Guile
I've got it! I am fishing for sympathy! I never admitted this to myself before because I didn't want to sound like a pathetic loser. I've done elaborate dances for my entire life to avoid that. I won't feel ashamed of myself, though. I believe that it was a natural adaptation to my environment. I must have made the observation when I was very young that people with sicknesses or injuries received extra attention. They seemed to evoke emotional responses like sympathy from others. At that time, I never believed I was lovable (I never felt loved by my parents or anyone else). My brain had to come up with a way to cope with this specific pain. By doing so, it was only trying to fulfill an innate human need. It was a natural response. For example, when you're hungry, you don't have to "think" that you're hungry. Your brain automatically notices that one of your needs is not being met, whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Therefore, it must create a response that will satisfy this need. Today, it may tell you to buy food at the supermarket. To our ancestors, it might have said, "Go into the wild and hunt some game." Whatever it is, it's only doing so because it has to fulfill a need.
My brain crafted a behavioral response in order to feel loved by someone. Anyone. In turn, this would serve as evidence that I'm lovable. Other people love me, therefore I must be a lovable and valuable person. To my detriment, however, I also believed the inverse of this statement: if no one loves me, I must not be a lovable or valuable person. I.e., I'm worthless. To avoid that outcome, I had to seek as much love and attention as possible from other people. It's like intentionally walking around with a cast and crutches when you're not injured to get others to notice you and extort some kind of emotional response from them. In other words, I surreptitiously engaged in a conniving, underhanded, duplicitous, malicious, and manipulative ploy. This is one of the reasons why I adopted the "woe is me" attitude. Consequently, I'm always pessimistic about myself. I never look at the bright side of things. I always focus on my dark side and my dark past, present, and future. This is why I always sound so depressing!
So what does this mean? As I said earlier, my brain developed this response so that I could feel loved by someone. If I didn't behave this way, how else could I believe that I was a lovable person? What evidence would I have? The answer is that my brain believed this response elicited the most affection from other people. In my experience, I didn't receive as much affection from others if I tried any other ways. For example, let's assume that it's dinnertime. You plan to eat out at a restaurant, but you haven't decided yet which one. Imagine that all the restaurants are located equidistant from your home, and all of them share the exact same price for their food. The restaurants range from take-out joints to four-star cuisine. Which restaurant will you choose? Since all restaurants cost the same and are the same distance away, your brain selects the four-star restaurant because the food you eat there will satisfy your hunger better than any of the others.
In my experience, no other ways of behaving brought forth as much affection from others as putting myself down did. Whenever I would be myself, nobody ever paid attention to me. Everyone labeled me as dull and boring because I liked to talk about math and science, while everybody else liked to talk about sports and sex. Since I functioned normally, and the others unceremoniously chucked me into the dull and boring category, they had no motivation whatsoever to pay attention to me. Feeling sorry for myself was the only way that I could make others pay attention to me. I exerted a measure of control over them. It's as if I had said, "I command you to have affection for me," and they obeyed.
Finally, I cannot underestimate the importance of articulating this into writing. People suffering from depression are usually too depressed to perform such high-level cognitive functions. They go to their therapists and say, "I'm depressed." He or she knows exactly why he is depressed, but he doesn't have the energy, motivation, or presence of mind to formulate this into words. This could result in impeding his therapist from understanding him clearly enough. I don't know of how much importance this is, however. I've heard of people who take antidepressants or undergo ECT and feel completely normal again for the rest of their lives. I'm hoping that the way I've described my experience of depression here has some value, and I hope that one day it will be helpful to others.
--
Having said the above, this will probably be the last entry on my history of depression. My entries here will still be cheerless and depressing. The difference is that I probably won't talk about my past that much. At this point, I believe I've written enough (or at least covered the most important points) in this blog to explain who I am, why I'm depressed, and what events caused my depression. If I commit suicide, I have no need to write a suicide note. Everything is right here. Of course, I don't believe this world deserves a suicide note from me, or from anyone for that matter. I have no obligation to give explanations or justifications for my actions.
As I said, everything is right here, unless BlogSpot goes down for some reason. Google no longer caches my pages, probably because of its blatantly abject contents. So, these pages aren't mirrored anywhere. I guess you wouldn't want little kids to type some random words in a search engine, end up on this blog, and read something about wiping my dick on some chick's hair. "Daddy, what does 'cum' mean?" Then again, I thought that was what Google's SafeSearch was supposed to do. Maybe they thought what I wrote was so reprehensible that they didn't want to have any hand in perpetuating its existence. Oh well, it's their search engine, so they can do whatever they want with it.
If I die, no one will probably know that this blog exists. Even while I'm alive, no one knows that this blog exists. :) When I started to get into this, I submitted this page to scores of search engines in a futile attempt to advertise it. I had no idea how ridiculously impossible it was to promote a blog. Today, this blog still gets no hits. I got more hits on a personal home page I created back in 1995 than this blog does now. This is the case even when I enlisted the help of promotional sites that specifically state they will send tremendous amounts of traffic. I guess that somehow they consider zero a tremendous amount. Of the few individuals who do visit, the average time they spend on this page is probably about five seconds. Posting a blog on the web is like writing a New York Times Best-Seller on crumpled pieces of scrap paper and throwing them into the wind. (Some NYT Best-Sellers deserve to be written on scattered pieces of scrap paper instead of being in print.) I think that even if I posted the cure for cancer, passwords to every adult site on the Internet, and nude photos of every female celebrity here, still no one would notice. Talk about suffering in silence. Sadly, if no one's reading this blog, then no one's reading this either, so the self-referential irony I'm describing is lost as well. I'm like a stand-up comic performing in an empty room.
