Still feeling pretty depressed.
Managed to make it to FRED last night, and enjoyed myself as usual. Btu when the fun was over I felt used up and tired and depressed, so I ended up not making it to Felicity’s parents place to watch videos.
I was too depressed to do it. Not doing it made me even more depressed.
Funny how that works out.
I think it’s at least partly seasonal. The days are getting mighty short and I think that does bad things to my head. Makes being morose ever so much easier.
Explains a lot about Scandinavia. Especially Finland.
Between emotion and reality
Been thinking a lot about emotions versus reality lately. Specifically, people not being able to tell the difference between the two.
I’ve talked about this many times before.
Basically, people think things are how they feel. And this is not always a bad thing. Our emotions are a very important part of how we sense and deal with the world.
Our cave dwelling ancestors didn’t need to think about whether they should run away from the cave bear. They just had to do what the emotion of fear told them.
Well, okay, maybe my ancestors had to think about it. Or me in a previous life.
The problem comes when people lack the ability to tell the difference between how they feel about something and the reality of it.
My usual example is racism. Racists can’t tell the difference between how looking at a black person makes them feel – angry and afraid – and what is actually true of said black people. They accept emotion as perception, exactly like their other perceptions like sight, touch, and smell.
To think otherwise would require a degree of mental flexibility and the ability to judge and doubt one’s own perceptions known as “metaconsciousness”.
And to me, the jury is out on whether or not everyone can do that. It might well be that people of average intelligence cannot perform those kinds of mental gymnastics except, when pressed, in defense of their existing attitudes.
This makes it doubly important that my fellow liberals and I stop worrying about sounding smart or being one hundred percent accurate and concentrate instead omn doing what the conservative media already does : speak to people in down to earth emotional language anyone can understand.
I don’t claim to be immune to this mistaking of emotion for reality. None of us are immune. The whole deal with my depression can be defined as how I feel about things (terrible) overriding my perceptions of the reality of things (not nearly so bad).
Right now, I am juuuust starting to feel the icy cold fingers of dread about the fact that I am going to be doing more standup comedy Wednesday night.
To be clear, I am dreading doing something I thoroughly enjoyed last time and have every expectation of enjoying again.
And I know how fucked up that is.
And if I try very, very hard, I can stop it.
But it will be back.
And that’s the most fucked up thing of all.
More after the break.
Wow. Just…. wow.
That really spoke to me.
I guess my other two game reviews will have to wait.
What really got to me was the image of all the crazy mean hurtful things going straight to the inner child version of her.
I never thought of it that way but it makes perfect sense and the more I think about it, the more I feel something good and shiny and strong struggling to wake up deep, deep inside of me.
I would do anything to protect that sad little boy inside me. He’s been through so much and is so scared and alienated and isolated and alone. The thought of doing, or even failing to prevent, anything that would harm him makes my heart freeze.
And yet, there he is, at the bottom of the deep dark well he has dwelt in since he was raped by a stranger when he was only four years old.
Back then, the well was just a place to hide from the horror of what was happening. A safe place in the mind, a secret garden, where nothing could hurt me or touch me.
But I was too weak to get out again. Still am.
And all my negative thoughts – the ones I only know how to block out by playing video games all the goddamned time – go sliding down into the darkness into that well and hurt that sad little boy so much.
And I just want to take him and hold him and press him close to my heart and give him all the love and joy and warmth and acceptance and life he has never gotten down there in the darkness, so far away from everything.
I want to hold him and love him till the ice melts and the walls between us collapse and the joyful,. cheerful, beautiful, adorable child I once was is reborn into this world and can finally resume growing up into the truly amazing person I know he can be.
The seed contains the flower. All it needs is light and warmth and moisture and some good wholesome nutrients from the soil and it can rise and grow strong and bloom for all the world to see.
I am trying to hard to find the light. Burrowing around, trying to drill a hole through my shell to let the light in so I can live and grow again.
I want to feel alive.
I want to be healthy and strong.
I want to uncork the bottle on my vital energies and feel them flowing through my veins so they can rise like sap in spring and wake up my sleeping frozen self as they delivery vital oxygen and nutrients to all my cold and tired extremities.
I want to face the sun and stretch my limbs and be grateful to be alive on Planet Earth to witness all its beauty and wonder.
I want to live, dammit.
And some day, god dammit, I will.
I will also talk to you nice people again tomorrow.