Cry

Something eerily poetic about the topic of my 500th post. The melancholy and isolation that inspired BHE six years ago is still with me today. I feel like I haven't really changed that much, but in that six years I managed to get a job, briefly dabble in a relationship, start grad school, as well as hone my photography and prose.

Of course in the same span, I've managed to kill said relationship a dozen times, forgo my zeal for a healthier lifestyle, and grow frighteningly more comfortable in my solitude and despair.

I feel like I'm no further along in my frustrating journey towards self-acceptance and my most recent swan dive into depression as a result of a completely predictable set of circumstances is a testament to that very fact.

Even the Heavens Are Weeping in Solidarity

There's only so much family and culture a man can endure.

Breaker-Breaker

I talk a lot, so I've learned to just tune myself out.

-The Office

Head Games

I've plunged again into the darkest depths of insanity. Anxiety and depression seep from my every pore, physically manifesting in unpleasant and inconvenient deficits. In a manner of speaking it is all just in my head. But somehow that is of small comfort to me. And just when I feel like I've turned a corner, I awake from my wishful slumber and struggle to confront my most distasteful traits.

Learned Helplessness

I feel more lost than ever before. With the aid of my omnipresent LCD companions, I manage to find even newer means of dissociation, all the while ignoring my very own sermons about the pitfalls of its menacing grip. I've never felt like such a hypocrite. I struggle to maintain my tenuous hold on reality, as I desperately flee from the distasteful clutches of self-imposed anxiety. Momentary distractions allow me all too brief an escape from my betraying brain. I ache to be functional, but I succumb to the inescapable allure of denial and avoidance that haunt me even in my dreams.

Night Time

I am and have for most of my life been a creature of the night. As I find myself listening to the reverberating tones of The XX, I think about the emotional depth of that nocturnal connection.

I guess it's always held some mystique for me. When I was a child I envied the freedom the night afforded the adults who went to "dancing." I always imagined what heavenly place this "dancing" might be, this lair to which our parents fled and from which all the children were forbidden. Only as an English speaking adolescent did I realize that "dancing" was not a "where," but a "what."

I've struggled with longing far longer than I care to remember. I recall hanging out on the steps of my boyhood home staring out into the summer night's brilliant sky. Sitting with my boyhood mates talking about boyhood things, all the while consuming the dotted sky with a strange yearning to which I could not lend a voice. A yearning to belong and not be alone, a yearning all the more ironic as I actually did "fit in" then.

I guess night has always represented freedom to me. The normal folks are at home and in bed, but we kindred spirits rule the night. Be it dancing, cruising PCH, or even poring through mounds of scientific text. Can't overlook those unforgettable late night early morning cafeteria study sessions in LA and Wisconsin.

Something refreshingly sedating about the night. It's like borrowed time, like I'm cheating sleep. It's sanctioned dissociation from reality and a respite from all its responsibilities and pitfalls. It's like a giant pause button allowing me a break from anxiety. That insomniac high, that rush of feel good chemicals that elicit laughter even from the least deserving of topics. That freedom to be goofy and brutally honest as the tale of loves lost adorn a cafeteria chalkboard.

To quote Mr. Charles, "The night time is the right time." But it's more than that. It's my time. It's the time when it's ok to be unavailable. Ok to be narcissistic and childlike, because no one is awake to care. The banks are closed, the traffic is light, the food is fried, and TV is mind numbingly inane. All as consistent and predictable as the night itself. No surprises, no need to adjust the set, no need to be on guard.

In a word, free.

Slug

Nobody would ever help a slug with food like they do with ducks and monkeys. A slug's life is pretty bad. The only time they come out of their den is when it's raining. So even their days out are depressing.

-Karl Pilkington