The only way this blog could be made known is if Blogger, BlogSpot, or one of the search engines to which I submitted this blog makes the connection between it and me. Only these web sites know the real life person behind this blog. Therefore, I only have one chance: someone who works for one of these organizations must become aware of my suicide via a newspaper or some other means. If this person discovers my name in their databases, then from there they'll be able to connect the dots from my name to this blog. Of course, this doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of happening. First, the media almost never reports suicides unless the deceased is someone noteworthy. Otherwise, the only way to find out about a suicide is to go out of your way to a police station and find out if they filed any recent reports of suicide. Thus, Blogger and the other organizations have no way to become aware of my suicide by chance. Second, in the highly unlikely event that someone from one of these organizations does notice my suicide, the chances that this person will come across my name, or any name for that matter, in their databases are slim to none. No one can possibly know the names of every single person registered in their databases, especially organizations that have large numbers of registered users. (People with photographic memories might be an exception.) Otherwise, this person would have to go out of his or her way to perform a search for my name. What possible motivation could a person have to search their databases for a specific name just because that person committed suicide? I'm certain that employees of these organizations have much more important work to do. Third, this person must have the patience to sit down and actually read this entire blog. Fourth, he or she has to decide whether what he just read is important enough to let someone else know about it, like the police, my parents, or the media (not a chance). He could just as likely conclude that he's reading the author's fictional, albeit extensive account of the thoughts that some imaginary depressed person would have. Or, he may think that it's just nonsense spewed from some psychopath, akin to the Unabomber's Manifesto. It's not going to happen.
Eppur Si Muove!
As an aside, if you temporarily disregard his mail-bombing activities, Ted Kaczynski was a bright guy. He also had to endure a torturous childhood. He was also extremely shy and never socialized with other children. (Hmmm, this is getting scary.) If I met Ted in real life, we would actually have a lot of things in common. He's like a long lost brother. I guess the only difference is instead of mail-bombing others, I'll be mail-bombing myself.
I wish some fucking psychologist out there would get with the program and realize how fatal the consequences of being shy and socially isolated can be. Then, he should let as many people as possible know about it. Social isolation is the seed of many deviant behaviors. If someone took the time and effort to help Ted feel comfortable with the other kids, he or she would have saved the lives of the people Ted would have otherwise killed. Of course, there's no way of guaranteeing that. I'm asserting that, all things being equal, if Ted felt more comfortable and spent more time with the other kids, this must influence his behavior in some way. In my opinion, it would have been enough to cause him to decide not to send out his mail bombs. For example, suppose Ted weren't so isolated and he had some close friends whom he could trust. Even if Ted still considered sending out his mail bombs in this case, he would have brought it up with his friends if he were truly close to them. Unless his friends were exactly of the same mind as Ted, they would have definitely talked him out of it. If he had really good friends, they might ask him questions in order to find out his underlying motivation for sending out these mail bombs. For example, let's say he told them he wanted to kill people because he hated humanity. From there, his friends could recommend plenty of alternatives besides killing people that would allow him to express his hatred. Or even better, they may try to persuade him to think that human beings really aren't such a bad lot.
Isn't the stuff I'm saying obvious? Am I the only person who is aware of this, and everyone else is clueless? Who am I, Galileo? Am I the only person who knows that the earth revolves around the sun, while everyone else is too boneheaded to understand?
Based on this instance, helping out a shy kid can save lives.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
I really should take a shower. Who would've ever thought that taking a shower required effort? If I don't have to go anywhere on a particular day, I usually never take a shower unless I can't stand my own stink. I think my personal record for the longest period of time without taking a shower is about a month. After two weeks, however, I knew I stunk to high heaven. Luckily, I still have enough sense to clean myself if I have to go somewhere outside of home.
I still feel depressed. Last night I actually managed to sleep overnight, the time most people go to sleep. Previously, I would be awake during the night and asleep during the day. I never particularly cared about sleep. Back in the days when I still had drive and ambition, I could go days without needing any shuteye. That's yet another reason to be depressed. In the past, my actions were meaningful enough to the point where sleeping became a low priority. Today, my actions have no meaning. It's like when you have an empty stomach, you feel really hungry, you can't concentrate as well, and your stomach makes all kinds of grumbling noises. The purpose of the stomach is to digest food. When the stomach does not contain any objects to digest, it does not operate the way it was designed to. Hence, the grumbling noises. I believe the mind works in the same way. If my mind is empty, and I have nothing with which to occupy it, it makes grumbling noises of a different kind. One of the mind's higher cognitive functions is to think about something. When the mind doesn't have anything to think about, it also doesn't operate the way it was designed to. It churns on itself, and I believe that's what gives me the feeling of my mind being torn apart.
I wish I could sleep all the time, permanently. I spent this morning trying to give myself something to do for the day. I tried to do this in order to avoid that intensely painful feeling of not being able to come up with anything to do. After an hour passed, I failed. I can't even look at porn and jerk off anymore because the goddamn antidepressants they force-feed me fucked up my ability to become horny. I can't even get a hard-on if I tried. Now that's depressing. Don't pdocs realize that having to take these pills just adds to my depression (or any guy's depression, for that matter)? Back in my teens, I could get hard just by looking at a woman who had any hint of being attractive, even if she were fully decked out from head to toe in winter clothing.
I decided to do what I usually do, which is to guess what to do moment-by-moment in an unfocused way. I would never have a specific goal or plan to achieve that goal. Given this case, it might seem to make sense to make up any goal just to keep myself occupied. I refuse to do that. It goes against my principles to attribute meaning to actions that I know are meaningless, or at best insignificant. This also harks back to my higher functioning days. As I said earlier, at that time my actions had meaning. If I wanted to work more efficiently, I needed to prioritize my activities. This causes problems today because the only goals I can set for myself are the same goals that were of low priority in the past. For example, today I could set a goal of cleaning my apartment. Maintaining a clean environment was never a priority in the past. Back then, my room was a mess, and it stayed a mess. I had all kinds of crap on the floor -- lecture notes, old exams, assorted garbage, and week-old ham sandwiches. As long as I knew where everything was, cleaning my room never held much importance. It was more important for me to calculate the Laplace transform of a Bessel function than to make sure my room was clean. Given this situation, how is it possible not to be depressed?
