Don’t worry, it’s not emthat/em kind of giving up. I still want to live.

But it has occurred to me that I would be far better off if I just gave up trying to control things, trying to predict things, trying to plan things, and all of that.

I would be, in short, better off if I didn’t think much past tomorrow and lived my life entirely for pleasure and fun. A kind of enlightened yet shallow hedonism.

It sounds a tad extreme, I know, but I am the sort of person for whom the occasional drastic measure works a lot better than a lot of fiddly little halfassed incremental measures.

And I am just so tired of trying to fight the tide. I want to learn to surf it. (Remember, if it swells, ride it. ) Or at least learn to float.

We are not, after all, in control of our lives. Not fully. Our individualist culture teaches us that we are captains of our own fate, that we can do anything if we just try hard enough, and that therefore everything that happens in our life is our fault. As if we are all the authors of the book of our lives.

But it is just not that simple. Life is a lot more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You make your own choices, sure, but you don’t get to write the book. You just get opportunities to choose from a limited list of options.

So for the most part, we need to ease up on ourselves. I know I do. I think an application of a very precisely defined apathy might just be the only way out of this forest of aversion and self-loathing (intimately connected) that I find myself in.

No negotiation, no puzzling, no intense self-analysis and judgment. Just a great big FUCK IT to the world. There is nothing I am supposed to be doing. There is nothing I should be doing. There is nothing that I owe the world or other people besides a modicum of good behaviour.

I am free to just do whatever makes me happy, and let the chips fall where they may.

That is a pretty radical statement coming from me, but I like it. It gives me something to use against all the worries and doubts and aversions and perversions of my storm toss’d soul. No argument, just : FUCK IT.

Like dealing with a difficult child. No argument, no negotiation, this is HOW IT SHALL BE. There is really something to said for picking the right moment to stop being reasonable.

Historically, I have been the opposite of that. I had such a weak and evanescent sense of self that anything could overwhelm it and leave me hating myself for any number of reasons, mostly specious.

And the thing is, that is easier. Sure, being constantly torn apart by the dogs of self-loathing is horrible, but it’s familiar, and it requires absolutely no potentially risky investment of effort.

So much energy inside me, and yet so little determination. Because determination requires faith in oneself. and I have no faith in myself because I know I always cave under the slightest resistance.

Heck of a catch, that Catch-22.

Well it is time I hit ctrl-C on this damned loop, or at least ctrl-break. I deserve better than this. I need to say that as often and as firmly as I can.

I deserve a real life, with relationships, a vocation, paid work (not necessarily the same thing), recognition of my peers, status in the community of my choice, and basic human dignity.

I have nothing to be ashamed of. I have been very ill, and I am not out of the woods yet. I am an intelligent, sensitive, creative, talented dude and if the world was fair I would be a success by now.

But the world is not fair, and I got stuck with a serious disease for twenty fucking years of my life. A disease that actively prevents its own treatment. A disease that I did not even know I had for at least half of that time. (I had heard of depression, but associated it with people who slit their wrists or jump off bridges. I did not know that most depressives do not do that, and there was such a thing as quiet depression. )

I really want to pick myself up, brush myself off, and start all over again. And that is good. What I need to avoid is letting that desire rage out of control and force me into a position where I hate myself for not getting there fast enough.

That is just pure insanity. The process will unfold all the faster if I can just keep from trying to interfere with it. I will gain more vitality and life energy from a life of casual relaxed hedonism than one of pressure, judgment, and self-loathing.

It’s not like I am doing super well under the previous regime. At some point, you have to stop banging your had against the wall and start looking for a fucking door.

Now whether I can pull this transformation off is uncertain, but hey…. that’s okay too. The drive for sure things and the connected radical aversion to risk is an affliction, and worse than anything that could happen if you just loosen up and gamble from time to time.

You can’t always know where the road will lead before you set foot on it… but you will never know if you don’t explore.

I bet I was one of those babies that didn’t explore his environment unless he was unhappy. That is my basic temperament. If I am happy where I am, I stay there. I have no inherent urge to explore, not in the physical sense anyhow.

In the mental sense, I am a restless adventurer constantly exploring and testing new paths. That’s kind of what we brainy introverts do when we are in our inner world.

We explore it.