Thank You

I have come such an incredibly long way since the first time I wrote a post on this blog.

In the past, I didn't use to believe that people could actually change. I knew they could, as I had frequently done myself, make some attempt at a permanent change that would last a while. But real change -- the kind that really lasts -- I thought was impossible. Well, that may not be entirely true. I'm not sure how much I really thought of people, and their ability to change, in general, as much as I thought about my own ability to make a permanent change. Regardless, I was convinced deep down inside that I would not be able to change.

These days, I don't really know if the source of my problems was depression or something else. Depression is supposed to be the ailment of the intelligent, and it would be very neat to imagine oneself as incredibly intelligent, and thus be able to lay the blame on how one has been cursed with the ability to contemplate life too thoroughly. But that's just bullshit, I think. I know I am intelligent, and due to this very fact it is the diametric opposite of my nature to allow myself to simply lay the blame at the feet of the fact that I think I have attained above average intelligence through my lifespan. That's like saying you're too good at something to succeed at it, without implying that succeeding at life only requires you to be intelligent.

But before I digress: I have come a long way. I have truly made a change. I have been able to change the things that I have the power to change, and gained the inner peace required to come to terms with the things that I know I cannot change. I have made so many incredible friends, and I have succeeded at pretty much every undertaking I have involved myself in.

On top of that, I have met a new girl. There was a time where I was unsure if this would ever happen, but lo' and behold. And oh my god, what a creature.

I have, in a way, a high standard for potential partners. I am not content with the average Jane that looks, behaves and thinks like everyone else. I need something different. Something refreshing. Someone with intellect, an opinion and a certain view of the world; if it is a bit different than my own, that is even better; it could give me a new perspective on things.

This girl is everything I could ever have wished for. She is beautiful beyond belief, and it really took me a couple of weeks to even come to terms with the fact that a girl this incredibly beautiful could ever even spare more than a glance for someone like me. On top of that, she is incredibly intelligent and funny, and her world view is ... refreshing. Revitalizing? I'm not sure how to describe it, to be honest. All I know is that it talking to her, and seeing the world from her perspective feels like I am exploring a side of myself that I didn't know I had; it really is a breath of fresh air. She helps me see and enjoy the small things in life, which is something I hope I will be able to keep with me for the rest of my life, regardless of how long this lasts.

During my physics exam, I was, among other things, required to discuss a picture from the Hubble telescope. The telescope had been pointed at a blank spot in the night sky for about 11.5 days, and the resulting picture showed dozens of galaxies. In this blank spot, there was beauty we couldn't even have imagined was there.

I couldn't help but think of her when I saw this picture. If you watch the stars during a clear summer night, it is beautiful, eve at first glance. This applies to her as well. I thought she was beautiful from the first moment I saw her. When she smiles, it's like the sun rose for the first time, and you realize up until the point where you saw her smile, you have lived your entire life in darkness. Her incredibly blue eyes light up in a way you didn't know was possible until you saw it happen when she smiled. The warmth of her smile is probably measurable with scientific equipment.

As it is with the sky, which is beautiful at first glance, and then seems to hold beauty "between the cracks" that you can only see if you look really hard, she has only proven to be more beautiful the closer I have looked, and the more I have gotten to know her.

Her external beauty is a subject for books and poems that I do not have the ability to write properly, unfortunately. But the beauty of her personality is beyond comprehension. She is very possibly the most wonderful human being I have ever met. It eludes me completely and entirely and proves my vocabulary to be completely inadequate when I even make an attempt to describe her. If I wasn't too busy enjoying the company of this fascinating woman, I would be skeptically waiting for some dark side of her to show itself, as it should not be possible to be this wonderful.

Everything she does is beautiful. The way she laughs. The way she tries to pronounce the Icelandic "r" sound. The way she widens her eyes when she looks at me during a debate. The way she chastises me in a somewhat non-serious manner when I throw trash on the ground, but not really, because she really cares about nature, and-how-momma-bird-can-choke-on-that-and-die-and-her-children-will-die-because-they-don't-get-any-food. The way she doesn't indiscriminately kill some random insect that sets down on her arm, because it, too, has the right to live. The way she is content to be alone with her own thoughts; how she will go to a secluded place in nature, just to think and enjoy the view, the sounds and the smells. The way her temper flares if she feel she has been wronged, and also how she makes up for it with the most unbelievable gestures of affection if she realizes that she was wrong, or just to .. make up, regardless of who was wrong. The fact that she somehow manages to laugh at my dumb jokes and stupid antics. How she likes to repeat the same words of wisdom in almost every possible situation. The fact that she has no idea whatsoever how beautiful she is.

