This marker sketch was done at a live show and was later digitally enhanced.
Sometimes little things get to me. There are problems with two of my work contracts right now. Both situations involve me not getting compensated according to expectations my clients created. It's unusual for this sort of thing to happen with a single client. I have no previous experience with it happening with two clients at once.
Other areas of my life are comparably vexing in comparably minor ways. When I feel like complaining, I have plenty to complain about. Most of this is superficial and transitory. But some of it inevitably points to deeper issues.
Security is a big one for me. With two chronic illnesses, small problems can quickly balloon into crises. Things that impact my income or my sense of place send me into a panic, for if an illness were to come out of remission coinciding with such a thing, the results would be disastrous. This is something I know in my body through dreadful experience. No matter how my rational mind frames these small problems as they come up, I unconsciously experience them as existential threats.
The way my brain works, everything is connected to everything else in my thinking. So when a problem arises, it calls to mind all of the other problems it's connected to, which is all of the other problems, period. It doesn't matter if these problems are personal, social, or global. They're all connected. Untangling them is like trying to untangle a giant messy knot of fishing line.
It would be great if some grand flash of insight suddenly came along and cut right through this knot. Or if some unexpected shift in perspective magically rearranged the tangled mess into a more sensible and navigable web. Both resolutions seem unlikely. Though it is possible to painstakingly untangle parts of this the knot with meditation.
To be honest, my meditation practice isn't what it once was. There was a time when I meditated daily for hours on end. These days, it's more like 20-40 minutes per session. This actually seems to make for a healthier practice. And it does allow the knot of interconnected problems that bother me to become more observable, but it rarely makes a dent in untangling them.
The vast majority of these problems are of course completely beyond my control. Meditation naturally makes this more evident. It also makes it easier to complain with greater accuracy. Which is helpful when complaining is the only available response to lying clients or other problems produced entirely by the actions of others.