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2003-05-25 - 3:08 a.m. Cardboard artboard I remember depression from the highschool years being somewhat more like a nightmare than it is now -- it's still a bit surreal, but not actively terrifying or with the same feel of aggressiveness. It's not the knife-edged cold of a winter gale five miles from home with no mittens or pockets, not anymore. I remember days of complete nonfunctionality as far as my second year in college -- well, that had no causal link to real events, I mean. After that, something shifted, and the character changed. Now it's less like a nightmare, more like a long walk at night through an unfamiliar neighborhood with poor lighting and no streetlights. Things that would normally look benign take on a menacing character; the path is not nearly as clear as one might like it to be. If you have an imagination, it works overtime to find things with which to bother you -- be it a tree, broken glass glinting on the sidewalk, or the abrupt bark of a dog. I really don't enjoy it much. ----- Have you ever found yourself so deep in thought that you failed to notice that you were crying? It's happened a few times to me with emotional issues. The only similar incident I can think of that wasn't romantically related in some way is looking down at my calculus homework after twenty-odd minutes of staring at the wall working through a problem in my head and noticing that gee, there was a lot of blood on the paper. Seems I'd chewed partway through my lip without noticing; lovely. I was thinking, it seems, about what it might be like to have a brain that isn't trying to kill me; a lot of movie imagery and slow-mo, since I genuinely do not know what it would be like to be chemically happy without forcing it. On a consistant basis, no less, dear me, dear me. For a significant period of time I was vehemently against the idea of antidepressants despite the advice of the friend who knows me best among all nations, primarily because the mind that lives in this here brain is the only thing that I have any claim to whatsoever. No one, I like to think, can take this away -- it's my point of safety, and altering it is unsafe in the extreme. And, said the alarmist in me as he pulled on his suspenders and leapt down the pole to the rescue, what if it somehow impacted the place where I keep my words? What if, when I'm happy, I can't write anymore? ..that's all I'm good for, is the underlying thought, and what would be left without it? Well sure, I'm an unnatural dancer, but I'm no longer capable of the interpersonal optimism that would let me assume that the people who routinely make an effort to join in -- however the hell one is supposed to dance in tandem with someone, since that's one of those things I picked up alone and have continued to do alone -- would be worth interacting with off the dance floor for any length of time. Well sure, I'm a better manager than anyone in the district and they would soil their pants with joy if I accepted a promotion, but I get no happiness from working for someone who isn't worth the time I put in, much less the care -- work is not where my satisfaction, if it exists, will be found. Well sure, I'm good in bed, but that's an accessory, an add-on bonus gift when there's no addressee; useless, worthless. What, of value, can be done for the world sub rosa? What I have of value to me and what I like of my life resides almost entirely and excusively inside the skull that I call home and somehow infuses my grey matter with meaning and memory. This grey matter is what I propose to fuck around with. I'm not as worried now, and I owe that obliquely to a number of people. To Sim, for being around for the last three or four years through a lot of stupid shit and still being here -- that's confidence, right there, that even if I somehow scramble my neurons, I'd have someone to lead me to the ice-cream stand, pat my hand, say "Yes Bear, we'll get you an ice-cream cone," and roll her eyes at me in a friendly way. And come on now, reprimand me if you like, but if I didn't constantly have the worst-case impossibilities running through my head, I wouldn't be me at all. I owe it in part to SomethingAwful's forums -- particularly the flamewars forum, "where smart people go to pretend to be stupid, stupid people go to pretend to be smart, and Shizuka goes to pretend to be a Japanese schoolgirl", as one astute observer pointed out. It's always a nice surprise to get AIM'd out of the blue and discover that the person you'd taken for a lucky idiot who managed to somehow post the right thing at the right time to be funny is actually a coldly polished machine intellect that's analyzed the minutae of humor in a quest to understand all that is humanity before it grinds them to a pulp between its' iron neurons. But I diverge from what I meant -- what I mean is that it was an excellent opportunity to be frequently reminded that people are often quite a lot more than what they bother to show. Which in turn reminded me that I really ought to pay more attention to some aspects