“if you don’t have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul.” — Charles Bukowski

I’ve stopped making plans for the future. No, this isn’t some pathetic cry for help in the middle of the night, some vague suicidal ideation without a concrete plan, when insomnia has sunk its cruel claws into me, and there’s nothing I can do but endure.

It’s just an observation. Up until 2008, my timeline was delineated into well-defined four-year chunks. I’d always had a plan. The future always came as a package deal with a price tag. My goals were always bundled.

Now I’ve got this vast expanse of THE REST OF MY LIFE to think about, and I’m just not doing well with grappling with it. Truth be known, I spend most of my time ignoring it. Whether it’s clinical depression or a mild form of PTSD, for the last ten years or so, I’ve been taking things day-by-day, if not hour-by-hour. Because you never know.

Skimming through some of my blog posts just after the WTC attacks in 2001, I kind of wonder if I never really recovered from that. That was really the first time that the capriciousness of fate (and the inevitability of blowback) hit me hard. You never knew when your time was up. (“…or you know neither the day nor the hour.”)

But that was really just a phase in my descent into solipsism and nihilism, though. I guess that was always the trajectory I’d been following. There were a few other traumatic events closer to home and more personal that have stuck with me. There was my dad having his heart attack in 2005 that really derailed me, even though he’s doing (relatively) OK. There was all the death and other bad outcomes that was part and parcel of my training. There was my cousin suddenly dying in 2007 at the age of 29. But it’s really the sum total of all the little failures and small defeats that weigh me down. The paths I never took, the opportunities I never seized.

I never really grew up.

And in the world we live in these days, I’m not really sure I want to.

I guess I’m just waiting for something to force my hand, something that makes the choices (or more precisely, the lack of choices) achingly clear. Until then, I don’t want to think about it.

“There is no choice. We can only go on.” — Schmendrick the Magician, from The Last Unicorn

I’m not sure if there’s really that much benefit in self-diagnosing myself with clinical depression, though. For one thing, this has been a sustained feeling over several years, and probably decades. If anything, this is more like dysthymia. But it just gives what I’m feeling a name, and not much else. Sure, like they say, the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, but that can only get you so far. There’s a reason why there aren’t any one-step self-improvement programs. (Of course, it’s probably always a bad idea to self-diagnose, no matter what problem you have, and no matter how much training you’ve gotten.)

For another, meds won’t magically make the things that are gnawing at me go away. Sure, there are people with depression whose reasons for being depressed are completely irrational, or at least are a complete overreaction (although such cases are probably few and far between.) The meds may actually help in these circumstances, because the trigger may well be illusory or outright delusional. Once the meds put you on an even keel, you realize there really isn’t anything there to make you sad. The demons get banished, and you go on with your life. But if there’s some kind of objective triggering event, some chronic external stress you’re under, then the symptoms probably won’t go away until you somehow get rid of that stressor, no matter how high you push the dosage, or how many meds you take at one time.

Pills can’t fix your external circumstances. The best they can do is reset your internal emotional milieu, perhaps giving you the opportunity to try and fix those external circumstances yourself. Sometimes it doesn’t work. And it certainly won’t work if you never try to deal with those external circumstances.

“Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction…”

Let’s be honest, though. My life is far from bad. I’m not in jail. I’m not being tortured. I’m not being shot at or bombed. People around me aren’t being killed on a regular basis. I’m not starving. (I’m definitely not starving.) I’m not bed-ridden. I have all my limbs.

I have a job, I’m well (or perhaps over-)educated. I have a couple of bucks in the bank.

Life could be worse.

But I suppose that’s the root of my anxiety.

Stasis and stability is damn near impossible to achieve. Life is about an active steady-state, not thermodynamic equilibrium. Thermodynamic equilibrium means you’re dead. But if you’re not actively improving yourself, that means you’re setting yourself up for the long, hard fall. (But I suppose there alway comes a point where the losses start outstripping the gains, and then the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep is fighting the Long Defeat—I’ve internalized Tolkien way too much.) To put it simply, if you’re not moving up, then the only way is down. (It looks like I’ve also internalized the rat race.)

But this is all really prelude.

What I really wanted to write about was how I’ve been feeling crummy all weekend, mad at the world for no particular reason, frustrated with every little thing, and somehow I managed to fix that.

I always forget how soothing music can be.

So I’m blazing down the freeway at 75 mph, with my iPod playing some cheesy pop tunes from the ’80s, and all of this existential angst just kind of melts away, especially in the blessed hour right before sunset, when the sky gleams gold. If heaven exists, I kind of imagine that’s what the sky would look like all the time, although it’s probably the fact that that hour is transient that makes it so beautiful. It’s like you’re in between worlds, between the mundanity of the the waking world, and the shrouding darkness of night, fraught with sleep. (“Between the click of the light, and the start of the dream”)

This too shall pass.

And maybe I’m finally tired enough to get some sleep.