Obligatory "I am not currently in any danger; I actually have an inpatient facility where I can admit myself at any time if I actually needed to, which I've never needed to do anyway." I could've chosen to go to attend a university that's more than just a couple hours away from where I call home. I could've had COVID / the flu / mono / strep, but instead I have... a cold? A cold + bronchitis? Well, if you read my blog thinking that you're going to find it brimming with optimism, you're mistaken. But in a recent blog post, I did mention something about being more optimistic, or whatever. Why did I stop smoking? Why did I stop drinking? My mental health has gotten: exactly zero percent better! Hmm. Oh, that's right, the optimism. At least my physical health is better! At least the class that I dropped wasn't actually needed for either my major or minor! *record scratch* At some point, the optimism gets really toxic in and of itself. Gaslighty. That sounds like a Pokemon. Gaslighty. A psychic type, to be sure. Nevermind what the "positivity" is actually covering up. The only thing to do in that stupid fucking college town is drink. I have quite literally socially blacksheeped myself by going straightedge. And the reason I did that was to improve my mental health, LOL, and yet I have been on the verge of a total mental breakdown, tempted to drop out of college altogether, can't sleep—so what, where exactly did I get? Now, after you've chewed on that for a bit, spitting it out once it's lost flavor, riddle me this. Why do I care? It seems pretty much all of the girls that I meet out in the bar / party scene I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. The guys are incredibly obnoxious and toxic. So again, why do I care that I no longer do the things necessary to make them all temporarily tolerable, like drinking 12 drinks and smoking half a pack over the course of a night? If you've got room for dessert, you're in luck. What fucking good did any of my Self-Help Bro bullshit do when I'm contemplating whether I should commit myself to an inpatient facility or commit suicide? I've never been unhappier in my life. I do all the things that the Dude Bros at the mountaintop told me to do and it amounted to jack fucking shit. Go to college and work on yourself (have been for three years), get your career going (trying to, but its nigh impossible to substitute teach AND go to school full time at the same motherfucking time), the girls will come! Here's another conundrum. First of all, what girls? The fucking hoes that dump your roommate, who is a great dude, like a sack of shit? The ones that play games ("shit-test") with your emotions? The wahmen (use Google for zoomer-gen terminology you are not familiar with)? Second of all, why would I want them to come? Third of all, no girl is "coming" anyway, harlot or angel or non-harlot-angel-nary. That exists exclusively in fiction written by men who wish the world were a just place. That's what empowerment gets ya' right there folks. Toxicity, entitlement, Gordian knots of contradiction, and lizard-brain. I'm going to have my cake and eat it too and anybody who tries to stop me is a sexist piece of trash! I mean seriously, how far has society come when white girls are dating black guys BECAUSE they are black? Because it is "subversive" or pisses their daddy off who's paying for their entire tuition? Obviously this is not the case for all, nor most, mixed-race relationships. But all the same, this phenomenon is far too common. How wonderful it must feel, to think you're somebody's boyfriend, when in reality you're their small-minded political statement and daddy-issue. Go. Fuck yourself. These people would be so much easier to tolerate if they truly were a minority. No, a DWINDLING minority, rather than a growing majority. This society, and the entire human race, is soooo fucked. You know it's bad when the gay guy (I don't mean to be offensive by referring to him in this way, but I obviously don't want to use real names) agrees with me about the state of dating between men and women. Every guy I know at university with his head screwed on straight and tight, and with at least two brain cells - one flint and the other steel - wants the same thing. A unicorn. These are guys who believe that college will help them establish their careers, find a job, support themselves and another person, with whom they could potentially share the responsibility of children, etc. Let's just say that makes for A LOT of employers (men), but not a lot of applicants (women), the latter of whom seem to want to play with your emotions, string you along, and pray to polygamy, and yet are completely baffled when they're not respected. Yeah, I'm so glad I went to university so I can waste thousands of dollars on a young adult literature course so that I can read Judy Blume's "Forever" and listen to a class made up of 90% girls shit on men the entire time in front of me and the other three guys, one of whom is gay and gets the female "gays-are-okay" pass. THIS is what my mental health needed right here, ladies and gentlemen! Oh, right, optimism. Optimism... So, even though every day I wonder (read: NOT PLAN) about suicide, or wish I would die / not wake up, I'm not an anti-natalist. I'm not here to debate anti-natalism. All I'm saying is this: many of these people don't see the irony that some human / societal problems cannot be resolved in a single generation, and that history repeats itself in a fairly cyclical manner. Yet... and try to follow me along here... they tell people like me that suicide is not the answer, blah blah blah. Okay, so suicide isn't the answer, but the females of a living species encouraging other females to not procreate to fundamentally result in species-suicide is sound? It's the same doomer mentality just operating on a different scale. Again, I am not debating anti-natalism, per se. I am picking on a small subset of those who call themselves anti-natalists, who have a incongruous view on suicide. Don't commit suicide! But if you ask me, nobody should have children! For me, a strong desire to end it all stems from the basic fact that I am undesirable, there is no knowable explanation because presumably every woman is different so therefore there is not a explanation but 4ish billion of them (so don't count yourself out yet, champ! /s), my parents had a shit marriage and for 20 years of my life I had experienced or observed only dysfunctional models of love, I'm broke, in debt so that I can get a job in something I STILL DON'T KNOW IS ACTUALLY A GOOD MATCH FOR ME OR NOT AFTER TWO FUCKING YEARS, every good thing is bad for me, and a long list of other things. That's where my desire to die comes from. My life just sucks. Maybe you don't think it does, but I don't give a fuck what you think, you don't have to live it every day. There's nothing enjoyable about what I am forced to suffer on a daily basis, especially when I am surrounded by people who, for whatever reason, have to suffer none of those things and are nauseatingly happy. There's nothing to look forward to in my future. My future is constantly sabotaged and taken away from me. All the things that I think could be nice to do, fun to do, if I weren't me, if I weren't so fucked in the head or poor. So there's your optimism, albeit delivered a bit late and most certainly not what you were expecting: I may wish I could commit suicide, but hey, at least I'm still not one of THOSE ANTI-NATALISTS. Should my gravestone read "Finally." or should it read "Here lies a suicidal natalist."
