[447] Slipping

I think I'm slowly slipping into a depression. I consider "depression" one of the most overburdened and misunderstood words, particularly in a forum like reddit, so take it as you will.

Practicing awareness seems to have backfired. Instead of granting me some kind of peace, I'm just constantly aware of what isn't working and why. I'm always locked into perpetual problems that seemingly don't need to be problems. I take an opportunity to see friends and feel the need to escape back home because the thought of not seeing them again for several months starts to overtake the last day of jokes and hanging out.

I don't know if I can be depressed when it feels extremely sad. At least it's feeling, right? I'm sure it's horrible to be lonely. I'm sure it's positively terrible to cause yourself physical pain or have someone attack you. The pain of loss is as bad as I get to have. To have the people you want in your "village" to introduce your kids to as they grow up. To have the people who never fail to get the joke.

And they're not around because the world sucks. Because Indiana isn't the mountains of Colorado and the bills need to get paid. Because they have to take what they can get as much as you do. It's not individuals out saving the world drawing from an endless stream of fulfillment and empathy and it's practically unreasonable to assume their responsibilities to the world and campfire. It's handling angry idiots who think they're going to sue your cell phone case company. It's "being really excited to be apart of a startup" with all the enthusiasm it takes to gloss over how hollow a sentiment that often resounds, particularly in the modern era.

People aren't working for themselves. They're not able to have the world reflect what they're actually worth, be it monetarily to what they mean to other people. The opportunity cost is never calculated. The conversations lost. The forgone hugs, jokes, and campfires. The consequences of the impersonality of facebook chat. The consequences of being too busy or too tired to learn about who to vote for...or when. What happens when you, so afraid and so saddened by the thought of what's being lost drives you into the arms of someone else? What happens when your relationships are extra pointless crutches because you've thrown away your medicine?

Then it gets to compound. Then you get to ask yourself why you get to be sad that you don't have a community when Syrians are flooding borders. Why does your "selfish love" of spending time with good people and cracking jokes trump what they're doing, where they want to go, or how they feel about their circumstances? Because of course it doesn't. There aren't "sides" and no one's "winning."

It's a question of why isn't everything a co-op. Why isn't your effort behind a grill, taking an order, spending all day on the phone, or exercising your particular skill or aptitude yours? Why is it "capitalism's?" Why is it presided over by a billionaire? Why does the system design us to be "trainable," sick, and exhausted? My selfish desires exist; I can't escape them. But why should I? The real problem is huge, it's emotionally crippling.

I even have money now. This informs why things would still feel terrible. It's easy to blame your life on lack of essential needs. I'm not paycheck to paycheck. I'm not utterly stranded in some small town. I can do next to anything by way of distraction or entertainment. I'd still rather just be bullshitting with friends. You know, until I feel like I'll provoke my first ever panic attack unless I go home, because I don't know how to express how deep the problem goes.

I don't like that I've been conditioned or persuaded to think that what I want should be regarded as "selfish." I don't like to consider myself smart and have no idea how to get the time, get the place, or get the system. Think Bernie Sanders is going to fix that? Maybe we can finally go to the doctor and get free school, great. How do I flush from my bones the idea that "not working" is automatically equal to "lazy" or "undeserving." I don't personally think that's true, I no less feel a "cultural obligation" to even work on things I vehemently hate or disagree with "just because you're supposed to." As long as people get paid to do what they love, that should be the standard of how we regard our effort. I'm not paid to learn about the world, but my face is glued to reading and writing about it. Where did I disappear to flipping burgers?

I feel hopeless. I don't want to set myself up for relationships I cling to a few times a year maybe a few hours at a time. In one sense, real friends and real people stay with you. In another, in my view, more important sense, who is really choosing to actively separate themselves from a kind of life force? You don't get married and then proceed to move to different countries and wittily text and catch-up for years. Why would we be able to make such good friends if we're to treat them like a familiar bar tender or obscure aunt?

And fuck your cliches about growing up. Growing up for whom? There aren't cultures where you stay practically glued to the people you care about? It seems a kind of disease of the mind to suggest that in a period of unprecedented wealth and opulence, we can't even just exist around people we like or just work and learn for the sake of it.

At this point, I almost want the depression. I want to feel as bad as it deserves. I want whatever part of me is quantumly entangled somewhere else to feel it too and see if there's something to be done on its end. I want to feel the zeitgeist pulse from my dejected words and trembling expression. But then, sometimes I can't even tell when I need to take a nap, so here's to my potential capacity for a mere tantrum. It's easier to write it off when you think about it that way.