I still feel depressed. Last night I actually managed to sleep overnight, the time most people go to sleep. Previously, I would be awake during the night and asleep during the day. I never particularly cared about sleep. Back in the days when I still had drive and ambition, I could go days without needing any shuteye. That's yet another reason to be depressed. In the past, my actions were meaningful enough to the point where sleeping became a low priority. Today, my actions have no meaning. It's like when you have an empty stomach, you feel really hungry, you can't concentrate as well, and your stomach makes all kinds of grumbling noises. The purpose of the stomach is to digest food. When the stomach does not contain any objects to digest, it does not operate the way it was designed to. Hence, the grumbling noises. I believe the mind works in the same way. If my mind is empty, and I have nothing with which to occupy it, it makes grumbling noises of a different kind. One of the mind's higher cognitive functions is to think about something. When the mind doesn't have anything to think about, it also doesn't operate the way it was designed to. It churns on itself, and I believe that's what gives me the feeling of my mind being torn apart.
I wish I could sleep all the time, permanently. I spent this morning trying to give myself something to do for the day. I tried to do this in order to avoid that intensely painful feeling of not being able to come up with anything to do. After an hour passed, I failed. I can't even look at porn and jerk off anymore because the goddamn antidepressants they force-feed me fucked up my ability to become horny. I can't even get a hard-on if I tried. Now that's depressing. Don't pdocs realize that having to take these pills just adds to my depression (or any guy's depression, for that matter)? Back in my teens, I could get hard just by looking at a woman who had any hint of being attractive, even if she were fully decked out from head to toe in winter clothing.
I decided to do what I usually do, which is to guess what to do moment-by-moment in an unfocused way. I would never have a specific goal or plan to achieve that goal. Given this case, it might seem to make sense to make up any goal just to keep myself occupied. I refuse to do that. It goes against my principles to attribute meaning to actions that I know are meaningless, or at best insignificant. This also harks back to my higher functioning days. As I said earlier, at that time my actions had meaning. If I wanted to work more efficiently, I needed to prioritize my activities. This causes problems today because the only goals I can set for myself are the same goals that were of low priority in the past. For example, today I could set a goal of cleaning my apartment. Maintaining a clean environment was never a priority in the past. Back then, my room was a mess, and it stayed a mess. I had all kinds of crap on the floor -- lecture notes, old exams, assorted garbage, and week-old ham sandwiches. As long as I knew where everything was, cleaning my room never held much importance. It was more important for me to calculate the Laplace transform of a Bessel function than to make sure my room was clean. Given this situation, how is it possible not to be depressed?
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Zero
My mind is completely empty. I spent the last few hours sleeping my life away. I've spent most of my life sleeping the hours away.
This emptiness is unfathomable. I can't even think of anything to write in this blog. I feel overwhelmingly depressed, as usual. It just never ends, and I never feel like doing anything about it. This is hell.
If I had a weak constitution, as I had in the past, in moments like this I would probably head straight for the nearest hospital immediately. Now my constitution is slightly higher only because I realized staying in a hospital is worse than lying in bed at home. At home, it at least feels like home, and I have all my material possessions around. That makes me sick, because I try not to be a materialistic person at all. People like that have no depth or creativity, in my opinion. At the hospital, I would mope around without my stuff, and I would be surrounded by strangers. In other words, although I don't really give a shit about my life, I give enough of a shit to care about my environment, i.e. the home or the hospital.
Despite all this, life at home is not exactly a barrel of laughs. The social isolation is killing me. It makes me feel as if a powerful, invisible force inside my head is tearing my mind into shreds. This is all I can write.
My mind is completely empty. I spent the last few hours sleeping my life away. I've spent most of my life sleeping the hours away.
This emptiness is unfathomable. I can't even think of anything to write in this blog. I feel overwhelmingly depressed, as usual. It just never ends, and I never feel like doing anything about it. This is hell.
If I had a weak constitution, as I had in the past, in moments like this I would probably head straight for the nearest hospital immediately. Now my constitution is slightly higher only because I realized staying in a hospital is worse than lying in bed at home. At home, it at least feels like home, and I have all my material possessions around. That makes me sick, because I try not to be a materialistic person at all. People like that have no depth or creativity, in my opinion. At the hospital, I would mope around without my stuff, and I would be surrounded by strangers. In other words, although I don't really give a shit about my life, I give enough of a shit to care about my environment, i.e. the home or the hospital.
Despite all this, life at home is not exactly a barrel of laughs. The social isolation is killing me. It makes me feel as if a powerful, invisible force inside my head is tearing my mind into shreds. This is all I can write.
On Assholes
Still the same... No progress. Yesterday my aunt invited my family over for dinner and asked me to take a look at her computer. That would be slightly interesting, I thought. When in front of a computer, I'm usually immersed in whatever I'm doing. That causes me to lose sense of time, which is important because it distracts me from the torment of my own reality.
We had some spaghetti, which tasted pretty good. When I was in the middle of eating my meal, a person I never saw in my entire life waltzed right in and joined us for dinner. That made me livid. My mother told me before we left that this dinner was strictly supposed to be a family affair, i.e. no outsiders. I was furious, but thanks to a lifetime of repressing my emotions, I looked composed and undisturbed. To me, only being around close relatives is entirely different from being around relatives and strangers. With close relatives, I can let my hair down, so to speak, and I have no need to worry about anything. I can walk around wearing nothing but briefs without offending others. (Yes, I wear briefs, not boxers. Boxers are too airy for me. I like my genitals snug.) I can walk around with my hair messed up if I want. I can pick my nose and fart as much as I want. In contrast, I absolutely hate having strangers around. I fucking have to put my guard up. I have to act polite and friendly, which sucks.
I found out later that this guy was a friend of my second cousin. He likes to drop in to my aunt's house at random times and hang out, uninvited. I detest people who do that. I'm the type of person who hates surprises. I always want to know exactly what the fuck is going to happen well in advance. What's more, the second this guy opened his mouth I knew I didn't like him. I can't explain how, but with certain people, I have a knack for knowing exactly what their personality is as soon as they speak. This guy was incredibly annoying. He spoke with this loud, nasal, intrusive voice. He was also one of those egotistic motherfuckers who think they're king of the world. I could tell by listening to the statements he made and the way he said them. Poor assholes like him have to inflate their own ego just to give their lives meaning.