What is one to do when you're a fun-aholic? It has become clear to me that I'm not allowed to have fun. I have a fun problem. The moment I begin having any fun in life is when everything unravels. That's when my sleep schedule self-destructs, that's when I procrastinate, shirk responsibilities and all the rest. No, fun is not allowed. With each passing day I become more and more puritanical. It must be nice having self-control. "Just play video games for an hour." Yeah bro. Just have one drink. Just shoot up heroin one time. Just do one line of coke bro. Come on mannn. How about, just one time, you go fuck yourself. Just try stroking it one time, and then stopping and moving on with your day. Just shove it up your ass one time, but then stop and pretend like nothing happened. How come every time it gets sexual you have to keep jerking it until you orgasm? Seriously, get a grip dude, just one stroke is enough. What the fuck is wrong with you. How dare you want to take fun to its climax. You should be ashamed of your greed and gluttony. Less is more; idolize the concentration camp prisoner. A bowl of gruel and a stale, crusty piece of "bread" is enough you fucking pig. Get stoic bro. Ohhh, you want to enjoy your work now too?! Don't let the stool tip over on your way down. My problem isn't that I'm depressed. Depression is the solution. It is a promise to never enjoy anything again, because joy, happiness, fun, is a punishment.
He wiped at the glass eyepieces of his gasmask in disbelief. Like leaves on willows they swayed gently from creaking branches above a deafening static of bloodfall. "It never stops raining in Sorrow's Wood," Remy remembered the words of Father Lacroix. The forest grew because it drowned itself. That was all he would say. The forest's canopy had become its own cloud. And not a single face in it looked at peace.
I've been in pretty rough shape since the start of the New Year. That's not to say there hasn't been an occasional good day, maybe even a short stretch of them, but on the whole this past month has been total shit. And I can't help but make it worse for myself. I hope you've been treated better. My car battery went kaputt. Didn't even make it three years. Luckily my roommate has some basic know-how with cars and was able to give me a jumpstart with no problem, and also help me install a new battery. But I've been so depressed that what should've taken a day, took over a week. I basically just kept driving around on a dying battery until it died for real. Meanwhile, I've been waking up every single day at about 4PM because getting out of bed is a struggle. That means I miss half of my classes. My sleep schedule is shit. I can say "half" now because I'm no longer taking five; I'm taking four. I've withdrawn from Japanese 102. I feel like a failure. Or maybe a quitter. I guess the problem is I don't really know which I am. And it's not like those are particularly good options to choose from. There could be a third option. Maybe something like, "If I had all the time in the world to dedicate to this-- if this was the only course I was taking-- I could persevere." But I can't when I'm getting random "depression attacks" and feel so lost and behind that I'm frustrated and embarrassed. I would get physically hot in class from how upset it was making me. Long story short, I took 101 too long ago and ended up forgetting some important stuff, and in 102 it's assumed that you're confident with at least like 90% of the 101 material. Oh, and you'll be learning a bunch of random new kanji, AND a new conjugation form, AND suddenly all homework directions will be in Japanese, AND— I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know what to do. Sensei said to come in for help but when I need fucking help with everything and don't know where to start, and when I have four other courses I need to worry about, I'm not particularly inclined. I can't dedicate even more time and energy that I simply don't have... Learning Japanese was supposed to be something that was fun; of course there would be some frustration along the way. But I was literally pissed off by this, dreaded being a useless partner in class, hated being surrounded by people who are magically "getting it" while I'm lost, and finally just depressed. I guess it can go back to being something I study on my own, as a hobby. Now I'm trying to see if I can change my "withdraw" status to a "dropped" status, but I need therapy documentation for my appeal to be considered. And wouldn't you know? I just stopped seeing my therapist last week. I texted him and said that I've been doing talk therapy for the past 7 years and it hasn't done a single fucking thing for me. I just talk and talk and talk and get myself all worked up and then the hour has gone by and it's "So same time next week?" I've been seriously contemplating putting myself in a psych ward for about a week now, honestly just out of boredom. Just to see if some miracle is performed. Just for something "different". Anyway, it's a little rich to go crawling back saying therapy is useless, but "By the way, I do need a doctor's note so I can drop this class instead of withdraw from it." Somewhere in this fucking disaster I pushed my dad away because he wanted to keep talking to me on the phone and I hate talking to him on the phone. It is draining. I tried to tell him that if he texts me, I'm more than happy to talk to him that way, because then I can talk to him when I'm feeling okay, and I can think through what I want to say, but he refused that olive branch. He said, "Fine, be that way." And besides telling me he needed a specific tax document from me, those are the last words he's speech-to-texted me. My mom doesn't know what to do to help me. When I'm at my worst, I'm convinced she doesn't care, that she is tired of me. I'm convinced that nobody really "gets it". At any rate, the only people who "get it" are dead or can't really do anything to help me because they don't know how to help themselves. I get people telling me to take the soma. Take your soma. I know they're trying to be helpful, and it is true that medication has helped many people. But that's not what I want for me. To me, that's saying that my problems aren't real, or that there's nothing I can do about my problems so I should just medicate myself to not care about them. But I'm not content with my life. I want to CHANGE my life and to make it something that I am happy with. While I can't speak for every med, in my experience anti-depressants made me COMPLACENT at best, lackadaisical at worse. That's what I don't understand about stoicism. That's a philosophy that was peddled to people who were slaves, or damn-near slaves, by the ruling class. It doesn't tell me how to change my life. It tells me that I should put it up with-- no, that I should be okay with being shit on. It is nothing other than resignation. There's nothing inspiring there. If Frodo and the gang were to have taken up stoicism, the Shire would've been speaking Black Speech in no time. After all, why not just have a stoic attitude about having Sauron's dick in your ass? Why not welcome his dick in your mouth? I'm not saying stoicism has no value. I'm saying that it's value is for people who have NO OTHER OPTION. They *must* accept the state of their reality because it is entirely out of their control to change. Like a concentration camp prisoner, or a prisoner of war, or a slave. But to be told to just be stoic is, in my mind, to give up. Everyone has been pacified by the elite with this mentality. Lately I've been watching Kill la Kill with my roommate. And if there is one thing I love about the main character Ryuko, it's that she doesn't give up. Ever. She gets pissed off like me, and even at her lowest the fire inside of her was never extinguished. It just needed to be rekindled and fanned. Sure, sometimes that anger gets her into trouble. But I can relate to that. She refuses to lie down and accept the way things are, and that necessitates trouble. She could've just accepted the murder of her father, but she's embarked on a quest in which she is determined to find out who killed her father, why, and to make them pay. The story has gotten a bit more complex and interesting than that as more of it unfolds, but that's what I love about her character. Anyway, this post is long enough. The next post is going to be more optimistic. I plan on riffing more on Ryuko's character. Me shit-talking stoicism? That's Ryuko energy. Staying pissed off is the only way I know to keep going. That's why I swear every other fucking sentence, and even bother to type them out when I could choose to omit them. Because if I fucking didn't, I'd fucking wither and fucking die. So go suck a dick Buddha. I've fucking had it with all these pussifying philosophies. I'm tired of being emasculated and castrated by a feminist society. Go absolutely fuck your fucking self. Take your weak ass, enfeebling domestication and shove it up your god damned ass. Henceforth, I refuse to adhere to thee.
