I’ve only been idle two days, and already I am bored, tense, frustrated, and out of sorts.

But tyou know what? That’s good. I cherish those feelings. They are a sign that I am still alive inside, and struggling to express what is inside me, instead of going numb.

I don’t want to go numb. I was number for a very long time. Barely alive, very little motile force, a pronounced lack of vitality. It was how I reacted to the position I found myself in. The path of least resistance out of the trap I found myself in of being unable to face the world at all.

So I went numb inside, and the thing is, numbness works to stop some kinds of pain. The pain of negative external stimuli. The pain of all the things in the world that remind you of how unhappy you are. The pain of the knowledge that time is passing you by and there seems to be no way to stop it.

But that numbness brings its own form of pain. The pain of deprival. The pain of dying inside. The pain of the isolation you feel due to your inability to connect to others. The pain that comes from the deep down suppression of all your desires except for the ones you can sate within your very, very tiny comfort zone.

The pain that comes from that last spark of vitality that keeps you alive screaming into the darkness of your soul and pouring its energy into trying to jump start your healing.

The pain of an unexpressed id.

The only hope of true escape lies in beating back the numbness, and that means accepting pain. You froze your emotions because they were painful, and that means thawing them out will hurt. Plus, there is the simple pain of waking up dead areas of your soul, the spiritual equivalent of the pins and needles feeling you get when waking up a hand or foot that has gone to sleep.

The difference is that depression convinces you that the pain of waking it up is not worth it, so you just get used to it being painfully numb.

Well fuck that. I am goddamned sick and tired of numbness. I will kick and punch and bite and scream in order to stay awake and alive, and if that means I get very frustrated and feel like a tiger in too small a cage, well then I will just have to find something to do in order in order to calm back down.

That means holding onto the anger and pain and fear and whatever else comes crawling out of the melting morass of my malfunctioning mind and suppressing the urge to suppress it, to freeze it again and put it back in cold storage. That’s the wrong way out. That’s the negative solution. That’s the course of action that leads to a massive net loss in happiness.

I am making the conscious decision to choose pain over inner death. Not forever pain, mind you. Just the pain that can only be alleviated by action.

That means choosing a path other than the one of least resistance. I am not a mindless agent without will who can only stand helplessly by as inner gravity drags me down. I am not water. I don’t have to seek the lowest level all the time. I can invest energy in keeping my inner fire lit. I can step on roads without knowing where they lead and figure out the way to what I want from where I am.

I’m not dead. I still function. I have a great deal of power within me if I have the will to use it. So far in my life, I have ignored or suppressed that power because I didn’t want to take responsibility for it. It seemed like such a huge burden that I felt like it would destroy me (somehow) if I was to embrace it.

Kind of like the classic science fiction/cartoon plotline where the villain acquires the massive power they seek, only to find they can’t handle it and it is tearing their mind apart so they have to give it up or go completely insane.

And what good would all that power do then?

I have always been drawn to that kind of story, and now I know why. I identify with it. Many times in my life have I felt like I was too smart for my own good. That I had more mental power than I knew how to handle, and felt the claws of madness digging into my mind when I tried to get a handle on all that mentation.

But now I know that those feelings are mere phantoms at the gate. They have served their function, which was to keep me mentally balanced, but now I am changing things and that means seeking a superior equilibrium, and that means those phantoms are going to have to step aside.

Business as usual is simply not longer acceptable.

I knew I had reached a new plateau when I played a very good entry in my all time favorite video game genre (collectible card game type games) all afternoon, and yet still found myself restless and discontent. That genre of game is extremely mentally engrossing (at least, if it’s any good) and can soak up my excess mental energy and surplus mental bandwidth like no other.

That’s why I love it so much!

But no, it’s no longer enough. The only thing that has quieted the beast is writing this blog entry. Clearly, I am divurging from my usual diversions, and will have to find something more satisfying than even my very favorite kind of video game to occupy myself.

I might actually have to become productive. Imagine that.

Friday morning, I have my last exam and that will be my official farewell to Kwantlen.

Dunno what will become of me without even that on my mind.

But I will come up with something!

And I will talk to all you nice people again tomorrow.