I was in the middle of eating, and I wasn't full. Nevertheless, about 30 seconds after he barged in, I excused myself from the table feeling extremely pissed off. It became apparent to me that the only way I could bear the rest of the evening was to lock myself in the room with my aunt's computer. I did exactly that. I made sure I would never be in the same room with that asshole and would never hear his arrogant voice. Thankfully, I felt much better. The computer itself had a bunch of garbage appearing at startup, so I got rid of them. I noticed Kazaa and I was about to uninstall that adware-laden monstrosity, but my aunt told me that she still wanted the ability to connect to their network if necessary. So I couldn't get rid of the mountains of spyware and adware installed on her computer, since doing so would break Kazaa. That eliminated about 95% of the things I intended to do. The only thing left was to show her how to set her own desktop wallpaper. Much to my dismay, since I didn't literally lock myself in that room, that asshole (I never bothered to learn his name) intruded and examined what I was doing. He was bored and just decided to wander in. I would rather have had him wander somewhere else, preferably several miles away. He looked over my shoulder to inspect what I was doing. As you can probably guess, I hate people who do that, too. He repeatedly asked me what I was doing, and to top it all off he told me what I should do. Not only was he an asshole, but he was a know-it-all asshole. He gave me idiotic suggestions on what to do. Fucking asshole didn't know that my knowledge and experience with computers exceeded his by about a billion times. When he realized that I completely ignored him, he eventually left the room.
That ended up being an infuriating experience. Unfortunately, as of today I vow never to set foot in my aunt's house again, except in extremely rare circumstances. Even if I do go, I won't be caught unprepared as I was last night. I learned my lesson. Next time, I'll at least know that that asshole, including any other assholes like him, may barge in at any time. Bring 'em on. I'll be ready.
Still the same... No progress. Yesterday my aunt invited my family over for dinner and asked me to take a look at her computer. That would be slightly interesting, I thought. When in front of a computer, I'm usually immersed in whatever I'm doing. That causes me to lose sense of time, which is important because it distracts me from the torment of my own reality.
We had some spaghetti, which tasted pretty good. When I was in the middle of eating my meal, a person I never saw in my entire life waltzed right in and joined us for dinner. That made me livid. My mother told me before we left that this dinner was strictly supposed to be a family affair, i.e. no outsiders. I was furious, but thanks to a lifetime of repressing my emotions, I looked composed and undisturbed. To me, only being around close relatives is entirely different from being around relatives and strangers. With close relatives, I can let my hair down, so to speak, and I have no need to worry about anything. I can walk around wearing nothing but briefs without offending others. (Yes, I wear briefs, not boxers. Boxers are too airy for me. I like my genitals snug.) I can walk around with my hair messed up if I want. I can pick my nose and fart as much as I want. In contrast, I absolutely hate having strangers around. I fucking have to put my guard up. I have to act polite and friendly, which sucks.
I found out later that this guy was a friend of my second cousin. He likes to drop in to my aunt's house at random times and hang out, uninvited. I detest people who do that. I'm the type of person who hates surprises. I always want to know exactly what the fuck is going to happen well in advance. What's more, the second this guy opened his mouth I knew I didn't like him. I can't explain how, but with certain people, I have a knack for knowing exactly what their personality is as soon as they speak. This guy was incredibly annoying. He spoke with this loud, nasal, intrusive voice. He was also one of those egotistic motherfuckers who think they're king of the world. I could tell by listening to the statements he made and the way he said them. Poor assholes like him have to inflate their own ego just to give their lives meaning.
I was in the middle of eating, and I wasn't full. Nevertheless, about 30 seconds after he barged in, I excused myself from the table feeling extremely pissed off. It became apparent to me that the only way I could bear the rest of the evening was to lock myself in the room with my aunt's computer. I did exactly that. I made sure I would never be in the same room with that asshole and would never hear his arrogant voice. Thankfully, I felt much better. The computer itself had a bunch of garbage appearing at startup, so I got rid of them. I noticed Kazaa and I was about to uninstall that adware-laden monstrosity, but my aunt told me that she still wanted the ability to connect to their network if necessary. So I couldn't get rid of the mountains of spyware and adware installed on her computer, since doing so would break Kazaa. That eliminated about 95% of the things I intended to do. The only thing left was to show her how to set her own desktop wallpaper. Much to my dismay, since I didn't literally lock myself in that room, that asshole (I never bothered to learn his name) intruded and examined what I was doing. He was bored and just decided to wander in. I would rather have had him wander somewhere else, preferably several miles away. He looked over my shoulder to inspect what I was doing. As you can probably guess, I hate people who do that, too. He repeatedly asked me what I was doing, and to top it all off he told me what I should do. Not only was he an asshole, but he was a know-it-all asshole. He gave me idiotic suggestions on what to do. Fucking asshole didn't know that my knowledge and experience with computers exceeded his by about a billion times. When he realized that I completely ignored him, he eventually left the room.
That ended up being an infuriating experience. Unfortunately, as of today I vow never to set foot in my aunt's house again, except in extremely rare circumstances. Even if I do go, I won't be caught unprepared as I was last night. I learned my lesson. Next time, I'll at least know that that asshole, including any other assholes like him, may barge in at any time. Bring 'em on. I'll be ready.
A Collection Of Essays: The Origin Of Failure
(Actually, it isn't, but based on its length, it could pass as a dead look-alike.)
The Best Laid Schemes O' Mice An' Men Gang Aft Agley
Just checking in... I feel the same, as usual. Empty and depressed. I don't have the energy or motivation to do anything about it. The following explains why. (I apologize for the length. I usually try to write as succinctly as possible, but in this case, I didn't want to leave out any details. I don't remember if I mentioned any of the following here in the past. Depressed people don't usually care to remember anything.)
