Meaningless, meaningless

Funny how a bit of sunshine can make all the difference.  My brain still hasn't given me permission not to think about death and sleep is still a problem, but I'm at the point where other things seem important too, and I don't think people who are happy are stupid and deluded.  Just lucky.

Old people freak me out, though.  And I've got to meet Tom's grandad at the weekend.

In case anyone was wondering, I've had something of a crisis of faith of late, and it's a bit like having a second teenagerhood.  Or it could be an early mid-life crisis, which would be good as it would mean I could spend the rest of my life being happy and middle-aged.  Maybe I should buy a motorbike.

I'd like to ask Morrissey if he's happy now.  Maybe it's just being young that sucks, when you're not really sure where you're going and all your relationships are still relatively new and insecure.

Sorry about not managing to spend much time with everyone at the weekend.  Tom really wasn't up for meeting yet another group of friends, or for juggling.  And you all buggered off early!  I was most perturbed.

Right. Just so's you all know, I've been diagnosed with depression. This mainly takes the form of starting to think about dying and not being able to stop. It's been just over a month so far.

Tom says I should just think how lucky I am to be alive and then go and have some chocolate. It sometimes works, but then I think about how I'd like to die laughing, or up a big hill with a nice view and that starts me off on what it's like to be dead, and it's all downhill from there.

I've read some Scott Peck. He says you can get over your fear of dying by losing your narcissism. My narcissism seems to have set up home and is planning on staying, thank you very much, and Scott Peck's dead anyway, so it didn't work for him, did it?

I think it's the physics/problem solving thing. Death presents a problem to me, and I feel like I need to solve it before I can stop thinking about it. But of course it's not something that you can solve, you just have to live with it, as long as you can and with your fingers crossed.

In the meantime I'm trying to find some friends here, and playing football, and going to Teapots and sometimes to church and talking to Tom about how I feel, because I know a large part of this is circumstancial and will get better if I make the effort to connect with people.

If anyone's ever read Douglas Coupland's "Life After God", the last chapter is pretty much how I've been feeling. It's a good, if slightly depressing, read (though I haven't read the whole thing).

Scott Peck quotes Carl Sandburg:

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.

(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."

Typing this made me feel better.