In a move of breathtaking metamedia integration, this blog entry has a soundtrack. It’s this song by The Cure, one of their radio-friendly hits that they do so that the record company is happy and the rest of the album can be depressing arty inaccessible stuff.

So please press play on this video before reading the article. Thanks.

I’m writing this blog entry because I realized something about myself recently and I wanted to make use of this space to explore it a little because I think it might be important.

All my life, for as long as I can remember, I have felt… insufficient.

No matter the task, no matter the field, no matter the axis upon which I am measured, I have always felt like I just plain wasn’t enough. There was just not enough of me to make the grade, not enough to count, not enough to make the grade.

Ironically for someone as obese as I, I have always felt thin and insubstantial and like the cold hard wind could blow right through me. Like I was not a real person, but just a threadbare and unconvincing illusion of one, a simulation, a cipher, a puff of nothing.

On the outside, I might seem like a big, fat, solid (if jiggly) fellow, but on the inside I feel small and thin and insubstantial, like a puff of smoke that briefly and accidentally drifted in the shape of a person.

I think a lot of it comes from my extremely lopsided development. Intellectually, I grew in leaps and bounds ahead of my peers, and that continues in many ways to this day. But socially, I grew very little at all. I have had very few of the life experience that cause people to grow as people. Result : a gargantuan mind and a tiny soul.

And only the soul can lend substance to the being of a person. Only true growth as a person can make for a stronger, more substantial person of character and perseverance who can overcome life’s obstacles and succeed in life.

Without a soul to lend it weight, all the mind can do is generate illusions of light and shadow and imagination, very pretty and good for a lonely person who doesn’t relate very well to others and thus needs to generate their own private entertainment all the time.

But not much that actually helps with relating with others, or even getting anything done.

In many ways, I feel like some sort of sad, lost wizard. This mind of mine can perform miracles and wonders in the right conditions. But otherwise, I am not much use.

I often call myself a hothouse flower. In the right conditions, a hothouse flower can become a magnificent and delicate orchid of exquisite beauty and vibrant color.

But out in the cold of the real world outside the hothouse, it’s just a sad plant that soon dies of exposure.

Even the assets I know I have…. intelligence, creativity, wit, a certain breed of charm… someone just don’t seem like they add up to a sufficient sum. I constantly feel like I have to apologize for being alive, like no matter where I go or what I do, I am basically just imposing on people and should be ashamed of taking time and love and energy away from people who lead productive and useful lives.

Now I know this is the depression talking. I know that I am not as bad as I often think I am. I know that not being a very practical or strong person is not the worst thing in the world and that other people like me have managed to somehow make it through life.

But what makes depression a mental illness and not simply a bad mood is that you can know that how you feel is wrong, and it doesn’t change how you feel at all.

And in the end, what you feel will change what you think far more readily than vice versa.

In fact, in my darkest moments, the fact that I have some considerable abilities that others might well wish they had seems like just a cruel joke, a brutal irony to make all the other ways in which I suffer seem unjustified.

How dare I be miserable? I have so much going for me, so much potential.

Add that to the list of reasons to hate myself, I guess.

But I am getting better. Through persistent effort, I can often make myself believe that I am maybe not the toughest fellow around, but I am great in many other ways.

Still not sure if it all adds up to a big enough score, though.