2003-05-09 - 1:20 p.m.

Just a quick entry before I turn the computer off. I desire to leave it off for the day. I figured it was a good idea to write down some of my thoughts just after my shower. Try to go back to the roots and do my diary first thing in the "morning" as it were. I also would like to capture some of the 101 thoughts I've had so far today. If only my diary could contain all those inner thoughts that I usually forget, I'm sure it would have a lot more stimulating content.

I guess firstly I want to talk about the pit. As in pit of depression. As in the one that I'm in and have been in for some time. It's something that I never expected, for some reason. I thought things were on the up back in Thunder Bay and for all I know maybe they were. I'm not sure exactly what pushed me down or why I sleep 12 hours and then want to lay in bed instead of getting up, day after day.

I was having an imaginary conversation with someone in the shower. In my head, I was a famous musician and the person was interviewing me, and I was talking about the time of my depression. One of the things I commented on was how the depression was just like the alcoholism, they were symptoms of the same problem. When I drank, if I was unsatisfied I would go to the liquor store and get some booze, then have a few and my problem would be solved. I would be occupied for a while, I would be "doing something". Once I quit drinking, I would replace that instant fix with another, like playing a video game or eating food, reading a book, entertaining myself somehow in order to get immediate gratification. They're all the same thing, I said to the interviewer, and the worst part was, I knew what I was doing wrong but still continued to do it. Then I stopped and thought, hot water brushing down my shoulders and soothing me. I can stand in the shower for ages.

It's a weakness of character. Some life lesson I never learned as a child. I'm a hedonist, a hypocrite, and a lazy procrastinator all rolled into one. To top it, I'm arrogant, self-centered (not selfish) and asocial. Not that all that is a bad thing, it's just who I am. But it sure doesn't make me a cookie-cutter 21st century citizen. What class does a shy athletic nerd genius clown fit in in highschool? The place I fit, I suppose. Oh, but there's my backwards thinking. Not backward in the sense that it's backward from reality, but backward in the sense that it seems everyone else believes the other way. There are predetermined paths and we fall into them, there are predetermined events and they happen to us, there are predetermined people and we become them, are them, wish to be them. It just doesn't work that way.

Look back: the past is the way it was and that's all we know for sure.

So.. ok, off track. At least I'm writing a real entry today. It's been long enough.

I want to talk about something else, not totally off topic but on a different track. I've been aware lately of a kind of anger bubbling up inside. A self-directed needle of rage that is poking itself up in my brain once in a while. I get these sudden negative thoughts about the recent past, about how little I've accomplished or how little effort I've put into life. I think my subconscious is slowly getting more and more ticked off, some screw somewhere is inexorably tightening, and it's going to lead to a sudden change in myself. This is all very unclear because I usually don't think about it so much when the event is so far in the future, when all I've had for warning signs are a few subtle thoughts and impressions. But this is the new me and I talk about all this stuff. Heck, I even talk about daydreams where I'm a rock star being interviewed :oP Whatever, everyone thinks like this, it's just that I'm not afraid to splash it on the internet. I am what I am and I don't think it's a bad thing. Seems like that's my saving grace lately.

So, where does this leave me? Well, I really do know what I need to do to get better. I need to stop pampering myself. I need to be constantly aware that gratifying myself now will not make me happy today. In face, I doubt anything will make me happy today. No new girlfriend is going to come dropping into my lap. No million dollars is going to rain from the sky. No, from the position I'm in, only steady work will get me anywhere, and that is what's so hard to swallow from my childish point of view. It's like the perennial complicated math problem. The student stops and thinks they can never solve it, it's too big. But the teacher calmly reminds them to break the problem down and work on one step at a time. So that's my answer, as I already knew, and as I just didn't want to give the effort enough to carry out. One day at a time. Make goals and stick to them. Feign strength until strength comes.

So.. hopefully I will have the strength to leave the computer off today. I have no reason to turn it on. I have my accoustic guitar, my electric guitar which I can now use my POD to amplify, a book to read, painting supplies that have sat unused, books to design software with, exercise equipment available and the great outdoors beckoning to me with birdsong and soft spring breezes. A camera loaded with film. Golf clubs sitting in the car. God dammit, I'm a rich bastard, a whiny cry baby. Ack.. enough.

ps Vancouver lost last night :o( How sad. Not that I expected them to make it all the way, but hey, they are Canadian :o) I expect to see Ottawa and Anaheim in the final so we'll see if my prediction holds out.

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