I could really go on forever.

The reason I mention this girl is because she has, in spite of the short while I have been with her, shown me that I am worth something. I have spent these two years trying to change; trying to become a better man. I have felt at times that I have succeeded, but I have not really been sure. I have regressed a few times, and felt like I have been close to a downward spiral that could potentially lead to my old self-destructive pattern. But this girl has shown me that if someone as incomprehensibly incredible such as her can see something of worth in me, I must be on the right path. I must have done, and be doing, something right.

Yeah, life is good these days. It's supposed to have its ups and downs, but I am too busy enjoying every moment right now to be pessimistic about the future.

Brain vomit on life, the nature of depression and misc

I've written a bunch of posts before on this blog -- some half-finished that never got published, and some that I did publish -- but I never really seem to actually publish them. I used to link them to a mate of mine that liked to read what I write, but I eventually stopped. Why? Because what I write here is basically a bunch of self-pitying horseshit (fun fact: I just googled "horse shit" to find out whether I had to hyphenate that shit) intermingled with a bunch of melancholic brain vomit where I just write whatever the fuck is on my mind to get it out. I mean, why the fuck would I link that shit to someone? 

Eventually, I'd come back for another session of uncontrolled mind barf, figure out that this was the time I was actually going to make this public, and decide that the posts I've already written were too .. sensitive(read: gay) to actually let anyone read them, so I'd hide them again. This is the reason this is the only post on my blog. 

However, this time, I am going to post this. Really. I am. Yes you are. Yes I am. I'm not feeling particularly melancholic as such, but I've been thinking about some stuff that I'd like to just.. throw out there. Maybe someone will actually have a comment, or maybe someone will find that I have incredible emotional depth and feel like discussing it with me at some point in time. Hah. 

If you are one of my close friends and you are reading this and wondering why on earth I'm writing this in English: well, mainly because I have friends from several countries that speak several different languages, and all of them can read English. But it's also because I feel like I have a grasp on the English language, to an extent where I don't feel like I'm mentally handicapped when I try to express myself in it.

Anywho. I've been thinking about some stuff tonight, and discussing it with a friend. In essence, it was about depression; a subject that is pretty close to heart for me. But I've also been thinking about how depression can seriously fuck your life up, and how it happens. Now, just to be clear here; I'm not saying I'm depressed. Not at all. My life is fucking great. It's never been better. Sometimes I may teeter on the edge, but in reality, that's just because I'm being a lazy fucking bum at times, and need to grab myself by the balls and haul fuckin' ass and do some shit. But I have experienced depression, and witnessed first-hand how it can fuck you up. 

I have a friend who, to be honest, is not doing too well in life. In reality, he never has done very well in life. His entire existence has been a struggle. We're talking about a guy who got bullied at school; he had a family, that, to my eyes, didn't seem to care that much about him (this is my impression, he may view it completely differently) and just, in general, had to exert himself mentally every single day, just to get by in life. 

I'm not trying to call anyone out here. While I won't mention any names, some people will know who this is, including himself, and I will link this to him. But this guy is my friend. My best fuckin' friend. Really. I've known this fuckbag since the age of 6, and I'm 22 years old. To me, that's pretty damn long. I've known him as long as some people I know have been alive. They can only possibly have known someone as long as I've known this friend of mine if they have a twin. Think about that for a second. That's long. 

Anyway, ever since this guy was a kid, he just tried to get by. Really, if I were to describe his life, and incidentally my own to some extent, it would be trying to get by. He tried to meet the expectations of society, of his parents, of everyone around him. He got mediocre grades. He didn't immediately go on and study after the first 10 years of school, and just got a job, which he eventually lost. He eventually got another job, and another, and another -- he just lost them all. So he winds up broke, living off welfare, playing computer games in some shitty apartment in a shitty ass town. And he's just trying to fucking get by. 

I repeat: I'm not trying to make him look bad; if you think so, please read on. 

So how did this appear to his family? Well, this is an analogy I came up with while pondering this before, and I think it works pretty well. Imagine someone you know is pretty thin; someone you see every day. You seem them every day for two years, and you don't really notice it, but they're getting fatter. So eventually, two years later, there's a difference of 25 kgs in body fat, but you don't really notice this gigantic change. I mean, you know it's happening, but you don't notice it. It's not like you saw him one evening, and the next morning he came back looking like he donned a fat suit. But if you compare him now to a picture of him two years ago, you obviously notice a stark difference, no doubt. The same thing applies to age, incidentally.