Starting in high school, I created a very specific and detailed plan for my future. I was going to study such-and-such in college (sorry, I have to keep it classified). Immediately afterward, I planned to get an entry-level job doing such-and-such. I planned it so that every possible facet of my life was covered. I would earn a living by having a career as a such-and-such. The friends I made in college would be my social life. Making close friends in college would cover my emotional life. I thought that this plan would take care of every possible contingency. This process was similar to making a blueprint for building a house, or planning a military battle. First, you outline your plan of attack. Then you take care of your army's needs, the same way I took care of my needs. You make sure you have a supply route, you make sure you have medical personnel nearby to take care of any wounded, and you need a path of retreat in the event your attack fails.
My supposedly foolproof plan proved to be foolish. The first chink in the armor was the start of my depression, caused by a relationship issue I had at the end of my first year in college. Before that, I socialized as often as I could in order to make as many friends as possible. My efforts paid off -- people called me all the time, and I got tons of personal e-mail. However, when the depression began, I started to isolate myself. I was too mired in my own misery, and I had no interest in interacting with anybody. Therefore, this shattered the plans I made to cover my social and emotional life. Today, no one calls me. Every time I come home to my apartment and the light on my answering machine remains steady, especially when I've been gone for a long time, I feel the urge to kill myself. Friendlessness. I'm aware that I reap what I sow. Nevertheless, the fact that no one ever calls me further proves my worthlessness. I never receive any personal e-mail or snail mail, either. Even something as trivial as my mailbox consisting entirely of spam makes me want to commit suicide.
All was not lost, however, because I did craft a plan "B". In the event that my social and/or emotional life failed, I could devote myself to my career, and that would have been enough to keep me going. I loved what I was studying, and I looked forward to working after graduation. It wouldn't be a fulfilling life without social or emotional connections, but it was enough for me to find life still worth living. Then and now, I believe the most important thing in life and for humanity is the creation of knowledge. That one constant separates us today from our caveman ancestors. It leaves a permanent mark for humanity because it survives us after we die. Therefore, I believed my life only had meaning as long as I contributed to the pool of human knowledge. No other actions held any significance.
My enduring faith in scientific progress came about from my childhood. (Yeah, I know, yet another one of those corny flashbacks to childhood. Nonetheless, it's true -- for most people, the development of their present behavior originated in childhood.) There weren't very many ways to feel good about myself when I was growing up. My parents were mostly indifferent to me. They never did things like ask me how my day at school went, nor did we ever display physical or emotional affection to each other. My peers at school ostracized me because I was the class nerd. Only my teachers gave me any positive feedback. They praised me for my academic performance. Therefore, I felt that academics was the only thing worth pursuing. I actually hoped to be a professor or researcher in my field. I eagerly looked forward to the day that I would achieve this. Making friends or having a social life wasn't worth the effort because it wasn't as rewarding. I'm not trying to sound pompous or conceited, but I believed that the prodigious accomplishments I made guaranteed my dreams would come true. When I was a kid, the first time I took the SATs was in the 7th grade. I got a higher score than that of most high school seniors. By the time I was a high school senior, I was told that I was smarter than 99% of the population based on my test scores. For Christ's sake, I graduated from an Ivy League university. (I'm sparing my alma mater the embarrassment of being loosely associated with me by not mentioning their name.) Premier United States east coast universities don't hand out diplomas to just anyone. The average earned income of alumni from my school is over $200,000 per year. (Had my staggering income of $0.00 not knock down the average so much, that number would be higher.) You tell me: how can someone who's basically told that he's God when he's a kid possibly be happy with his life when he becomes not only mortal, but a bum by the time he's an adult? I'm sure it happens, but I've personally never heard of anything like that. Most importantly, I've never heard how they went on to live a happy life afterward, if they managed to do so. In the news, you never hear things like:
"John Q. Doe's business failed miserably today thanks to sheer stupidity on his behalf. Doe managed to achieve this spectacular debacle in spite of his carrying several advanced degrees and his Ivy League credentials. 'I just didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started this business,' he responded pathetically when queried by reporters. Doe was forced to move out of his stately multi-million dollar residence in Southampton, NY. He decided his next move would be to relocate to the bright lights of New York City. 'That's where all the action is anyway,' he cheerfully added. Doe currently resides in a medium-sized cardboard box on the sidewalk at the northwest corner of 42nd St. and 10th Ave."
Returning to the subject of my failed life plan, the final strand was cut a few years ago when I was laid off my job. The cut didn't actually happen the day I was let go. It happened when I couldn't find another job afterward. That was the last straw. Since the status of my social and emotional life went unchanged, the failure of my plan was complete.
This is important because I don't want to do anything now. I worked extremely hard and made many sacrifices to make my plan work. I endured a miserable life because I expected a payoff to come in the future. It never came. I felt that all the hard work and pain I went through was a useless waste of time. I placed myself in overdrive -- while in college I pulled all-nighters to study for exams, and I had a job at the same time. This is the reason why I have no energy or motivation to do anything today. What's the point? I'll just fail anyway, the way I stupendously failed with the first plan I created. Putting effort into doing anything would be futile and meaningless. When I put myself in overdrive, and I still failed, it was over. No matter how hard I worked, I would still fail. This is how my life became meaningless.
Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, a professor of psychology, conducted an experiment in the mid 1960's that exactly illustrates my situation. The experiment, as described in his book Learned Optimism, entailed administering mild electric shocks to three dogs. In the first part of the experiment, the first dog was administered shocks that he could shut off by pushing a panel. The second dog was administered shocks, but he had no control over them. He would not be able to turn them off, no matter what he did. The third dog got no shocks at all. The second part of the experiment involved three large boxes, each with two compartments separated by a low wall. Each dog was placed into his own box. This time all the dogs were administered shocks that they could escape by jumping into the other compartment. The results of the experiment: the first and the third dog jumped over the wall. The second dog gave up, lay down, and let himself continue receiving the shocks. I am the second dog. I learned that no matter what I did, I could not stop the shocks. I could not stop failure from happening to me. Thus, my behavior can be explained perfectly. Since nothing I did made any difference in the outcome, I just gave up. I lay in bed all day. I let myself continue to suffer the pain of failure. I'm not trying to jump over the wall into the other compartment, where a potentially better life for me awaits my arrival.