I know what it is like to be falsely accused of something that you didn’t do. Cheating in video games is also commonly known as hacking. I was accused of hacking in an old game called Day of Defeat: Source. Despite being released almost 20 years ago, the game still has a die-hard community, a community which I was a member of until right before Christmas of 2021. Day of Defeat: Source is a shooting game set in World War II in which each team tries to capture all the flags belonging to the other team in order to win the round. So you play either as a German or an American soldier, alongside and against real people, with up to 16 players on each team. Yes, shooting and killing other people playing as virtual soldiers is how I’ve often enjoyed spending my free time. However, one thing that… less scrupulous people do when they’re not good at killing “Nazis” is that they install software called “hacks” that give them an unfair advantage in the game. It’s pretty rare; reason being, it’s often quite obvious when somebody is using hacks, and if you are caught you could potentially not be able to play any other multiplayer games on that account. That’s right: not only would you be banned from Day of Defeat: Source for hacking, but you would not be able to play any other online multiplayer games that require a Steam account to play (like Call of Duty, for instance). So for most people that risk is not worth it when you have hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours invested into your favorite hobby. Most people don’t take games seriously enough to feel the need to cheat anyway. There are two primary ways you can hack. Either you can use an aimbot, which makes it so that you don’t actually have to aim with your mouse in order to kill an enemy player; the software does it for you with lightning speed and perfect accuracy, like a Terminator. Or, you can get wall-hacks, which give you x-ray vision and allow you to see enemies through walls. It is the latter kind of hack that I was accused of using. On the day of my wisdom teeth removal, I came home and opened the game to discover that I could no longer join the server in order to play. A message appeared on my screen: “You have been banned.” I felt my stomach turn. When I opened my friend list to talk to one of the administrators of the server and figure out what was going on, I discovered that many of them had removed me from their friend lists. People who I had played the game with for almost two years, who I thought were my friends, had collectively turned their backs on me. Their so-called evidence was about as strong as the evidence brought against Socrates in Athens, or the “witches” in Salem. Essentially, I was just too good at the game and must be using hacks. Their evidence was nothing other than an assumption. To some of you, this may not seem like a big deal. It’s just a silly game, after all. “Play something else,” as my dad might say if I was getting angry at whatever game I was playing when I was younger. But I have played this game since I was 10 years old. I almost hesitate to say this, but I have played the game for over 2000 hours over the course of nearly 13 years. Sheer experience is the reason I was as good as I was. At one point I had even been a member of the gaming clan that owned that server. I was well-known in the community. But unfortunately, the only people who didn’t believe the accusations were those who were powerless to do anything. Powerless like me. But the allegations of hacking were more than just an insult to my pride. Yes, I had become very talented at a game you probably haven’t heard of, and I even tried to help others become better players if they asked. And yet, what hurts the most is not my wounded pride, but my heart. I made many friends from playing the game for more than a decade. You see the same people, and you can talk with them through the headset about life, about current events, and even personal stuff. That, too, was taken away from me. And I felt betrayed by a specific few who I thought were my friends. It pays to have friends in high places. If you don’t, you’d best watch yourself. Like a casino, as soon as you start doing a little too good for your own good, you’re out. The house always wins. That is the third kind of hack; if you bring the kick ball, you can leave and take it with you. Since they own the server, they can snap their fingers and I am no longer allowed to play on it. Only God will care about the injustice. I will never forget what it feels like to be falsely accused of something. To have people believe those accusations instead of giving you a chance to explain yourself. To spend hours of my time during my holiday break recording myself playing the game to prove to them that I don’t cheat, just to get the silent, cold shoulder in response. To not even have any sort of trial and be treated worse than a “witch” or a Socrates. I wasn’t even worth a dog-and-pony-show, a kangaroo court, a circus. I wasn’t even worth that. It was their kick ball, and they’d grown tired of me winning. And just to make sure I didn’t come back, they made sure to tell everyone else that I was a hacker. I will forever be skeptical of accusations. My trust in people, my faith in people, are genuinely shaken from what happened to me. I was seriously depressed by what happened to me; things that were very important to me were just taken away. You feel like the world is suddenly against you, and everything you say is spun to make it all worse. Despite all our problems, one of the reasons why I think the United States is (for now) one of the greatest places to live is because of our incredible legal system. We do not convict people based on accusations or allegations, or what the mob says or believes, or even in trials-by-media. We believe in innocence until proven guilty because of people like Jussie Smollett. It is a system that protects everyone from the type of people who banned me simply because they had the power to do so, and not because it was the right thing to do.
