Day 277: Back on track

OK, time to get myself back on track. I knew when I woke up today that I had spent enough time convalescing, that the worst of the depression was passed, and any more time on my back would cross the line into self-pity and self-indulgence.

But still I lay in bed wallowing. I got trapped in a social media loop on my phone, scrolling and scrolling, bingeing on empty novelty, finding nothing nutritious, repeating the same actions anyway. The equivalent of eating through a sharer bag of Doritos, avoiding pain with repetition, the addictive behaviour bringing up guilt and shame, sadness, helplessness, but burying all that with yet more of the addictive behaviour.

Finally I realised I had to move. I thought about what the most important step was right this moment - out of all my worries and issues, what was most pressing right now?

It was getting out of bed. So I forced all my energy into doing this. Then, once up, I made my bed. I took a shower, put on clothes. I tidied my room. It wasn’t exactly messy, but I did what there was to do, put books back on shelves, lined up shoes and slippers, threw food wrappers away, put my camera in its bag and put the bag where it belonged. I meditated. Went downstairs and made coffee, ate a banana, had cereal. Put clothes to wash. Did some reading about depression - know thine enemy - and did some CBT work - know thyself.

- - -

Often, in the depths of depression, one thought above all others ricochets around my skull. “Is this my fault?” Regardless of what I know about the very real and external causes of depression, when I’m suffering and the pain overwhelms me I can’t seem to shake the constant nagging fear that maybe it’s just me being weak and pathetic, maybe I’m bringing it all upon myself by giving up.

I don’t want to get into too much detail here, but suffice it to say my conclusion, which I have arrived at many times before, and need reiterating for myself now, is this: The entire universe is to blame for depression. Every blade of grass, every atom, you, me, God, all the gods, the whole cosmos, it all swirls together in sometimes beautiful ways, and sometimes ways that lead to immense suffering. Depression is part of this. Don’t worry about why it happened and whether you were at fault. It’s here now. It is real.

And yet victimhood is not the correct response either. The locus for change, the pivot point, is the personal self. Your depression will not improve simply by understanding its etiology, nor by blaming others, nor yet by changing laws, by making society more just - you cannot remove past trauma, re-engineer your genes, prevent troubled childhood experiences from causing skewed schemata in your brain from forming. These things need considering, understanding. But they are not the hill upon which you must fight. That hill is the present moment, and the manifesting of all your problems in it. Avoid negative behaviours, ingrain positive behaviours, and you will slowly change your brain chemistry. This is a fact.

As a general rule, action is better than inaction. Even the smallest, most stupid sounding goals can have profound effects when continued over long periods. Don’t stay in bed. Always shower. Eat a piece of fruit. Walk round the block. Do 20 press-ups. Meditate for five minutes. Write a paragraph a day. Create to-do lists for the day and cross them off one at a time, put yesterday’s unfinished tasks at the top of today’s list. 

Doing things helps.

But while doing things, problems will arise. Here, to help me, is a list of some of my problems, and what I can do about them:

Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are one of my demons. They arrive suddenly, from nowhere, crashing in. “This is pathetic. You’re worthless. What a waste of time. You're ugly. Repulsive. Stupid. Talentless.”

- What to do: CBT helps here. Catch the thoughts. Notice them. They arise, exist independently for a moment, then I swallow them, digest them, assimilate them, and they are part of me. Note down every time I become aware of one, and it gets easier to catch them in that moment before they dissolve into me. “Aha, that was an ANT. I see you.” That is all that is needed. Make tally charts of every time they arise. For ones with more force do CBT work to challenge them, question their validity. For example: “Do I know with absolute certainty that this blog post is worthless? Can I think of any examples why it is not worthless?” Brought into the light of awareness ANTs tend to shrivel away into nothing.

Rumination is another demon. Related to ANTs, but not quite the same thing. Sometimes it’s an ANT that starts up the ruminative process, but the process itself is the obsessive worrying, round and round, about problems, without coming to any conclusions. Obsessing over why I’m like this, rather than how to fix it. 