People have told me countless times not to let what happened to me make me give up. That seems to make sense, but the energy isn't there. Imagine I ran a marathon, except that once I finally reached the finish line, the marathon coordinator tells me that I ran the wrong marathon. At this point, if I want to complete the correct marathon, I have to run all the way back to the starting point, then run the correct path to the correct finish line. What the fuck!? I spent all my energy just getting to this finish line. Now you're telling me to go all the way back and then do the entire thing all over again over a different path? How is that even possible? If I owned a vehicle and my fuel tank were empty, my vehicle wouldn't run. Period. It wouldn't move unless a tow truck came along and hauled it away. This is why I come across to everybody as a needy and lazy son of a bitch. People look at me and think I'm a normal person, so they wonder why I do nothing in life. They don't see my empty fuel tank, and my tow truck never came by. They don't know that before I ran out of fuel, I wasn't lazy. I was hard working, and I wasn't needy. Because I believed in my plan, I believed that I could be self-reliant and take care of myself, without needing anybody's help.
I just can't run another marathon. Some therapists have told me that "according to the theory," activity overcomes depression. If I start to do just one thing, gradually I'll gain momentum to be able to do more things, and eventually I'll become a functional, working person again. Wrong. Because of what I said earlier, I need a plan if I want to get anywhere. My original plan failed on the social and emotional goals. How will I achieve that in my new plan? My original plan satisfied my self-esteem because I would have a good career and I would be recognized for my work. How the fuck can I have self-esteem sweeping floors at McDonald's? I need solid answers to these and more questions if I want to have a plan that has a shot at working. I can't plan a military battle without knowing where my army's supplies or medics are coming from. If I don't have a path of retreat... I get killed.
(Actually, it isn't, but based on its length, it could pass as a dead look-alike.)
The Best Laid Schemes O' Mice An' Men Gang Aft Agley
Just checking in... I feel the same, as usual. Empty and depressed. I don't have the energy or motivation to do anything about it. The following explains why. (I apologize for the length. I usually try to write as succinctly as possible, but in this case, I didn't want to leave out any details. I don't remember if I mentioned any of the following here in the past. Depressed people don't usually care to remember anything.)
Starting in high school, I created a very specific and detailed plan for my future. I was going to study such-and-such in college (sorry, I have to keep it classified). Immediately afterward, I planned to get an entry-level job doing such-and-such. I planned it so that every possible facet of my life was covered. I would earn a living by having a career as a such-and-such. The friends I made in college would be my social life. Making close friends in college would cover my emotional life. I thought that this plan would take care of every possible contingency. This process was similar to making a blueprint for building a house, or planning a military battle. First, you outline your plan of attack. Then you take care of your army's needs, the same way I took care of my needs. You make sure you have a supply route, you make sure you have medical personnel nearby to take care of any wounded, and you need a path of retreat in the event your attack fails.
My supposedly foolproof plan proved to be foolish. The first chink in the armor was the start of my depression, caused by a relationship issue I had at the end of my first year in college. Before that, I socialized as often as I could in order to make as many friends as possible. My efforts paid off -- people called me all the time, and I got tons of personal e-mail. However, when the depression began, I started to isolate myself. I was too mired in my own misery, and I had no interest in interacting with anybody. Therefore, this shattered the plans I made to cover my social and emotional life. Today, no one calls me. Every time I come home to my apartment and the light on my answering machine remains steady, especially when I've been gone for a long time, I feel the urge to kill myself. Friendlessness. I'm aware that I reap what I sow. Nevertheless, the fact that no one ever calls me further proves my worthlessness. I never receive any personal e-mail or snail mail, either. Even something as trivial as my mailbox consisting entirely of spam makes me want to commit suicide.
All was not lost, however, because I did craft a plan "B". In the event that my social and/or emotional life failed, I could devote myself to my career, and that would have been enough to keep me going. I loved what I was studying, and I looked forward to working after graduation. It wouldn't be a fulfilling life without social or emotional connections, but it was enough for me to find life still worth living. Then and now, I believe the most important thing in life and for humanity is the creation of knowledge. That one constant separates us today from our caveman ancestors. It leaves a permanent mark for humanity because it survives us after we die. Therefore, I believed my life only had meaning as long as I contributed to the pool of human knowledge. No other actions held any significance.
My enduring faith in scientific progress came about from my childhood. (Yeah, I know, yet another one of those corny flashbacks to childhood. Nonetheless, it's true -- for most people, the development of their present behavior originated in childhood.) There weren't very many ways to feel good about myself when I was growing up. My parents were mostly indifferent to me. They never did things like ask me how my day at school went, nor did we ever display physical or emotional affection to each other. My peers at school ostracized me because I was the class nerd. Only my teachers gave me any positive feedback. They praised me for my academic performance. Therefore, I felt that academics was the only thing worth pursuing. I actually hoped to be a professor or researcher in my field. I eagerly looked forward to the day that I would achieve this. Making friends or having a social life wasn't worth the effort because it wasn't as rewarding. I'm not trying to sound pompous or conceited, but I believed that the prodigious accomplishments I made guaranteed my dreams would come true. When I was a kid, the first time I took the SATs was in the 7th grade. I got a higher score than that of most high school seniors. By the time I was a high school senior, I was told that I was smarter than 99% of the population based on my test scores. For Christ's sake, I graduated from an Ivy League university. (I'm sparing my alma mater the embarrassment of being loosely associated with me by not mentioning their name.) Premier United States east coast universities don't hand out diplomas to just anyone. The average earned income of alumni from my school is over $200,000 per year. (Had my staggering income of $0.00 not knock down the average so much, that number would be higher.) You tell me: how can someone who's basically told that he's God when he's a kid possibly be happy with his life when he becomes not only mortal, but a bum by the time he's an adult? I'm sure it happens, but I've personally never heard of anything like that. Most importantly, I've never heard how they went on to live a happy life afterward, if they managed to do so. In the news, you never hear things like:
"John Q. Doe's business failed miserably today thanks to sheer stupidity on his behalf. Doe managed to achieve this spectacular debacle in spite of his carrying several advanced degrees and his Ivy League credentials. 'I just didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started this business,' he responded pathetically when queried by reporters. Doe was forced to move out of his stately multi-million dollar residence in Southampton, NY. He decided his next move would be to relocate to the bright lights of New York City. 'That's where all the action is anyway,' he cheerfully added. Doe currently resides in a medium-sized cardboard box on the sidewalk at the northwest corner of 42nd St. and 10th Ave."