For one of my courses this semesters, I have to write a narrative non-fiction piece. And I have no clue what to write about. I sift through my memories in search of something that I would want to write about, that I want to share, but I can't escape the feeling that nobody else would give a shit. I could write about the time that my friends and I went to Montreal for spring break and somebody killed themselves by jumping in front of the subway train we were on. That experience, that whole trip, really sticks out for me in my mind, but who the fuck would, why the fuck would anyone, want to read about that? I could write about the time I went to Toronto by myself to attend a political convention and meet Jordan Peterson, but who the fuck would give a damn about that either? All the shit that's important to me, is unimportant to everyone else. I could write about doing cocaine in a hotel room with beer league hockey league players in Canada, and how that cocaine followed my friend group home and led to problems, and how my friend group split. But I'm supposed to actually be able to share this piece with my classmates. lol My life is fucking lame. Here, let me write two pages about my daily life, how unhappy I am on the regular, how I sit here and procrastinate and stretch out homework night after night, watching degenerate anime and wasting away on YouTube.
The first thing was the smell of salt. He blinked slowly at an overcast sky. The occasional raindrop tickled his face... until one hit him in the eye. He grimaced, turning his head to see an unfamiliar beach leading to the horizon. The tide rolled in and out, its cold water lapping at his head and shoulders as if to baptize him. Or pull him back in. His mind projected an old film reel of memory onto the backs of his eyelids. He looked around the dark, empty theater before sitting in the front row. A slow montage of close-up smiles with no identities played. Some had beautiful, white teeth. One had soft, pink lips pressed together, a strand of windswept hair caught in a corner. The screen froze. It went black for a moment. Then more frames flickered: blank, cloudy, clear, tinted red and orange and blue. Falling overboard. Screaming in silence. Swimming. Falling overboard. Swimming. Falling with arms reaching for the fleeting blue sky. A grainy intertitle read Screaming. Swimming, swimming, treading, screaming underwater, treading, sinking with arms reaching for the faraway sky— Fin. Suddenly, a spasm had him coughing up all the water from his burning lungs. He tried to sit, and looked to where the beach gradually rose into a small bluff. At the crest stood two figures in the knee-high grass, the fringes of their long coats flowing in the steady wind blowing toward the sea. As they steadily descended and approached, he felt no fear; he stopped fighting the blackness surrounding his vision, and dropped his head back into the sand with the tide in his ears. He did not reach out for the grey sky above.
Nobody likes this. That's okay: I don't even like my own writing. I dislike it first so that I can't be hurt by other people not liking it. I just can't take being tortured by the thoughts anymore. Maybe if I write, they'll go away. It will finally stop. But probably only for the briefest respite. The muse will just get irritated. It is not I who gets offended that my writing is unlikable, but the muse. And so the voice continues to abuse me, telling me things I already know. That I am an embarrassment. That it is cringe inducing, awful. I just go on suffering helplessly, forever failing. I just want the voice to stop. Evidently it doesn't have a choice in who it chooses; I was chose for it. And it makes no sense, for I am clearly unequipped. I dare say God made a mistake. --- A beam of light descended through a hole in the soaring stone vault, illuminating a space on the wine red carpet before the altar. Father Lacroix turned around in the center of it. "Step into the light with me," Father Lacroix said. "So I may see your face." His steps echoed lightly amidst the dust-covered pews. He ascended the few steps and stood at the edge of the darkness where Father Lacroix had been, and paused. It was as if his disturbing the very air here was a sin. "There is nothing to fear," Father Lacroix said patiently. This light can't be coming from outside, he thought. Thunder rolled again. Lightning flashed, lighting up the inside of the church with the colors of the painted glass windows. The air was electric, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He stepped into the light. He did not look up from where it came, and it was not blinding. "Remy," is all Father Lacroix said, meeting his gaze. "You are Remy." To Remy, it was the first time hearing the name since awakening on the beach days ago. And yet— he felt as if he were remembering something he'd never forgotten. It just... was. "I hate my writing." "Hate is a strong word. And don't you mean you hate my writing?" "Who is talking?" "You are." "I am?" "I am." "Hate is a strong word." "That is why I choose it." "Because you are weak without it?" ... "You need not be weak without it." "You act like you know, but you don't know anything." "I know only faith. And it is through faith, God's grace, that I come to know all else."
Two large, red scars ran down her exposed back. In that dress, with her hair tied up so elegantly, he thought that she looked more like a princess than a nurse. Her feet padded lightly on the wood floor as she passed in and out of the grey light falling through the tall windows. "You must drink," she said in anticipation of another refusal. Her voice sung for a moment from the beams in the high vaulted ceiling of the hospital ward. All the other beds, with the same neat, white sheets and pillows, were empty. Still, he had been laid to rest near the far end of the room and watched her come and go with great interest. She may as well have been the only other person in the whole world, as he had seen no one, heard no one else. She approached his bedside carrying a tray with a couple biscuits and a glass of water. "I cannot stand the sight of it," he said. But his parched mouth and throat commanded him to sit up. "I understand." She spoke to him quietly now, setting the tray on the bedside table. "But you are still regaining your strength." She held out the glass to him. He reached for it. Their fingers brushed; hers were soft. Then their eyes met. The occasional dust mote floated around her. Light shone like a halo on her blonde hair, but nothing compared to the blue of her eyes. They had a light of their own. So far in this new desaturated world, nothing else had shone with more vibrance than her eyes. "You are like an angel," came the words from his mouth, as if of their own accord. Her lips parted for a moment, a flicker of a pained expression. "I- I'm sorry," he said quickly. Startled by a sensation of wetting the bed, he looked down to find that they had dropped the glass of water and much of it had spilled. "No, no, I'm sorry-" she said, realizing at the same time. If she was embarrassed, her cheeks did not betray it. There was only the same, subtle, pastel rosiness, and the rest of her pale face had gathered itself again. Had he offended her then? Upset her in some other way? He hadn't meant any harm by what he said, but his own face felt hot. "I'll get a towel and new bedding. Are you able to stand on your own?" He swung his legs over the bedside and tested them on the cold floor. "A little weak, but I think I can manage," he said, hoping to move beyond the awkwardness as soon as possible. Maybe he had imagined it. "You only spoke the truth." He felt relieved at her finally acknowledging what he said. Her back was turned to him as she opened a wardrobe standing against a stone wall at the end of the room. "Well, I just meant that, you know, to me you looked- you're very beautiful, like-" "You spoke the truth," she said again. Because those two large, ugly red scars that ran down her back... Were where her wings had once been. Kintsugi, an angel fallen from grace into love with a man who could not find salvation. An angel who knew how to mend all things except those that only time and God could mend. A bird chirped from the window sill.
