line behind you, start a conversation with a stranger at school. Online dating can work too, I’ve friends that are in successful relationships that started via some dating application or another. The difference is that they “swiped right”, and eventually pulled back from the collective and revealed their individual selves. The bottom line is that if you’re looking for love, be an individual, don’t be people, because people suck. Swipe right.

  • Improvisational Piano Song

    February 15th, 2016

    From time to time I sit at my piano and just play. Sometimes, I even record it.




  • Alonely

    February 3rd, 2016

    Emotions.

    I’ll never get a handle on my emotions. I’ll never understand the unpredictability that they bring. They come in waves, they come hard, and they come fast.

    When I was younger I was diagnosed with anxiety. In my teens and early twenties it crippled me. When an emotion changed suddenly, panic would set in. Retrospectively, it’s an interesting experience. I mean, I could go from a nonsencial state of happiness to an overwhelming state of dread in a matter of seconds. That is, I could go from enjoying a night at the movies to contemplating drinking a bucket of popcorn butter in an instant. That’s the cycle: new emotion, panic, irrational decisions. Rinse and repeat.

    I think I get anxious because there are too many emotions. Is how I’m feeling in this instant appropriate? What if it isn’t? What, then, is the appropriate feeling? Is it joy? I like joy. Brain, please distribute the emotion ‘joy’. Ah, that’s nice isn’t it? It’s all about control. It’s just like everyone always told me, “Justin, there’s no need to be anxious, control your emotions.” I truly wish it were that easy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that one cannot, effectively, control his emotions. If I’ve learned anything in my life it’s that emotions are a package deal. You cannot tell your brain to send you feelings of joy, without also having your brain send whatever other emotions it finds lying around. It’s almost as if your brain runs out of joy, so it just picks up and delivers whatever else happens to be near it. So, you go from your on-demand feeling of joy, and then suddenly you have anger, or fear, or sadness, or whatever. Once the unwanted emotion hits, what do you do? Can you just re-up on the original emotion? Silly, brain — this is anger, not joy. That’s okay, we all make mistakes, try again. I suppose you could try, but you’ll soon find yourself right back where you started. By attempting to control your emotions, your fighting a losing battle. You’re going to feel what you feel and no demanding will change it.

    So, if you must, try controling your emotions; but know that it’s about as effective as trying to solve an alegbra equation by chewing bubble-gum.

     

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