Feeling fairly up today. The dark shadow of depression lurks eternally, of course, but right now it seems content to lurk grumpily in a corner with its best friend, anxiety.

Honestly, it’s like they are the same person.

Should I have capitalized them because I characterized them? Nah.

Yesterday, as you know, I went to Costco with Joe. And while I really should have eaten lunch before leaving the house, and the resulting blood sugar crash fucked me up good for at least twelve hours, some good did come of it.

First of all, I saved a lot of money by buying a 1100 mg bag of Hostess Munchie Mix.

This bad boy right here.

I had never seen such a huge sized bag of something I like. It’s hard to describe the feeling a fat person gets when they see a larger size of something they like than they have ever seen before, but it’s practically spiritual.

My eyes must have been as big as a kid’s on Xmas morning when they see that bike shaped present when I saw it. I was truly in awe. It was SO BIG.

And then I read the price and it was on sale for only $4.50 or so, and I was like “SOLD!” because that is exactly how much I would pay for a beg 1/5 the size at 7-11.

I might not have gone for it if it had been a single thing instead of a mix. No matter how much I like something, I would probably be sick of it before I finished a back that mondo huge. And that might well happen here, too.

I mean, to this day I can’t hack Jolly Ranchers, and that’s because I made a similar mistake at a Costco in the USA when I lived in Silly Con Valley.

And I used to love them! I’ve always liked hard candy (always nice to have something to suck on) and when JR’s came out, they were the hard candy that tasted a lot more like actual fruit than the usual crap.

I was an instant fan.

But then we got a big bag of them from Costco, with Dhugal telling me that it was a dumb idea because I would be sick of them long before we finished the bag, and he was, of course, totally right.

I barely even made a dent in the thing.

So I could be setting myself up with something similar with the Munchie Mix, but I don’t really care. There are lots of things to eat in this big ol crazy world, and if I ruin one for myself, I can always go on to something else.

And honestly, it would be worth it for the epiphanous moment I had when seeing it anyhow. It was amazing.

I also got a 36-can case of Diet Coke in order to help myself cut down on the stuff.

That might seem counterintuitive, to put it mildly, but hear me out.

See, I have had a 2L bottle a day Diet Coke habit for a while now. This would be consumed in roughly 1L portions as a beverage to go with a meal.  I would drink it from my big 1.8L 7-11 cup.

The other 800 ml would be ice.

But lately I have been wondering whether these large caffiene infusions are causing my high background anxiety levels and this feeling of being hunted and haunted and generally not at all happy and calm that I have been having for a while.

That’s what tends to happen when you give a stimulant to a depressive. In theory, it would give us the energy and stimulation to get up and go get the exercise we need to break us out of our funk and make us happy again.

And if you believe that, I have some real estate on Mars I want to sell you.

To be a depressive is to have one’s motivational system clogged with bad brain chemicals. This imbues us with incredible inertia and cannot be overcome by adding energy to the mixture because all that does is get blocked by the clogs and ending up getting backed up into our default repository for excess energies, anxiety.

It’s less black and white than that, of course, but you get the basic idea.

So the only time it really makes sense to add a stimulant to my system is when I am about to do something that can make use of that excess energy… like blogging.

So having some Diet Coke while I blog makes sense.

Other times, not so much. As much fun as I have in Skyrim, playimng it does not exactly put a lot of strain on my brain or my body and so adding energy is kind of dumb.

Which brings us back to my Diet Coke habit. By getting the cans and limiting myself to one 355 ml can per meal, I can cut my 2L a day habit down to 1065 ml a day habit, and that’s if I have a can with every meal, which I probably will not.

And the thing is, I know I will not feel the loss, because for me at least, there seems to be something magical about a can of pop that makes it seem like a big drink, more than enough to accompany a meal.

I think the magic must be that drinking from a can restricts your rate of intake compared to drinking from a glass, and that makes it seem like more.

Whatever the mechanism, I love it, and so I should be able to cut back on the stuff and maybe be a less anxious person.

Then I can go back to being depressed! Which is just as bad, but a lot less work.

Seriously, though, if this works, I might try to wean myself off of the caffiene entirely and move into drinking something healthy like fruit juice with my meals.

That way, I still get my flavour fix, and healthy nutrients and hydration as well.