Happy New Year, everyone. Anxiety and depression have sometimes been awful. Still, I soldier on in the name of transience. I just finished a very difficult semester at uni with high marks; I think it's okay for me to reward myself for that. And the best way I can think of rewarding myself is by realizing I overworked myself. It can be tough to find a balance in life, but I definitely strayed too far to the right. Willpower got me through it, but I can tell I need time to recover. This coming semester I will be dialing it back. This year I hope to strike more of a balance. I haven't drank in 7 months and I intend to go on increasing that high-score. I had a couple relapses with nicotine but they didn't last. The urge can be most difficult to resist at the peak of stress, anxiety, depression. This makes sense because alcohol and nicotine were coping mechanisms for negative feelings. It takes a lot of time and patience to unlearn those habits... the memory will always be there, but it's possible to dismantle and unwire everything even though you'll always remember how to build it. That's the price you pay. My outlook on this coming year is... I actually don't have a strong one, for now. I think I do want to try erring more on the positive side, sure. And I do believe in hoping for the best in spite of setting myself up for disappointment. Vulnerability is a necessity, after all, or else you close yourself off from the world, from living. So maybe adopting a "let's wait and see, and then adapt as need be" type of approach to more things. I still suffer from some age old problems, but I am turning my attention to accepting my circumstances for what they are. I must be careful to not resign myself to them. I must be careful to distinguish between acceptance and resignation. But maybe there is a greater attitudinal component differentiating loneliness and being alone. Maybe there is a matter of being a willing participant as opposed to victim in my present circumstances. I could change the lack of romance in my life, but what if I don't really want to? Who says I should? Who insists that I be unhappy about that lack and why? I think in these past months that I've been away, focusing on school, I have bettered myself. I have had a lot of success, and naturally some failure that I have tried to learn from (after obligatory sulking, of course). I have learned that my body and mind are incredibly resilient, and I am blessed by God in this way. I only hope that by continuing to take better care of myself, this resiliency will continue. I have lots more to say. My longwindedness has not changed. However, I do not think I need to vomit everything out right this very moment. I've returned here mainly because I want come back to journaling. I like the way that the blog system here functions. Nobody has to read what I write, but sometimes people do, and sometimes people respond, and it's nice to have discussions. And I've found journaling to be very helpful for processing thoughts. Writing down thoughts can really help slow or stop spiraling. Glad to see the community here is still alive and well.
It's been 5 days since the last one. Not too soon, I hope. I wrote some positive things today to act as... mantras, I guess. "The brain is designed to heal itself." & "The brain is designed to return to equilibrium." - Dr. K (yes, from YouTube) "Control isn't about outcomes. It's about choices." - Dr. K (again, yes, from YouTube) Breathe. Get fresh air if you need. Let it pass. Or write it out. But don't just sit there and retraumatize yourself. Do not isolate or harm yourself. Don't take everything personally. Have faith. Turn to God. --- Here's one I was hesitant to write down. "Thoughts aren't facts." Back-story: I was talking to a girl in a few of my classes. Things were going well at first but it soon became clear that there was... quite a bit of a personality conflict, let's say. Everybody I tell this story to acts as if there is nothing wrong. That somehow *I* am in the wrong. Like I'm being judgmental or something. But I think we all know that forcing yourself to like someone, especially trying to force yourself to be their friend, never ends well. At first, we just kind of clicked. It felt right. If I don't feel like I'm naturally clicking with you, I'm not going to try and fit a square peg in a round hole. We can just be content with being acquaintances or colleagues or something. But with her, we would walk together after class to our cars sometimes, we would text and that sort of thing. Then all the little red flags came up. Red flags that I feel like my therapist was trying to gas-light me into thinking they're not red flags. (Something I'm going to bring up with him by the way; now, I'm being a little dramatic, I know he wasn't *literally* tying to gas-light me so let me just make that clear. I know he was just trying to challenge my thoughts, which is one responsibility of a good therapist. But we all make mistakes, and I think that when you challenge the wrong thoughts, the result is *accidental* gas-lighting.) Did you know that singing happy birthday is an "ick"? That is to say, it's a turn-off? Well guess what. Getting so shit-faced before going out-on-the-town that you might as well call your apartment a bar is an "ick" in my book. Way more than singing fucking happy birthday. Being unbearable by surrounding yourself with drama on a daily basis? Major fucking "ick". This is fucking society people. I don't know if all of my fellow motherfuckers on this forum are just too damn old or live in the Shire, United States, or what, but why am I the only God damn person on this forum to constantly meet these kinds of people? I don't seek them out. In fact, I actively despise them. They stress me the fuck out and they waste my time. Listen. I'm clearly a negative person. My anxiety and depression don't help with that. I am self-aware of it, and I am trying to work on it. So far I am proud that I am not letting it prevent me from going to school. I would like to become more stoic about it, I would like to start seeking less reassurance from other people, etc. Meaning: I have goals, which are oriented in continuing to improve my condition. I actively use resources and seek help when I genuinely need it (hence the therapy). So no, I'm not casting people into the mental fires of Mount Doom just because they do a little thing that irks me or something. But she, she was ICK. Anyway, if there's one good thing I got out of associating with her, it's that there are many people like myself who have developed strong and sophisticated personas. In fact, the vast majority of people have an outward and inward persona. Some wear their hearts more on their sleeves than others, but I'm speaking in general. The other thing is "Thoughts are not facts." She had that written on her whiteboard in her room. Now did I do some things that you, reader, would consider emotionally unintelligent? Sure. The next day she texted me and apologized. I said "For what?" And she said for "making you drive us around and drop us off down-town". And I didn't text back after that. I was annoyed that I felt like she wasn't even apologizing for anything she ought to apologize for. But what am I supposed to tell her? You should