I've been doing some thinking lately. Real thinking, the difficult thinking that I've been running from for as long as I remember.
Running is an inexact metaphor when the enemy is your own thoughts. Hiding is worse, because the call came from inside the house. But I can't decide on one word to describe seeking out any and every activity that helps prevent oneself from being free to think clearly, so avoidance is the imagery we have to work with.
There's something self-rewarding about being angry. It reinforces the concept that you're the injured party, that you're owed something, that circumstances are unjust. And hey, often you really are injured, owed, and suffering injustice. But anger is only useful as a catalyst to change your behaviour or your situation. Staying angry interminably is a pointless, futile gesture that allows you to stew in self-pity, and no amount of well-intentioned pity from other people is going to make you less angry. It just cools the skin around the infection, but no one ever cleaned a festering wound with ice alone. You've got to get in there and clean and sterilize. Sometimes you have to cut it open again so it can heal. Anger is infection.
I've been doing some thinking lately. Thinking about what hurts. Purging the anger, putting in the time and effort to recover, even though it hurts more than just leaving it alone. So I pick at that scabrous boil, drain it and disinfect it. So I hurt, and I'm sad and sore and raw again, but I'm not angry any more. I'm healing.
23 March 2015
13 January 2014
feelsgoodman.bmp
I wrote about 4 pages of prose just now. It feels really good. I haven't written like that in literally years. I wish I knew what the trick was.
23 December 2013
Further Moosings
Her worst fault was loving me. Caring about me ran counter to everything else she wanted to do, and ultimately only made it hard to ride home to unfamiliar couches.
An atheist in religious studies is like a Mossad agent in a mosque: he's not there for what everyone else is, and he's probably intending to hurt someone. He's also like a a donkey in a spinaret. I'm like a shark, I've just got to keep making analogies.
An atheist in religious studies is like a Mossad agent in a mosque: he's not there for what everyone else is, and he's probably intending to hurt someone. He's also like a a donkey in a spinaret. I'm like a shark, I've just got to keep making analogies.
22 October 2013
01 October 2013
Is it the weather?
The brain fog is back again, as bad as ever. Maybe I'm just fatigued from that virus kicking around my ear canals.
10 September 2012
Post England
It's only a couple days now since I made it back home from my trip to the UK. After the first day, I got over the stress of the trip and started enjoying myself. I hope I wasn't too much of a drag on my companions.
As hoped, I only felt real despair a couple brief times while on my trip. Now I'm back, and it's full force again. I don't know what I want to be doing, but it isn't this.
My trip started in Manchester, first full day was spent at the Imperial War Museum (North), neat exhibits of 20th century conflict with a focus on the WWs. We eschewed the Man. U. game happening concurrently as we'd stick out like sore thumbs, and it might be a worrisome atmosphere considering that bars across the whole city only serve drinks in plastic cups on game days.
Next stop was the Hat Works museum in "where are you going? But where after that?"Stockport. Inside a former milliner's factory, the museum included a lovely tour by the plant's former engineer who taught us about the whole felting and hat-making process. The building's chimney had only been struck by 6 lightning bolts the night before, no big deal. Depending where you worked in the factory, your job involved mind-numbing boredom with any number of potentially fatal machines and boiling water. Just one more job I couldn't do... pile it with all the others.
That evening kicked off the first of several in York, a lovely town for those with a hankering for history. From Roman emperors to Viking traders to medieval plots for the throne, York has a little of everything ancient Britain. Especially rain. Yikes. My feet stayed wet for about 60 hours in a row. But I did climb the tower of York Minster Cathedral for an unrivaled experience of rain and cold wind from several hundred feet above the ground. I also learned that Vikings pooped. Like, a lot. Man, you might think you know a thing or two about pooping, but you're no Viking, I can tell you that. The life of a Viking was equal parts poop and degenerative joint disorder. One strange sideline in old York was holding an owl on my arm.
The end of our time in York brought us to the main event, the 158 Squadron Association Reunion. Very few men are left that did the same operations as my grandfather, but it was still a remarkable time with remarkable people that all share a reverence for the sacrifices that were made for our freedoms. Easy to forget about your freedoms in England though, with your every move on CCTV camera.
