Quite unusually, today I find myself entirely without foobles I feel like flinging at you, and I am feeling way to lazy and sleepy to think of an article concept, let alone write the darn thing, so guess what?

You folks just get me talking at ya. Lucky you.

So how the hell am I, anyhow? I am doing OK. Still feel like my life is trapped in the doldrums, but that is just the way it goes when you have the sort of health problems that I do. Part of the madness of depression is to know you are sick and still go on feeling like you are a failure and a loser for not doing anything with your life.

You ARE doing something with your life. You are living it.

But the basic drives are still there, that’s the problem. As human beings, depressed people still want to be part of society, to participate and have that participation recognized by one’s peers, to earn money and hence be able to improve your lifestyle and indulge yourself and feel like you have earned these pleasures instead of feeling guilty and humiliated by your constant reliance on handouts and help from others.

The sad truth is, being depressed is depressing. It’s a bad way to be.

But who knows, perhaps I have simply not found the right solution to my personal life equation yet. I am always trying to think of a way that I can connect with the world and earn some money and (far more importantly) some self-respect and dignity, and it’s not an easy process, nor is it linear and contiguous, but maybe some day I will stumble upon a solution that works for me and who I am, instead of coming up with dreams and plans that are simply not going to work for me.

The problem, as always, is momentum. I simply lack the ability to generate my own. Left to my own devices, I just keep doing what I am doing, which, without external structure to rely on, is not very much. Last year’s Million Words was a great thing as it kept me busy and gave me a feeling of purpose, although now it feels like I am not sure why I bothered, but here it is more than half way through this year and I still haven’t found anything to replace it in my life.

This writing 750 words or so a day in a blog named after myself was supposed to just be a temporary thing until I came up with something new. Looking back, though, I can see now that this was not a realistic way to approach the problem. Doing this is far too comfortable and comfort is, and it pains me to say this, the enemy. When I am comfortable, nothing changes. I need to become less comfortable and more driven if I am to get out of this stupid hole I find myself in.

Easier said than done, of course.

What I need, I think, is inspiration. Actually, scratch that, I have tons of inspiration. My mind is always teeming with ideas, notions, insights, and what have you. And that is part of the problem…. you can’t follow one without abandoning the rest, at least for a time.

And it is so hard to choose which one of your darlings lives while the rest die. So instead, they die in the womb. Everything (well, mostly everything) just stays in my head.

And if all your dreams stay in your head, none of them come true, do they?

The thing is, that is how this all started. I am pretty sure that my imagination developed primarily as a way for a lonely child to amuse and entertain himself while bored in class or alone in his room. So as much as I dream of using this extraordinary faculty to make my way in the world, the truth is, just by occupying my mind and keeping me distracted and fascinated, it is serving its primary function.

And actually following my inspirations and notions would involve opening my life up to a lot more chaos and unpredictability, and at this point, I am still clinging very hard to hyper stability.

I am not yet at the point where I feel confident and safe enough to explore, after all these years.

And once more, I am back to the point of my personal crisis : how do you escape when you are not even strong enough to do the things you need to do to get out?