That’s how I feel right now. Like I have been, as my late father would have said, “rode hard and put away wet”, and it’s making living a real drag right now.

Not that I have any plans to quit.

There were some darker moments last weekend, when I was in the hospital, though. Times when I thought I was on the cusp of “going goober” and ending up living a heavily degraded life where I would feel awful all the time.

Right now, there’s breaks.

Now looking back, these feelings were unfounded, and based on how ad it feels to have breathing issues when your worst nightmare is smothering.

Glad I weathered it as well as I did, to be honest. I’m tougher than I think.

But reasonable or no. there were times where I was seriously wondering if I wanted to go on living or whether I wanted to get off this burning bus while I can.

This would be the mysterious “suicidal ideation” that the DSM-V seems to think we all understand. I say just ideation because no plans or intent were ever formed.

I just felt a lot closer to the rim of the void than usual. I wasn’t planning on jumping over the edge by any stretch of the imagination.

I was just looking over the edge. Like visiting the Grand Canyon.

Still, that’s the darkness I live with 24/7. Depression is so very taxing, That shadow of mine is never all that far away and it makes the days long and hard despite the fact that I have very little to actually do, ever.

Maybe that’s the problem, though. A speaker I saw on the TikTok was talking about the importance of purpose to the psychological health of boys and men and how when this one extraordinary researcher took it upon herself to analyze the words men used in their suicide notes, “useless” and “worthless” were the top 2.

And ouch, do I feel that.

I have felt worst than useless for my entire life. I have felt that I am a massive liability for all who have the misfortunate of knowing and caring about me.

In other words I’ve felt like a person with negative utility.

I can’t remember ever feeling valued or needed. I struggle sometimes to even feel wanted or welcome in places where I know I am.

But remember, the sun never stops shining, even when we can’t see or feel it.

And it always comes back.

Trying so hard to learn to make my own mood. That’s another idea I got off TikTok recently. The idea of taking responsibility for my own mood.

As opposed to who?

Still, the idea of making myself happy is a good one. I have lived under the unconscious assumption that I had no power over my mood and it just changes like the weather for far too long.

After all, healthy people cheer themselves up all the time. Should at least in theory possible for one such as eye.

So from now on, I will examine what makes me happier, and get me more of that.

More after the break.

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What makes me happy

I honestly don’t know.

It seems bizarre even to me, but the very idea of trying to make myself happy seems alien and bizarre to me.

I mean , obviously, my day to day decisions are guided by some hedonic principle. When I decide to play a game or take a nap or order some food, I am clearly expecting to get some kind of pleasure out of the deal.

But it’s all very unconscious and therefore unintentional.

I lead a very unintended life.

Very little I do has a purpose or a goal beyond the standard “help me endure life”, and that’s all KINDS of wrong.

Seems like I gave up on actual happiness a long time ago. So long that I don’t remember it at all. All I can remember is twenty plus years of this same grey life.

A life without desires or passions or needs. Those can’t be allowed because for a powerless and chained being like myself, they can only cause pain because I am utterly incapable of fulfilling. So why torment myself?

Or so the story goes according to my depression. And we all know it’s full of shit.

For one thing, simply assuming that I won’t be able to fulfill any of the desires I have is one hell of a big leap in logic. How could I properly pre-judge all of such a huge category as “potential desires” enough to know with any certainty that they’re all futile?

That’s some stinkin’ thinkin’ right there.

It’s my depression using its access to my deepest self to make the ridiculous seem plausible not as actual philosophy but as a shortcut to what it wants, namely me continuing to eke out mere existence near the bottom of the heap.

It wants me squashed flat under its thumb and not going anywhere because it thinks that is the way to keep me safe.

The comparison to a totalitarian security state rears its ugly head again.

One could certainly make the case that my depression is a hardcore reactionary social conservative. It doesn’t want anything to change ever, for any reason.

Only in stasis can it feel safe.

Which is very sad.

But back to my passion free life. This is what comes of half-murdering your id. Of burying it alive and pretending it’s justified via a perverse and maladaptive “logic”.

Well if it’s all so logical, why am I so miserable? Logical methods do not lead to negative results. Clearly the process has been corrupted.

Now I find myself terrified by the thought of even asking what I really want.

Why? Because I have no idea what the answer might be. But whatever it is, it would almost surely involve leaving stasis and that scares the organic nitrates out of me.

I can’t face all those hallways with all those doors.

Choosing what to do is an unsolvable equation.

Unless I figure out what I desire. That’s how normal people choose.

But I’m so damned scared.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.