Monday, August 20, 2001

Finally! Here are some photos of the Putt-Putt hole I assembled at work two weeks ago:

I had a lovely conversation with Saalon tonight, where we talked about his short film and my animated project, plus anime and open source and all sorts of other things.

Actually, it was lovely except for our opening discussion, in which we argued the philosophy and utility of open source, and I turned snippish and prickly. I have the nasty tendency to do that when an argument doesn’t go my way. A bad habit, to be sure.

I then stayed up until 3:00 a.m., surfing for porn and working on Calliope. Looking back, it was a pretty self-indulgent thing to do, but then I’m addicted to porn.

Oh, yes, I’m addicted. Not in the “I’m gonna go CRAZY if I don’t skim some porn today” sense, but I find myself going on a porn binge every few days. I only do it at night when nobody can see me, of course. And I keep telling myself that I’m going to stop, now, because I really do want to stop this time and now I’ve faced it enough I know what to do now and I’m sure I won’t struggle with it much this time and I’m fine for a couple of days until I suddenly give in but just for tonight because really I’m doing fine and I’m going to stop….

Maybe I should try to seek some outside help; my church provides an anonymous sexual addiction recovery class. I don’t know if I could face that, though; I’d worry that I’d either be surrounded by real nutcases, or I’d get steamed up by other peoples’ problems (the last thing I need is more stimulation, right?). Which is silly, of course, because that sort of class would be bound to do me more good than harm. I can’t bring myself to do it, though.

I could seek one-on-one counselling, but that puggish little voice in the back of my head insists that I don’t need a counsellor, because I really do want to stop this time and now I’ve faced it enough I know what to do now, etc., etc. I really want to find a solution to this that won’t require public admission of my problem.

Hmmm. I hadn’t fully realized that that was the core of my fear until I wrote that last paragraph a moment ago. Looking at it, I believe it’s a sensible fear. I don’t want other people — particularly strangers — to know that I’m addicted to porn. I should do something, though, any addiction is destructive. But I’m not convinced that I need counselling; I feel like there must be another way.

Is there?