be apologizing for saying rude, inane shit like "singing happy birthday" is a turn-off and seemingly being serious about it? For playing these weird games by giving me mixed signals while you're way too fucking drunk and talking about other guys in your life? I guess I should have just been openly rude, rather than passively rude. Because instead of telling her all of these things, I said nothing. I never replied. Left that shit on-read. That was a week ago. I don't know if I really feel like saying anything about it now. Maybe I should. I don't know. This retarded shit always happens. And the thing is, it's all superfluous bullshit. It doesn't have to be that way whatsoever. It doesn't need to be such a mess. You make it that way on purpose. I've decided to swim against the current and not make things complicated, and play games, and try to get people to simp for me, and try to get guys to fight over me, and try to get guys to read my mind, and say rude basic-white-girl-shit about guys being "ick" in front of a guy who is a captive audience in my kitchen, and then give them mixed signals all night that are about as mixed as the copious amounts of mixed drinks I'm drinking so that at the end of the day, I can take responsibility for not a single fucking word in this concluding paragraph. And I'm the bad guy? Fuck you. What the fuck is happening? Can anybody fucking explain what in the fuck is fucking happening with women? Please? For the love of fucking God? Is the divorce rate 100% and every single human being with a vagina has a daddy issue? Is it a rule that you have to be a cunt if you're moderately attractive? Like what the fuck man... I give it a chance, I be present and just experience things and see how things develop. She mentions she's not feeling too well so I figure I'll surprise her with her favorite drink from the on-campus coffee place. I try to get to know her more. I try to practice being more open and relaxed, with some fair success. Why? Why do I bother? Anyway. Next time, on this blog, I'll talk about how I'll do my homework, and even when I have everything done, I'll feel incredibly stressed out, like I'm forgetting 3 major assignments that don't exist and my food is burning downstairs even though I know I don't cook and a baby I didn't even know I had is crying, all at the same time.
I found out last week that Norm had passed. I rarely feel something when a celebrity dies, and I think that mainly has to do with how the media covers it and makes a spectacle of it. I think it also has to do with the fact that I don't have much of a connection. Maybe I don't watch their movies or listen to their music, for example. But Norm's comedy meant a lot to me. It was so different, and so funny. He seemed like a decent, down to earth guy, and I don't think I've ever heard a bad thing about him except when the PC crowd tried to come after him. So RIP Norm. You made me smile and laugh during the darkest of times.
Without a hint of the dramatic, I think I can finally say I truly have never hated my life more than I do right now. Last night I could feel myself burning up. I could feel myself ready to explode, my blood pressure was so great. I had to text my boss that I was well and truly having a fever, and that I would not be coming in. For the past several days I have been getting severe stress-induced, psychogenic headaches that also radiate over my ENTIRE jaw, behind my eyes, and throughout my sinuses. (And yes: I have to get tested weekly for the virus-that-shall-not-be-named and I am clean.) In order to finally get some sleep, which has become something I want to be in permanently rather than the thing I used to avoid at all costs, I have to lay where my bed meets the drywall and press my forehead against it. I have to sleep with my window completely open even though at night it has been getting as low as 55 degrees fahrenheit. Even a room temperature water bottle at my bedside is cooler than my body, and I often place it on my forehead, staring at the ceiling, trying to keep it balanced and trying to suck the seething, burning rage out of my head. It wasn't two weeks ago that we had a rodent issue. Our apartment isn't even that dirty, in my opinion, but there was at least one rodent lurking about. I thought it was a figment of my imagination. But one day as I exited the shower, there it was, plain as day, in the middle of the bathroom. It scurried off somewhere, and I quickly threw my clothes on and stood outside the bathroom in stunned silence, trying to figure out what to do. And what did ALL of my roommates say? "Dude, yeah, I thought I saw something, like, last night..." "Yeah, I saw the little bugger a couple nights ago." A couple fucking nights ago? And you did nothing? You told nobody? You don't think it's a bit of a problem, or understand that a single mouse can have, you know, only a bazillion fucking useless children and multiply in a manner that rivals bunnies? Or diseases that made you wish you had the virus-that-shall-not-be-named? I could do worse for roommates, but it is becoming readily apparent to me that what is just common sense to me, what is a pressing issue to me, apparently crosses the minds of few others. And you might think it really is no big deal, until one morning you want nothing other than to take a God damn shower, and there is mouse shit all over the bathtub. Naturally, these two invaders were eliminated and escorted from the premises by lethal means. So I'm apparently the Saint fucking Patrick of our apartment. I took care of the *two* rodents. And now, after reading all day because I am bed-ridden by extreme levels of frustration and anger at my life that are manifesting as physical illness, I decided to take a break half-way through "All Creatures Great and Small" (which is incredible, by the way). I head downstairs to use the bathroom. I decide to take out the trash and get some fresh air. I discover that ants are around the trash can. Because nobody else in the house cleans the floors or does much of anything, especially in the kitchen. And I don't use the kitchen, and I'm not a fucking maid, and I already clean the downstairs bathroom without complaint. I go to turn on the light to get a better view. Nothing. The light is burnt out. I suppose my roommates would sooner live in complete fucking darkness with ants and rodents, so long as they can watch a fucking college football game on the living room tv. I lay in bed, typing this, dealing with the resurgence of a headache and feverish body temperature, trying to figure out: Why aren't more people like Major Pettigrew? Why is everyone suddenly a fucking acolyte of the hedonists? Why aren't people mandatorily taught chess in K-12 so that people actually THINK more than one God damn step ahead? So that people think, God for-fucking-bid, about consequences of literally anything? If I have to listen to my dude-bro roommate go on about his acquiring of "four hot girls' Snaps" one more time, and if I have to overhear the drama of hook-ups passing beneath my window, and listen to obnoxious drunk yelling and stupidity out in the complex parking lot— Or if another roommate who shares a bathroom with me gets hepatitis A and chlamydia from their hoe of a dishonest cheating girlfriend