of myself, because I really am quite a lot more than I care to show the public at large -- and if I am, there's no reason other people wouldn't be as well. But still, there is little as disappointing as meeting someone, spending time with them, and eventually understanding what makes them tick -- and realizing that it's really not that special at all. Such disappointment, aiye; from there come the feelings of betrayal, I think, when someone "fails" to live up to my expectations. They signed no contract to pander to me, that I can recall. how empty of me to be so full of you, so well-said by scratchvinyl, ai. Who is, incidentally and perhaps the least deeply since it's not like we have a long assocation or I've been following their work for any appreciable length of time -- but it's like this. If I screw up my head and can't write anymore, if there's anything of me that still remembers what it was like to have something to say and find a way to say it and work to make people understand -- I think it'll be okay, because scratchvinyl will, I think, eventually say what I would have. That may sound stupid. I'm okay with that, today only, 50% off. I'm not used to just nodding and saying, "Well shit. They're better." In this case it's unavoidable. Usually, when a concession of superiority is in order, they're writing about something else -- be it happiness, social lives, progress, motivation, revenge .. things I do not consider to be a part of my bailiwick. how empty of me to be so full of you goes and shoots that all in the ass, in possibly the most pleasant let-down I've ever had. That was fucking perfect in a way I really cannot express adequately, and I am jealous of the ability that has been nurtured in whatever mind in which scratchvinyl resides, and as jealous of its product. Tomorrow it will be admiration, and I will simply take my own scribblings less seriously. Never to worry, I do have uniqueness to my viewpoints, and there's no one who can duplicate the combination of this perspective and these experiences -- but that doesn't make the final product any more insightful, just different. I find my own achievements to be lesser in this instance. Because of this, I am not as worried about screwing up my brain; yes, I'm a unique person, and a pretty okay one at that, but uniqueness, like justice or deserves, is of no particular substance when examined closely, and I need not be afraid to leave my mental house simply because there are lions and tigers and bears a thousand miles away. My place, so to speak, would be filled even if I were not around to name its shape. This is the final, rational key to a large piece of what's held me -- persistant delusions of grandeur, and while I was rationally certain that I was replaceable, I had no concrete evidence, and now I do. It is that simple at this moment, and I look forward to pointing out to these delusions in the future that they have no place in reality with certainty, instead of its' opposite. Illusions about one's own importance are unfortunate, and tend to restrict one's movement on any plane worth noting, I find. And it was the impending sense of this freedom that contributed to the line of thought that contributed to the sudden blinking and equally abrupt noticing that my face was wet in the wind as I walked homeward on Pacific Avenue in the dark, listening to my keys jingle on my waist. Bittersweet, this one. What will I write about when I have a future? I cannot imagine. I was talking to a guy from SA today about the mindset of suicides, since he professes to be completely unable to understand them or their perspective. Being periodically arational myself, I have at least an understanding of my own perspective on the subject, and attempted to relay it as best I could. He said something to the effect of, "Yeah, I get it, but it doesn't make any sense to me. If I could, I'd live forever -- I just want to see what's next." I wonder if I'll think similar about seeing what's next -- more likely a change like that would take months of concerted effort, chemistry or not, since embedded patterns do not simply .. poof .. and dissipate into emotional fairy dust, leaving us with non-fairy emotional gold in its place that will not disintegrate with the first touch of morning light. I repeat, I do not think that is what will happen. But to have spontaneous pleasant thoughts would be such an agreeable novelty -- ai. I look forward to the challenge of figuring out what is going on and maintaining my grip on what is throughout. *napoleon hat* Addendum Also, if anyone happens to have the deciding vote, I would like a musical version of the following sung at my funeral, assuming enough of my wishes are ignored that there is one. Not, I should emphasize, that I have any plans to die anytime soon, but it still seems appropriate somehow.Funny guys in funny ties, Wooden mice know what's nice; -The War Song of the Wooden Mice, "Bones of the Moon", Jonathon Carroll Addendum I am so full of myself sometimes. Seriously, hubris, man, hubris.
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