Liverpool is a city markedly in transition. Renovated hip pubs and a vibrant art scene contrast with rat-infested ,abandoned brick buildings. But the Beatles were from there, and I saw all their old houses and took the tour and bought the T-shirt.
And then back again. Little enough justice done here for the trip of a lifetime, but so it goes.
As hoped, I only felt real despair a couple brief times while on my trip. Now I'm back, and it's full force again. I don't know what I want to be doing, but it isn't this.
My trip started in Manchester, first full day was spent at the Imperial War Museum (North), neat exhibits of 20th century conflict with a focus on the WWs. We eschewed the Man. U. game happening concurrently as we'd stick out like sore thumbs, and it might be a worrisome atmosphere considering that bars across the whole city only serve drinks in plastic cups on game days.
Next stop was the Hat Works museum in "where are you going? But where after that?"Stockport. Inside a former milliner's factory, the museum included a lovely tour by the plant's former engineer who taught us about the whole felting and hat-making process. The building's chimney had only been struck by 6 lightning bolts the night before, no big deal. Depending where you worked in the factory, your job involved mind-numbing boredom with any number of potentially fatal machines and boiling water. Just one more job I couldn't do... pile it with all the others.
That evening kicked off the first of several in York, a lovely town for those with a hankering for history. From Roman emperors to Viking traders to medieval plots for the throne, York has a little of everything ancient Britain. Especially rain. Yikes. My feet stayed wet for about 60 hours in a row. But I did climb the tower of York Minster Cathedral for an unrivaled experience of rain and cold wind from several hundred feet above the ground. I also learned that Vikings pooped. Like, a lot. Man, you might think you know a thing or two about pooping, but you're no Viking, I can tell you that. The life of a Viking was equal parts poop and degenerative joint disorder. One strange sideline in old York was holding an owl on my arm.
The end of our time in York brought us to the main event, the 158 Squadron Association Reunion. Very few men are left that did the same operations as my grandfather, but it was still a remarkable time with remarkable people that all share a reverence for the sacrifices that were made for our freedoms. Easy to forget about your freedoms in England though, with your every move on CCTV camera.
Liverpool is a city markedly in transition. Renovated hip pubs and a vibrant art scene contrast with rat-infested ,abandoned brick buildings. But the Beatles were from there, and I saw all their old houses and took the tour and bought the T-shirt.
And then back again. Little enough justice done here for the trip of a lifetime, but so it goes.
21 August 2012
News post
By this point, my page stats tell me that no one really gives a shit what I write here, so I'm going to go ahead and just treat this like a diary.
Going on a trip, tomorrow. I've never been gone longer or farther. The inherent unknowns are, of course, terrifying. There would be less unknowns if I had paid attention to the planning phases, but I've been spending so much time trying to numb myself to my existence that the time just wasn't there. At the same time, the caring is not so much there either. Parts of me care, perhaps even a majority, but the insurgency of my intense depression has hampered efforts at all but the smallest personal gains.
You can read everything they've put in the textbooks about depression and still be no clearer on what it actually feels like, what it means to a person. It means sometimes not having the energy to climb the stairs, let alone get something done in your life. It means not expecting anything good to happen to you in the end, based on previous experience. It means watching friend after fiancée after friend abandon you for no reason you can understand. It means a daily struggle with the temptation to off yourself, to stop hurting in the only way you can imagine possible.
Maybe while I'm away I can get in a few consecutive hours without miming a gun to my head or a rope around my neck. That would be a relief.
Going on a trip, tomorrow. I've never been gone longer or farther. The inherent unknowns are, of course, terrifying. There would be less unknowns if I had paid attention to the planning phases, but I've been spending so much time trying to numb myself to my existence that the time just wasn't there. At the same time, the caring is not so much there either. Parts of me care, perhaps even a majority, but the insurgency of my intense depression has hampered efforts at all but the smallest personal gains.
You can read everything they've put in the textbooks about depression and still be no clearer on what it actually feels like, what it means to a person. It means sometimes not having the energy to climb the stairs, let alone get something done in your life. It means not expecting anything good to happen to you in the end, based on previous experience. It means watching friend after fiancée after friend abandon you for no reason you can understand. It means a daily struggle with the temptation to off yourself, to stop hurting in the only way you can imagine possible.
Maybe while I'm away I can get in a few consecutive hours without miming a gun to my head or a rope around my neck. That would be a relief.
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