who pisses in trash cans when they get drunk, or if I get woken up from a roommate needlessly stomping up and down the stairs or otherwise being unbelievably loud at 8 in the morning without fail— I might just actually strangle a person and gladly trade this life for jail-time. I just don't fucking get it man. I don't get where society went wrong. A bit of debauchery and fun is great, but this, I don't know anymore. It makes me hate the vast majority of people. The complete ABSENCE of any morals. Of loyalty, or commitment, or anything that doesn't belong in Sodom and Gomorrah. And I see no fucking solution. At every turn I am punished for trying to do the right thing, to do things properly, to be pro-active, to use logic and reasoning. Why even waste my energy being a good person? Carpool to a class for someone. Go get Starbucks for someone. Try to be a good roommate. Why do I even fucking bother anymore? Why bother becoming an emotional punching bag for another girl to use, a "convenience" in her own fucking words? It makes me want my own corner of the world. And I would not subject it to socialism unless it was taken from my cold dead hands, because then it would have rats, and ants, and no working lightbulbs, and all the rest, for I would be forced at governmental gunpoint to share it with a bunch of fucks who don't give a fucking fuck. I am just at the point where I don't want to say anything anymore. I don't want to audibly speak with anyone anymore. I want to sit in my classes and be left well alone to get a useless piece of paper, and live a useless fucking life alone. I haven't been happy since high-school. And the scary thing is that that was a relatively unhappy time in its own right. But I at least had friends. At least there was happiness. Now I see none of those friends. I never see my family. If I do see friends or family, there's always less of them than the last time I saw them. I have nothing that matters since I moved away to spend 5 years getting a piece of motherfucking paper. It should be a law that once you turn 21, you're thrown a big party, lined up, and shot. There is no point living past the age of 21. There is no point in living a life that only gets increasingly worse in every single fucking dimension. More burdens, less strength, less enjoyment, less meaning, less loyalty, less virtue, shittier relationships, more damage, shittier people, shittier health, more pointless work. There is nothing about it, nothing whatsoever, that justifies living past 21. In fact, the only reason that life up until 21 is remotely enjoyable is because of the enslavement of those over 21. This is wrong in two ways. First the enslavement, and second the perpetuating of a fucking lie: life can never be that good. So the greatest justice that could be served to humanity is its complete and total eradication. #changemyview
I'm still around, here and there. It's difficult to relax. What do I even do to have fun? I don't have much fun anymore. I'm on the verge of becoming an all-too-serious, snooze-inducing, buzz-kill bore. I got pissed off and broke my mouse and headset; haven't used my gaming computer since then. Just my school laptop now. Writing fiction isn't fun. Being the only sober person at bars isn't fun. My roommates don't clue me in much on their plans, or invite me. And it's so confusing. When we hang out in the living room or whatever we seem on good terms and to enjoy the company. We'll just watch college football, or I'll watch one of them play some sports video games on his Playstation, and we'll just talk about whatever. This is a confusing, and frustrating, time in my life doesn't even cut it. So many paradoxes. Being the only sober person isn't fun but I'm only surrounded by people who need to get high or drunk. I want to hang-out and do stuff but it revolves around these drugs, and I want to hang out with people but it's not fun being the only sober person all of the time. There's a disconnect between who I am and how my life is, and who I might like to be and a life I might like to have, and yet I can't force myself to bridge that gap. I don't even know if I would want to bridge that gap; I can't force myself to be somebody I'm not. But what a shitty feeling. To simply be destined to be a person who is pushed to the fringes. Who are all these kids going to all these parties? How many moves ago was the move that diverged me from a path of fun? Birth? Now I'm just some damaged, anxiety, depression riddled mess, who tries to hold myself together for public interactions with cashiers, or people waiting next to me in line, or my professors and fellow students. It's not all bad. There is a girl who I guess seems pretty cool, and is what I consider attractive, and we went to the gym today. And maybe we'll hang out again this Labor Day weekend, maybe Sunday. If not, I think we'll go to the gym most Fridays, and see each other in a couple classes (we're in the same academic program). We had a good time. We went to a park and walked around for maybe 20-25 minutes afterward. Talked about the future, or made small talk. Of course, my lowly self cannot help but worry. I wasn't a bore, was I? I didn't act like a beta cuck, did I? I was just trying to be my best honest self, right? And then a horrifying thought strikes: if my best honest self isn't good enough, is implicitly deemed unworthy, I don't know what I'll do. Kill myself? I'm incapable of reflecting positively on experiences like this. So I choose not to reflect much at all. We did x, we did y, nothing particularly OBVIOUSLY bad happened, we had some laughs. I guess that means it was a solid time, and maybe we'll have more good times too. But she did ask me what I do for fun. And well, I didn't have much of a fucking answer. I guess what we were already doing...? Hanging out with somebody, enjoying company, going to the gym? Going to a park? I guess those count. But I felt like it'd be disingenuous or confusing if I made it seem like those are things I do with other people all the time. I have more than a full course load—6 courses instead of 5—and I'm constantly high-strung and stressed about university, bills, and responsibilities. I work full shifts on weekends. What about any of that is fucking "fun"? At what fucking point do I have time for "fun"? Where is there any room in my soul or brain for "fun"? What in the motherfucking shit even is "fun"? I'm supposed to work for 8 hours tomorrow. I am oh so tempted to call-out sick and be isolated for 10-14 days. Because who on this planet, who in this society even gives a God damn anymore? Who cares about the ideal of being a "good person" or "doing the right thing"? Just fuck it. Besides, I haven't called off in about a month. I'd still be under my quota. Let's see... 8x2=16 hours... minus lunch breaks is 15... 15x$12 is $180... minus taxes and shit it's more like $100 which I'll have to wait two weeks to receive. It's barely worth the mental, soul-crushing anguish, at best. "Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day. Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can I get for you? That'll be ___. Thanks, have a good day." I know what drinking and smoking have done to me. And right about now, it's tempting to finish what was started.