Returning to the subject of my failed life plan, the final strand was cut a few years ago when I was laid off my job. The cut didn't actually happen the day I was let go. It happened when I couldn't find another job afterward. That was the last straw. Since the status of my social and emotional life went unchanged, the failure of my plan was complete.
This is important because I don't want to do anything now. I worked extremely hard and made many sacrifices to make my plan work. I endured a miserable life because I expected a payoff to come in the future. It never came. I felt that all the hard work and pain I went through was a useless waste of time. I placed myself in overdrive -- while in college I pulled all-nighters to study for exams, and I had a job at the same time. This is the reason why I have no energy or motivation to do anything today. What's the point? I'll just fail anyway, the way I stupendously failed with the first plan I created. Putting effort into doing anything would be futile and meaningless. When I put myself in overdrive, and I still failed, it was over. No matter how hard I worked, I would still fail. This is how my life became meaningless.
Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, a professor of psychology, conducted an experiment in the mid 1960's that exactly illustrates my situation. The experiment, as described in his book Learned Optimism, entailed administering mild electric shocks to three dogs. In the first part of the experiment, the first dog was administered shocks that he could shut off by pushing a panel. The second dog was administered shocks, but he had no control over them. He would not be able to turn them off, no matter what he did. The third dog got no shocks at all. The second part of the experiment involved three large boxes, each with two compartments separated by a low wall. Each dog was placed into his own box. This time all the dogs were administered shocks that they could escape by jumping into the other compartment. The results of the experiment: the first and the third dog jumped over the wall. The second dog gave up, lay down, and let himself continue receiving the shocks. I am the second dog. I learned that no matter what I did, I could not stop the shocks. I could not stop failure from happening to me. Thus, my behavior can be explained perfectly. Since nothing I did made any difference in the outcome, I just gave up. I lay in bed all day. I let myself continue to suffer the pain of failure. I'm not trying to jump over the wall into the other compartment, where a potentially better life for me awaits my arrival.
People have told me countless times not to let what happened to me make me give up. That seems to make sense, but the energy isn't there. Imagine I ran a marathon, except that once I finally reached the finish line, the marathon coordinator tells me that I ran the wrong marathon. At this point, if I want to complete the correct marathon, I have to run all the way back to the starting point, then run the correct path to the correct finish line. What the fuck!? I spent all my energy just getting to this finish line. Now you're telling me to go all the way back and then do the entire thing all over again over a different path? How is that even possible? If I owned a vehicle and my fuel tank were empty, my vehicle wouldn't run. Period. It wouldn't move unless a tow truck came along and hauled it away. This is why I come across to everybody as a needy and lazy son of a bitch. People look at me and think I'm a normal person, so they wonder why I do nothing in life. They don't see my empty fuel tank, and my tow truck never came by. They don't know that before I ran out of fuel, I wasn't lazy. I was hard working, and I wasn't needy. Because I believed in my plan, I believed that I could be self-reliant and take care of myself, without needing anybody's help.
I just can't run another marathon. Some therapists have told me that "according to the theory," activity overcomes depression. If I start to do just one thing, gradually I'll gain momentum to be able to do more things, and eventually I'll become a functional, working person again. Wrong. Because of what I said earlier, I need a plan if I want to get anywhere. My original plan failed on the social and emotional goals. How will I achieve that in my new plan? My original plan satisfied my self-esteem because I would have a good career and I would be recognized for my work. How the fuck can I have self-esteem sweeping floors at McDonald's? I need solid answers to these and more questions if I want to have a plan that has a shot at working. I can't plan a military battle without knowing where my army's supplies or medics are coming from. If I don't have a path of retreat... I get killed.
Monday, February 16, 2004
I feel like the blood inside of me is drying up, slowly taking my life away. I don't know what kind of value I can attach to these empty times. All I can say is that I exist, I breathe, I feel, and I think, though not in a focused way. In this "empty" mode, my thoughts are never focused enough to articulate. These endless hours have populated my life ever since my depression started. If I listen to my mind, my life is not worth enduring this suffering, and it should end. Otherwise, I would have to accept the fact that the rest of my life will be completely barren and empty. That's not life. That's torture.
I can't even distract myself long enough to try to think of something besides depression. My identity has become depression. Whenever someone tries to get to know me, everything I say originates from the perspective of my depression. I have to explain any and every event of my life through depression. My interests are depression. My hobbies are depression. I do depression for a living. (Though, the pay is very low. It's very tough to get by with an annual earned income of zero dollars.) My favorite activity is depression. My favorite type of music is depression. My favorite TV show is depression. My favorite radio station is depression. My favorite sport is depression. My favorite game to play is depression. The favorite books I've read are depression. My favorite topic of conversation is depression. My favorite place to shop is depression. My favorite web site is depression. My favorite color is depression. My favorite fruit is depression.
I can't even distract myself long enough to try to think of something besides depression. My identity has become depression. Whenever someone tries to get to know me, everything I say originates from the perspective of my depression. I have to explain any and every event of my life through depression. My interests are depression. My hobbies are depression. I do depression for a living. (Though, the pay is very low. It's very tough to get by with an annual earned income of zero dollars.) My favorite activity is depression. My favorite type of music is depression. My favorite TV show is depression. My favorite radio station is depression. My favorite sport is depression. My favorite game to play is depression. The favorite books I've read are depression. My favorite topic of conversation is depression. My favorite place to shop is depression. My favorite web site is depression. My favorite color is depression. My favorite fruit is depression.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
The Psych-Helmet 2000
I must carry on with the depression, even though at times it feels unbearable. It reminds me of my profound emptiness again. I spent most of today lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, immersed in emptiness. To make matters worse, I have nothing to do until next Thursday. The only thing I can think of doing between now and then is practicing my imitation of a human vegetable. I think I've gotten pretty good at it. Too bad lying awake in bed isn't a sport, either. I've gotten good at that, too.
