In another life, with another version of me, in an alternate timeline, I’m the one being interviewed in this podcast :

Because that was what I was aiming for before my parents bounced me out of school. I was going to be a therapist of some sort.

And I would have made a damned good one.

Probably not a psychiatrist, granted. I was not interested in going to med school just so I could prescribe drugs.

But a psychologist. A psychotherapist. A counselor. Something like that.

Because I really want to help people. And I am very sensitive and caring. And I understand people and where they are coming from to an almost eerie degree.

Like Hannibal Lecter but nice.

And i would have loved to sit and listen to people and make them feel heard and give them the help they needed in order to let the demons out of their head.

Now if only I could do that for myself.

Oh right, that’s what this blog is for.

That’s why the podcast linked above is pure manna for me. Psychology is still my favorite subject and getting to listen to someone who has been right there on the front lines of the war on madness is a real treat for me.

Turns out YouTube is good for more than Reddit videos.

I’m as surprised as you aren’t.

It’s also always nice when I have content I can listen to while playing games. That keeps a substantial majority of my prodigious mind busy and thus gives me that “in the zone” feeling one gets from operating at the peak of their abilities.

I feel better when I am busy. Repeat until believed. Again.

Right now, I don’t feel very good, but that’s hardly a surprise. Part of my daily torment regime is at least one period (and often more ) spent feeling really terrible after having made the fatal mistake of sleeping.

Isn’t that fun?

I’ve found myself dreaming of pain recently. Which is absurd because my life is already full of a real Whitman’s Samper of pain.

Pain from my back. From my fucked up scalp. From terrible sleep. From lack of exercise. From swollen joints. From my aching head. From my sore feet.

And of course. from the long ragged wound that drips black blood you can find in the place where my heart should be.

I suppose the pain I am dreaming of is big pain. Horrible pain. The kind that can’t be ignored. The kind that opens you up and wrings you out.

The pain that purifies, I suppose. Which is also, of course, the worst kind of pain.

And the scariest too.

So I suppose I should be careful what I wish for, because if that kind of thing comes along for me – and it just might – I will definitely wish it hadn’t and curse myself for being the fool who brought it on myself.

But I guess that’s the only kind of transcendental experience I know. I am hardly set up for religious bliss. And I have no experience with tripping balls on drugs, nor do I want it.

I am barely keeping what few marbles I have left. I’m not going to gamble them.

Yet I long for something that is powerful and profound enough to break me open and empty me out. Something far bigger than my sad little world that can upend everything and burn the toxic bullshit from my veins.

And who knows. It could happen.

Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

More after the break.

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The search for a playmate

For my whole life, I have been looking for someone with whom I could engage in my own particular brand of rough play.

Essentially, I long for someone I can play with without having to hold back. Someone whom I can hit as hard as I can and have them hit me back as hard as they can and we both can take it and we both get that it’s all just play and so nobody is upset or offended or feels like it was a serious attack.

But I have never found someone like that because I am a giant, both physically and (especially) intellectually, and so in order to be my playmate someone would have to be at least as big and strong and tough as I am, and nobody even comes close.

Especially in the realm of the mind. Mentally speaking, I’m a roided up ogre who can squash most opponents flat with the slightest flick of the wrist.

So there are no playmates for me, or at least, I have never found one.

Sadly, when I was in my late teens, I went looking for my dream sparring partner the wrong way : I challenged whoever was around.

It took multiple interventions by people to whom I am very grateful for me to learn that my desire to grapple did not obligate anyone to grapple with me and that the fact that they don’t “give up” did not mean they were consenting to keeping the argument going and that, as by far the stronger combatant, it was up to me to see when my playmate didn’t want to play any more, and end things.

Had to do so recently. It’s never easy – my pugilistic side always wants to keep going.

But friendships are more important than any argument, especially minor ones.

So while I hold out hope of meeting my match some day, I’m not holding my breath. In theory, there must be people just as strong of will and mind and as battle-crazed as i am amongst the seven and a half billion people on Planet Earth.

But I don’t know where to find my fellow warped souls. It’s not like there’s an intellectual MMA league out there where I could battle my way up the org chart until I finally found someone who can beat me,

As awesome as that would be.

So I will remain the Lonely Champion, depressingly undefeated, sitting in the corner of the ring and occasionally disconsolately batting at the ropes with a gloved hand.