I uninstalled all my dating apps and have no intentions of going back. All the profiles that have those "must be this tall to ride" and "must be xyz" are enough to make me want to ALT F4. Yeah, I'll admit, I'm IDEALLY looking for a 8/10, thick thighed, nerdy athletic gamer girl who wears nekomimi hats or fox tails or whatever. It's cool to have an ideal, but to literally shamelessly filter by that is something so special it simply blows my mind. If I wanted to filter based on my perfect imaginary girl, I'd never swipe right on ANYONE. To each their own though, I guess. Maybe it works well for the ladies who can afford to do a suspect line-up of every guy within a 100 mile radius and pick The One. You'll literally drive yourself mad trying to follow advice nowadays. There are as many theories of advice for dating as there are girls and guys and pied pipers. I've gone around in circles and tied my mind into knots following this advice, then that advice, as if I was metaphorically juggling knives and balancing on a unicycle blindfolded. Is it my profile? Is it my pictures? Is it my bio? Is it me? Is there something wrong with me versus these other guys? Why are they successful, and I am not? Anyway. The apps seemed to confirm what I already know about myself. I'm not that desirable, because I am average. Beyond a certain point, there's nothing I can do to change that without completely trying to pretend to be somebody I'm not, and what would be the fucking point in that? "Lower your standards." No thanks. My standards aren't that high to begin with to be honest. Everyone including myself has their "perfect match" or whatever, but I don't seriously filter by that. Not even close. I'm just an insin. Involuntary single. I've dated before and it was just as miserable and tedious of an experience and my two relationships both ended in disaster, one of which was my fault. Sex is great and all but its a surprise, not the main course. Yet, there's no point in being mad at some amorphous mass of women or Silicon Valley nerds or something. There's no point in being mad at a specific girl or guy who perpetuates or has fallen victim to this accidental societal mess. All these Dude Bros say go to the gym, focus on your studies, focus on your career, focus on family and friends and hobbies bro. That's all good dude. But what they need to stop fucking selling, is the last line: "And it'll come bro." Or, "It will happen when you least expect it bro." There is no guarantee. It very well might not. Ever. Regardless. So while I appreciate the gesture, stop selling false hope please. Just tell people to genuinely be productive, good Dude Bros, and to live the rest of their lives the best they can without selling some snake oil to them at the very end. And tell people the hard truth: It may OR MAY NOT happen. Thanks. Dating is Admiral McRaven's sugar cookie story. Guys are the soldiers, women are the drill sergeants. You can do everything that's demanded of you to the fucking T. Dance around like monkeys, play some games, pass shit tests, or be "genuine", or be a dick, or just be yourself, be nice, support feminism, or just lie and claim that you support feminism, or truly work on yourself, focus on your hobbies and interests, and at the end of the day the drill sergeant still yells at you to jump in that ice cold surf and then roll around on the sand. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. Because you can do everything right, you can work on yourself, you can try to better yourself, you can try to be a good person, you can make a lot of money, you can do all this Woo Woo shit, and there is no. guaran. tee. That's life. You aren't entitled to shit. And the more malicious among us might even actually take time out of their day to intentionally remind you of that. They're rare, but they walk among us. In the end, I'd rather stay single than live my life knowing some 30 year old settled for me out of anxiety about her hitting the wall, not being able to have children, and not getting exactly what she wanted. It would be no different than if I was still desperate. I want to be in a relationship when I choose them FOR them, and they choose me FOR me, rather than treating me as some kind of lesser product they had to settle for because they didn't have the one they wanted at the store, and the store was closing in 5 minutes. And that's primarily what dating apps do. Turn people into shelves and shelves of products at the store. And when society celebrates treating people like that, you'll likely be one of the thousand products that get passed up, not even looked at, collecting dust. Obviously I haven't completely moved on from dating if I'm taking the time to rant here. But, I have been spending way more time on other parts of my life like the Dude Bro at Delphi told me to. I think what got me salty this time was somebody saying "Don't worry bro, it will happen." I'd sooner listen to a Magic 8 Ball. Again, at the expense of repeating myself, stop selling false hope to people. Encourage them to make positive and healthy choices and changes, absolutely, but don't make a relationship or getting laid an imaginary result of those things. That's not how it works, and it pisses me off when people frame it that way to already struggling guys, setting them up for unnecessary disappointment. Nothing is promised. For in the wise words of Kaiki Deishuu: "Nothing is irreplaceable. There is nothing that can't be substituted. A woman [Senjougahara] I know... A woman I know well always treats her current romance as if it's her first. She always looks like she's never fallen in love with someone before. That's the right way to go. That's how it should be. There is no peerless person. There is nothing irreplaceable. Because humans, as humans, can redo something as much as they want." Or, in the wiser words of the modern poet-artist Miles Lenehan: Spoiler when she turn away she said theres something in my eye if i go home early u wont wonder why say it all all except i never tried still it runs dry still the time goes by look at my walls i was locked inside left here to die birds pick me dry okay ive lost my face just trust its me in 40 days ive left no trace now its cold out could u close that door thought we both out what u call me for im at home now in this strangers apartment how they pass out but i barely have started seen the cold shoulder but this one like the arctic im on her side but i feel like the target pluck at my strings shes the human guitar pick come in so whole and they leave broken hearted we hurt we heal and go again in hopes we feel something different in jest in pain in love in fights i want u here with me tonight