Erf. Just woke up from the Bad Sleep, ergo my mind is not fully online.
In fact, it’s barely powered on.
So right now, when I look for inspiration as to what to blog about, all I get is a blank space where my thoughts should be.
Oh well. I am sure I will get something soon. Until then, I will describe the phenomenon, like a true post-modernist.
Still don’t know what comes after post-modernism. For now, the placeholder answer is “the new earnestness”, but that’s not even remotely satisfactory.
Post-modernism is all about context. It marked the end of art unto itself, as isolated objet d’arts, and ushered in the era of examining art in the context of history, other media, fashion, politics, and all the rest.
And surely we must be past that now. but even a bold and original thinker like me is a product of his era so I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what comes after that.
I should find some bright young person to explain it to me, because I am dying to know.
Right now, I feel pretty crappy. I am experiencing the usual combination of dizziness, disorientation, lassitude, and confusion.
It sucks. Hard.
But I know that if I beaver away at this blogging thing, drink my Diet Coke, and eat my lunch, I will eventually cudgel my cerebellum into a waking state.
Last night’s shawarma feast was quite good. Portions were huge and everything was quite fresh. That’s what I look for in that kind of cuisine.
And the great thing is, it’s all quite healthy. Well, except for the french fries. I ordered those along with the shawarma wrap because I had no idea what the wrap came with and how big it would be so I thought I might need them.
Nope. The wrap was the size of my forearm and came with a generous portion of tabbuleh, so the fries were not needed.
But I got to have hummus and fries for the first time since I was in university in the early Nineties. So that was nice.
Just thought of a topic.
The Challenge of Energy
Here’s the thing.
One of the problems with depression and anxiety is that they convince you that you have no energy to spare and must save your spoons for the bare minimum existence
But like I have said in this space before, this is an illusion. A depressive person still has the energy to do a lot, it’s just that depression blocks access to it.
This can be readily found in any depressive’s daily routine. Sure, they may not feel they have the energy to do anything “productive” but they will somehow find the energy to do a lot of the things they feel are “safe”.
But what happens when someone’s energies are blocked off inside them?
It hurts,. That’s what happens. It is not healthy for our energies to be locked inside us and it causes great strain inside the individual’s psyche. Like water backing up behind a dam, the pressure increases constantly.
And this causes pain. In a healthy person, this pain would lead to action. The person wouild become restless and seek an outlet for their energies.
But in a depressive, that is not an option. And the fundamental pattern of depression is to react to pain by withdrawing, so the depressive, instead of finding this blocked energy feeling by seeking release, doubles down on the repression of said energies.
This is the cycle that pushes the person deeper and deeper into depression and/or anxiety. The more anxious kind of depressive will involuntarily burn off that excess energy by freaking out about stuff,.
The more dysthymic deprsssives, like myself, simply withdraw. Such is our anti-action bias that not even the deep pain of blocked energies will move us.
In fact, that solution is almost unthinkable to the dysthymic depressive. Action is the enemy, not the solution, to us. Action is painful because it goes against the enormous friction inside us caused by the depression. And so we do as little as possible, living like energy misers instead of healthy adults.
All while, in truth, action and exercise would probably be the best thing for us. It would release those impacted energies and allow us to calm down for once instead of spending all our time in this locked-in state, seemingly calm but actually in constant pain from our suppressed energies.
The key, then, would be to eliminate the friction. But I don’t know how to do that. I can work on my internal biases cognitively by telling myself that action will make me feel better – in fact, it almost always does. Every time I go out on my own to do something, I come back home feeling a million times better than usual.
So much better that a part of me doesn’t want to come home at all. Which is a pretty heretical thought for an agorapohobic person. But I think that once I manage to free myself from this dusty dirty little box of mine, I don’t want to go back in.
Makes me wonder how much of my depression is a lack of fresh air and exercise.
Sounds like something an old-fashioned doctor would recommend. “The problem, old chap, is that you are stuck in that stuffy little office of yours all day! I hereby prescribe you three hours of pleasant walking in the countryside accompanied by at least three healthy hunting dogs and a hip flask fully of brandy., ”
It was a simpler and more innocent time.
But of course, knowing that exercise and fresh air make me feel a lot better is not enough. There is still a massive blockage in the system and because of that, even the contemplation of simply going for a walk leaves me feeling weak and small and fearful.
It’s another one of those things that brings me face to face with my insanity because they show that I can know what the solution is and yet be unable to conquer the fear that says otherwise.
It means I am helpless in my own mind.
And that’s the kind of thing that can drive you crazy,
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.