Nobody will play with me.

Nobody CAN play with me,.

And it makes me a lonely boy indeed.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

So that’s the status quo. i try to feel alive, but I can’t. My soul is full of filthy cold water and big chunks of jagged ice. I have a constant feeling of deep contamination.

My powers of concentration are shot, probably because I haven’t been getting enough deep sleep. And I can’t find my sleeping pills.

I feel the constant presence of the shadow of death.

It’s haunting me. Taunting me, Wanting me. Tempting me. Calling to me.

Telling me how it could all be…. over.

But this morning, my usual YouTube peregrinations led me to this video :

And while the video did not provide the miraculous wellspring of life affirming inspiration i had hoped for, it did make me realize one thing.

I have no reason to live.

All I have is reasons not to die, and that’s hardly the same thing.

I have lapsed back into simply never thinking about the future. It’s a cold gray blur to me right now. And that’s as it should be for now because my future doesn’t look so good and a cold gray blur is better than the soul-crashing despair hiding behind it.

I meant to type “soul-crushing” but you know what? I like it like that.

At a time like this, the very idea of finding an actual reason to live seems absurd. Laughable. Like someone in the ICU talking about taking on Everest.

When I try to imagine it, I hear this instead :

But if i am ever to reach the surface and feel the sun, i will have to unlearn unhealthy negative thought patterns and replace them with healthy positive ones, and at least trying to imagine a reason to live seems like a good start.

So okay, I am trying. But I ain’t getting anywhere.

Because what do I have to look forward to? That’s what a reason to live boils down to. What future event could inspire me to want to see the future?

I’m just going to get sicker and sicker. My life is going to get worse and worse. I am going to lose more and more of my faculties until I am a pathetic wreck in a hospital somewhere, barely able to sit upright, my brains scrambled beyond repair, my life one of terror and confusion and feebleness.

But hey, at least I’ll have all the Jello I can eat.

It’s not like my life is going to get any better. I am not going to suddenly have the energy and courage and wherewithal to go get myself a job. I’m not going to find a brand new hobby that I love so much i look forward to every day. The clouds are not going to suddenly part so that the man of my dreams can be delivered to me on a sunbeam.

My prospects are bleak. What could possibly change how I feel about that?

Hell if i know. I will try again after the break.

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The project continues

OK, this is what I have come up with so far.

One reason to live is to see what great media properties I may find. Every day contains the possibility that I might come across a great website, game, webcomic, video series, TV show, or line of obscene Hummels that will make me happy and thus make he glad I hung around to experience it.

A good game in particular can brighten my days as it gives me something to look forward to every day. I can wake up in the morning and say, “Hey! I get to play that awesome game again today!”.

So there’s that. Even when I am going through a dry spell in terms of media that makes me happy to get out of bed every day, I know that something will come along soon that brightens up my life.

It’s a small thing but it means a lot to me.

And there’s social time with my awesome friends. I always enjoy hanging out with my friends. They are great people and I love their company and their conversation.

And they accept and value me, despite what a hot mess I am, and that’s very important to me. I am not always the easiest person to be around, especially in my current state of degraded and degrading health, and so anyone who puts up with me and my utterly disgusting scalp condition is aces in my books.

Thank god I’m cute.

And then there’s my fuzzy friends, with whom I interact entirely via text (how oldschool!) but who in some ways are closer to me than anyone RL because that fictional fuzzy foxy named Fruvous is on some level more the “real me” than the real world version who is girded round with accidents of fate.

Accidents that do not reflect the inner me at all. Fruvous is the identity I made for myself. I built him from the inside out, and so in that fictional realm only, the outside matches the inside.

What you see is what I am. If you know how to look.

And in most way, Fruvous is my ideal. He’s the person I want to be – fur and tail optional. He’s the reason I know there is a happier, healthier, far more social version of me lurking in the shadows of my dark and twisted soul.

He’s cute, he’s charming, people adore him, and he gets lots of cuddles and petting. And he has access to a lot of hot dudes who may want to fuck him.

This is my desired lifestyle. Please make this happen.

In conclusion, while I might not have a huge neon sign flashing HOPE to guide me through the murky waters of an uncertain future, I at least have the good things in my life which I take for granted too often and which aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

And that’s something.

We’ll tackle the hope thing soon.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.