I wish there were a way that I could turn myself off instead of having to be awake during my idle times. If I had a social life, turning myself off would be a bad idea because over time I'd lose contact with any friends I had. Since I have no social contacts, that wouldn't be a problem for me. Turning myself off wouldn't make any difference. Many times, I've had this fantasy where I turn myself off until the year 2500. By then, I believe that they have an invention that gets rid of depression safely and permanently. They call it the Psych-Helmet 2000. I put it on, and first it scans my entire brain and detects any signs of mental illness. If it finds anything, then it painlessly injects nanomachines into my brain that have the ability to remove the mental illness. By that time, medical science will have complete and detailed information about the functions of every individual neuron in the brain. They will also have maps of neuronal arrangements associated with every mental illness. Based on these maps, the nanomachines will rearrange the individual neurons into the correct order, i.e. the order where the mental illness is no longer present. Then the nanomachines harmlessly leave my body, I take the helmet off, and I go back to being a normal, functional human being again. No muss, no fuss.
I must carry on with the depression, even though at times it feels unbearable. It reminds me of my profound emptiness again. I spent most of today lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, immersed in emptiness. To make matters worse, I have nothing to do until next Thursday. The only thing I can think of doing between now and then is practicing my imitation of a human vegetable. I think I've gotten pretty good at it. Too bad lying awake in bed isn't a sport, either. I've gotten good at that, too.
I wish there were a way that I could turn myself off instead of having to be awake during my idle times. If I had a social life, turning myself off would be a bad idea because over time I'd lose contact with any friends I had. Since I have no social contacts, that wouldn't be a problem for me. Turning myself off wouldn't make any difference. Many times, I've had this fantasy where I turn myself off until the year 2500. By then, I believe that they have an invention that gets rid of depression safely and permanently. They call it the Psych-Helmet 2000. I put it on, and first it scans my entire brain and detects any signs of mental illness. If it finds anything, then it painlessly injects nanomachines into my brain that have the ability to remove the mental illness. By that time, medical science will have complete and detailed information about the functions of every individual neuron in the brain. They will also have maps of neuronal arrangements associated with every mental illness. Based on these maps, the nanomachines will rearrange the individual neurons into the correct order, i.e. the order where the mental illness is no longer present. Then the nanomachines harmlessly leave my body, I take the helmet off, and I go back to being a normal, functional human being again. No muss, no fuss.
Bits and Bytes
I miss one of my favorite old television shows, "Bits and Bytes." I actually wouldn't know nearly as enough about computers as I do now if not for this program. It was a half-hour educational program on PBS about computers. It was produced in Canada, and it started in the early 80's. To this day, I haven't forgotten the names of the hosts -- Luba Goy and Billy Van. I loved the way it presented as many computing concepts as simply as possible. They even had a cartoon character to help explain. They even dedicated one show to BASIC programming. At the time, I knew a little BASIC (as much as an 11 year-old could know). Watching that one show made my interest and skill at programming skyrocket! Luba Goy was actually teaching a regular, everyday guy like Billy Van how to program! When's the last time you saw a program on television that taught you how to code, much less a guy who had neither knowledge nor technical aptitude with computers? They devoted another show to online services. Even at that time, I learned about the wealth of information available that I could access. That's when I first discovered CompuServe and got my first online account. I still remember my ID#: 72767,2117. I also used my 300-baud clunker of a modem to dial other BBS's that I also learned about thanks to the show. (Did you know that if you tried to download a typical 650MB CD-ROM image with a 300-baud modem, it would take 210 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes, and 57.33 seconds, or roughly 7 months to complete?) I always cancelled anything I was doing so that I would never miss a show. Hell, I even learned a few phrases in French!
What the fuck is up with these asinine TV shows like Survivor, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and American Idol? Personally, I'm waiting for a TV series that will explain the fundamentals of operating system design to the Joe Blows of the world. And I want to see it on FOX. :)
Ave et vale, Billy Van Evera. I salute you. Though you are gone, you will not be forgotten.
I miss one of my favorite old television shows, "Bits and Bytes." I actually wouldn't know nearly as enough about computers as I do now if not for this program. It was a half-hour educational program on PBS about computers. It was produced in Canada, and it started in the early 80's. To this day, I haven't forgotten the names of the hosts -- Luba Goy and Billy Van. I loved the way it presented as many computing concepts as simply as possible. They even had a cartoon character to help explain. They even dedicated one show to BASIC programming. At the time, I knew a little BASIC (as much as an 11 year-old could know). Watching that one show made my interest and skill at programming skyrocket! Luba Goy was actually teaching a regular, everyday guy like Billy Van how to program! When's the last time you saw a program on television that taught you how to code, much less a guy who had neither knowledge nor technical aptitude with computers? They devoted another show to online services. Even at that time, I learned about the wealth of information available that I could access. That's when I first discovered CompuServe and got my first online account. I still remember my ID#: 72767,2117. I also used my 300-baud clunker of a modem to dial other BBS's that I also learned about thanks to the show. (Did you know that if you tried to download a typical 650MB CD-ROM image with a 300-baud modem, it would take 210 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes, and 57.33 seconds, or roughly 7 months to complete?) I always cancelled anything I was doing so that I would never miss a show. Hell, I even learned a few phrases in French!
What the fuck is up with these asinine TV shows like Survivor, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and American Idol? Personally, I'm waiting for a TV series that will explain the fundamentals of operating system design to the Joe Blows of the world. And I want to see it on FOX. :)
Ave et vale, Billy Van Evera. I salute you. Though you are gone, you will not be forgotten.
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