Well, after writing that exciting update, I need a nap.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Good news, everyone! Tonight I am blogging while in the middle of a low blood sugar incident! A truly triumphant first.

Don’t worry, I have eaten, everything will be fine. Right now, I am stuck impatiently waiting for my metabolism to do its thing and put this right.

Otherwise, I would not be blogging. I mean, my actions are not always the wisest but I at least know how to prioritize.

Most of the time, anyhow.

Right now, I mostlty feel cold. I have cold spots all over my body, especially in the hands and feet. I also have a certain telltale shivery feeling inside and I am trembling slightly. Emotionally, I feel cold and vunerable, and the voice in my head berating me for being so goddamned stupid is really getting on my nerves.

I really neeed to shut that guy up. He’s not helping.

Had a really good therapy session today. Very productive. My therapist absolutely nailed it when he said that the reason I have found it impossible to promote my own work is that I would first have to value it.

I would have to be prepared to say “This is awesome stuff and you should read it! (or watch it, or listen to it, or whatever)” instead of waiting for external validation before actually showing it to people.

I trust that the issue with that is obvious. You don’t get the reward before you earn it!

Come on, carbs, make me feel better already! I just gave my body every level of carb from whole wheat bread to chocolate pudding. I should be feeling better by now.

Instead, I feel cold and sluggish and scared. Did I finally fuck up so bad it does me permanent harm? And what if the answer is no? What will I have learned?

Not to skip lunch then go to Costco, I suppose.

Joe was off work today due to leftover vacation time, so I was able to go with him to Costco and pick out some things for myself.

And you know what? I’m a funny guy. I was riffing off all kinds of products. I really should gwith a descreet digital camera and capture that shit on video.

But I can’t think about that right now because the very thought of the work involved is making me feel sick to my stomach.

Had to beg off the Paragon meeting tonight. Which sucks. I hate the feeling that thuings are going on without me. It feels too much like being left behind.

Oh, and I keep fading in and out of concentration. I just stared in the general direction of the bathroom for three minuites because my mind was following a tangent (never could resist a tan gent) and I kind of forgot I was doing something.

And what hurts the most when that kind of thing happens with me is that moment when my mind has forced a hard reboot in order to get me back to reality and I suddenly realize what has been going on.

That shit’s scary, man. Like fading out while driving a car, then suddenly snapping back into focus and realizing you could have died a million ways.

Fading out of awareness then suddenly snapping back into consciousness has happened a lot in my life. I have always had the kind of mind that wanders if left unattended, and that inward tide never stops trying to pull me deeper and deeper into my own thoughts.

And I am so scared of passing the event horizon of that black hole. That’s why I am always running to stand still. It takes so much energy just to figght that crushing gravity field that it leaves percious little for other things like living.

I guess you would call my black hole “depression”. It’s also the force that powers my endless grinding and compression and purification of what I know to produce a clear view of the truth,

I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not, though.

I think I would bebetter off deluded.

Oh well. Some of us are born to be visionaries and the power and curse of the visionary is to see everything very clearly, as it really is, without any filters or cushions to protect the visionary’s poor cold heart.

We’re the ones who take the philosopher’s route – better miserable than believing in lies. And there is a certain hermit nobility and honor to that. The one who chooses the harsher path, and so on.

But at the end of the day, no matter how far I can see or how big the picture I see becomes, I am still only human, and I want to be happy.

Or at least comfortable.

But delusion (sometimes called faith) is by its very nature impossible to embrace consciously. You cannot say “I choose to believe this lie” because you already know it’s a lie and the mind iwll not accept that level of falsification.

Then again, there’s various levels of “real”. Take religion. Billions worldwide believe in an afterlife, but few want to go there right now.

Some beliefs are true enough. Enough to get the job done and solve the problem. Resolve that inner conflict. Answer that pressing question about life.

So hard to focus. Just 114 more words.

And as hard as it is for us brainy liberal types to imagine, that is good enough for most people. For them, the ultimate Truth is not their highest priority. Their highest priority is to get through life by living it, not stop to ponder where it’s all going and what it all means. and what is truly truly true.

Well I guess thjat’s it from me for now. It’s been a day of ups and downs, shally we say, and right now, I am going down… for a nap.

That should give my body time to process what I have eaten and correct the imbalance and put things right.

And when I wake up, I will feel… awful.

But in a normal way.

Fucking sleep apnea.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.