There doesn’t need to be one, necessarily.

Something in us, however, drives us to need to feel like our efforts are bringing us close to some ultimate purpose or goal.

Myself, I would go way, way more nuts if I didn’t feel like I was somehow progressing, however unsteadily, towards the ultimate goal of a sane and functional me.

Surely being a hikikomori is not always a death sentence. It has to be possible for me to learn to launch at long last and not go crashing to the ground like a baby bird.

Or hell, at this point, even a spectacular failure would be better than this eternal treadmill of compulsive distraction and corrosive ennui.

Anyhow, I said a thing about some stuff.

The question in the video is one that ultimately helped me a great deal, which is why I am sharing it with the world. It made me realize that depression serves a function and that ultimately it is not the final boss of my mental illness but merely its top lackey.

It acts as a shield against the real world which I have been fleeing for my whole life. Between me and the world there is this negative zone of numbness and death and nullity and that’s not a coincidence.

It’s my primary defense against a scary and overstimulating and chaotic world that I have never learned how to handle, mostly due to my constant cowering behind that primary defense of mine.

And it’s a defense that doesn’t discriminate. It blocks out everything equally, leaving me in a constant state of emotional hypothermia and starvation because so very little of the love and life of the world can get through my veil of ice.

And we need that shit. Our souls die without it.

All that midnight tundra inside me that I like to talk about is just a side effect of this escutcheon of numbness of mine. It’s the reason I can’t feel the love I know is there from my family and my friends.

I think it’s also where the anhedonia comes from. You can’t find life to be particularly rewarding when you are too numb to feel pleasure or joy.

So pick your poison, because you will end up addicted to something that sends strong enough reward signals to make it through the ice.

Unrelatedly, I have been so god damned sleepy all day today. I fell asleep for a second (aka a microsleep) a bunch of times during exercise today at the Kinsmen. And a few times during lunch, too. It all makes me feel very, very old.

I am not nearly old enough to be a “constantly dozing off” old fart, am I?

Apparently I am. It’s quite annoying and a total drag. And I just drank a whole can of fully caffeinated diet cola and I am still sleepy as unregistered fuck.

99 words to go before I sleep. After this I am going to take a nice long nap until around 7:30 pm. On Thursday. Of next year.

Anyhow, back to depression. The true fear is direct exposure to the harsh and overwhelming world and the force field of rage and nihilism generated by the

And the way out, therefore, must be to reduce both the numbness and my dependency on it. I will need to learn to handle the world as it really exists, down on the ground with everybody else instead of locked away in my lonely garrett looking down at the world.

More after the break.

---

My final liberation

It will come when I am no longer afraid of it, I guess.

Which would me that I am finally ready to actually face the world and deal with whatever happens instead of cowering in my cave hiding from everything and only experiencing the world through this computer o’ mine.

Ironically, due to my disability, my liberation will also have to be through this god damn computer, which complicates matters.

Because even on this computer, I am not very adventurous at all. I don’t push the boundaries of my cloistered existence much. Every now and then I develop the impulse and initiative to do something like try to get back on UpWork, but even then, if unexpected obstacles pop up, I am likely to just give up and get back on my hamster wheel and not even trying again for weeks.

Which is very weak of me, and that saddens me. My existence is tragic in a very non-dramatic way. I don’t suffer or weep or decry my existence or shake my fist at the sky and cry out, “Why me?”.

I just keep running in that hamster wheel. Seemingly fine, because my problems are not on the low levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I am fed and clothed and housed and entertained and warm and comfortable and safe.

Were I actually a pet, you’d say I was well cared for.

But I’m a person, and a rather extraordinary one at that, and so this caged life of mine is not enough. I need love and connection and purpose and a role in society and a use for all my incredible mental energies and everything else that people get from employment.

So I have to either land a job or invent one, and given what an oddball I am, the latter is far more likely than the former. I feel like making myself into a YouTube or TikTok personality is a real possibility but it won’t be easy for me to get there because I lack the sort of focus and drive that leads to success.

I just kind of do stuff. And like I have to keep telling myself, the stuff I do matters. People see my videos. They have an audience. I am not just shouting down a well any more. People experience the things I make.

I could make this stuff go viral if I just focus on it and give it a big push with my power of personality and maybe even find people who can help me promote myself well.

I don’t technically have to do everything myself.

Well, I do, but for purely psychosocial reasons, and I am working on those.

But I will need to get my poop in a group first, and maybe do some healing to key parts of my psyche so that I don’t fall apart quite so easily.

So, you know. Stuff to do.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.