That's the way this probably happened to look to his family. He was a kid that had a bit of a hard time, but you know, that happens and people often grow out of such shit (thank god). But he didn't. So the years pass, and as he gets older, he has more responsibility. Towards himself, towards society, towards his parents and everyone around him. Bigger burdens on his shoulders. But he continues his self-destructive pattern, but each year, the things that are expected of him -- expectations he is unable to meet -- are bigger. He's not .. doing it for fun. He's not staying up all night, playing computer games, skipping school, skipping work, whatever, because he's a self-indulgent fuckwit, because he thinks it sounds like a good fuckin' idea to fail everyone he knows. But life is fucking hard, and he's just trying to deal with it. Trying to survive. Every escape mechanism that presents itself is used. 

He doesn't realize it, no one probably does, but he's been depressed for the most of his life; probably, definitely, since his adolescence. But to his parents and everyone around him, he's just a kid that had a hard time growing up, that grew up to become a fucking loser -- in the eyes of society, and those that do not understand, anyway.

But he's not a loser. He is someone that had to deal with some shit that he couldn't handle as a kid, and no one ever really stopped and figured, hey, that kid might need some fucking assistance. What he had to deal with can be a bunch of different stuff, and the effect of a depression is often a snow-balling one. Depression breeds fuck-ups which breed depression. It's a vicious cycle. It's the viciousest cycle. I invented a fucking word, it's so vicious. 

This guy is probably my best friend because on some deep, subconscious level, we were dealing with the same shit. We are brothers in arms, fighting on different fronts against the same, nasty fucking monster that is Life. We did experience some of the same problems, like bullying, but for the most part, we didn't have to deal with the same crap. But the results -- the inner, emotional turmoil -- of dealing with whatever we each had to deal with were the exactly the same. 

I was lucky, though. I like to think it was luck, anyway. I don't know. I do not feel superior to my friend in any way, so I won't say that I was simply stronger and managed to get out on top. Life is a bitch that likes to throw feces at different people from different angles, so pretending I was just a better man is just some ignorant bitch shit, to quote Professor Macklemore. I won't go there.

At any rate, I managed to find a solution that works for me. I figured out what I need to do to stay away from depression that will ruin my life, and even then, it's still a struggle. But he didn't. 

Ironically, I went into a very long relationship at a very young age -- I was 16 years old and it lasted into my twenties, roughly 4.5 years -- which both caused some of my depression, due to complicated circumstances, and made sure I had to work at getting my shit figured out. On top of that, I also had a mother that would not tolerate any bullshit. I would become a fucking man, and that's that, motherfucker. Well, my mother obviously didn't use "motherfucker", mainly because my mother is not a feisty, black grandmother, but that would've been pretty fucking cool. Well, ignoring the fact that she would basically be insinuating that I have sex with her. Yeah... getting into the creepy zone. Let's move on.

What is my point with all of this? I'm not really sure. This is pretty much just a mildly coherent brainstorm about depression. But there is some point to this, anyway. 

When you have to deal with stuff at an age when you are not emotionally equipped to deal with said stuff, and no one around you figures out that might be happening, that shit can, and often will, fuck yo' shit up, bro. Yeah, I know, "duh".. 

For some reason you don't know, life just gets hard. Everything about it. Just keeping yourself from not fucking up every single day -- from not making use of every opportunity to escape reality that presents itself -- requires an inhuman amount discipline. You just want to.. go somewhere else. Fucking forget everything. Just laugh, have fun, be interested in something that has no intrinsic, lasting value. Like playing some inane video game for hours on end. 

You will fail. You will slip up, and start fucking up. You will feel guilty about not doing what everyone expects of you -- what you expect of yourself -- and this guilt will lead to more emotional turmoil that you need to escape in whatever form you prefer. Pick your poison; they may taste different, but they will all kill you. 

What do you do to prevent this? I don't know. I never said I had the solution. I have my solution, and, as I said, even that one isn't bulletproof. But what I think I've come to realize while writing this is that the essence of depression (the kind that I have experienced, anyway, and what can I say about what everyone else experiences?) is guilt. It's guilt from not feeling like you are living your life like you should be doing. Doing what you expect of yourself, what everyone else expects of you. What fucking society expects of you. 

If you are reading this sentence, I thank you, as I know it was long, and I hope that reading this wasn't so uninteresting that it drove you into suicidal depression. Because, you know, that would suck. 

Gah. It's way too fucking late. I'm going to go to fucking bed.