- What to do: As soon as I notice myself ruminating it is vital to disrupt the pattern, to get out of that neural network. Concentrate on anything else. If it is necessary then write out everything I’ve been worrying about, put the worries into order of importance, and brainstorm simple plans to tackle the first items on the list. Later worries can be shelved for the moment.

Learned helplessness is something I’m not sure I’ve written about before. It’s a major component of depression, in some models in fact it essentially is depression, the perceived lack of control of situations learned through previous uncontrollable stress and trauma. You can instil learned helplessness in a rat by shocking it or dunking it in water randomly and continuously, until eventually it won’t try to escape even when escape is possible. 

For me learned helplessness manifests as that “woe is me” mentality, overly dramatic, wanting to fling myself on my bed at the first sign of difficulty and tell everyone to leave me here to rot, that it’s too late for me, it’s all hopeless.

- What to do: Again, mindfulness is important. Noticing the thoughts as thus. “This is learned helplessness I’m experiencing right now.” To ask whether past experiences are clouding my current judgement. “Is there actually no way over this obstacle, or do I just feel that way because of learned helplessness?”

(I just felt it then. “There’s no way to finish this blog post. It’s sprawling too far. It's too long. I can’t do it. I need to give up.” So - note it down. Recognise it for what it is. And get back to work.)

Learned helplessness is a system broken through trauma and stress. But the system can be fixed. What was learnt can be unlearnt.

Self-esteem is yet another issue. A far-reaching and wide-ranging sense that I am not good enough, a sort of shadowy lack of confidence leering behind all things.

- What to do: Small actions help. Make lists of accomplishable tasks, and accomplish them. That builds pride. When the feeling comes on, know that it’s a demon, that action is called for. Do not sit and think about the low self-esteem, do not let rumination start up. It’s addictive and ingrained and feels like the right way forwards. It is not. The way forwards is to recognise the danger and immediately act, rather than ponder. Tidy my desk. Do some press-ups. Read a page of whatever non-fiction book I’m reading, to learn something new. Write mindfully about what the low self-esteem feels like, where in the body it is located, how physiology changes. Accomplish even the smallest thing, push forwards a millimetre rather than stay and be pulled back by the demon.

Full depression. And then there are the deeper symptoms that manifest when those others have shunted me fully into a depressive episode. Anhedonia, grief, psychomotor retardation, restlessness, sleep problems, all the rest. That’s where I’ve been the last few days.

- What to do: When this happens think of it like coming down with a bad case of flu, like breaking my leg. Accept the severity of the situation. Drop all other concerns and focus only on allowing myself the time to get better. Treat myself gently and kindly. Call or message people I trust. Go gingerly, but gracefully. Do not reach for pain-relieving vices that will cause more harm than good. Do not drink or do drugs. Do not eat junk food. Shower, if possible. Take short walks, if possible. Watch things on TV I would have liked as a child, guilty pleasures. Give myself little treats. Expect almost nothing, but try not to run to harmful things either. The dark clouds will pass. The sky will be clear once again.

...That's all a loose list, and there are things I've left off, but it's a good start, to help me get back on my feet. Do the things I need to do, stay active, keep ingraining positive habits and behaviours, and when those specific demons show up, as of course they frequently will, deal with them in the ways that have been proven to work.

I am doing so much better than I once was. Healing is not linear, but, wobbly, in spluttering fits and starts, it happens nonetheless. Upwards!

Day 261: Cherry

When I was a kid we’d have this iced bun cake for dessert sometimes. Do you know the kind I mean? It came in a round plastic container, a ring of bread buns with icing on top, surrounding one central bun, which, on top of the icing, was decorated with a single glacé cherry.

Now, this central bun with the cherry on top was the best bun, demonstrably, and my sister and I would fight furiously over it. Some days I would successfully and honourably make my appeal to the Court of Parents that, as I had cleared the dinner plates and brought in the dessert, I had earned the cherry bun. Some days my sister would do something conniving and manipulative to secure the cherry bun for herself. Now and again my father would take the cherry bun, to avoid arguments, and because he was biggest. Once, my mother tried to claim that she was entitled to the cherry bun, as she had spent all day cooking and serving the meal we’d just eaten, and had in fact been the one to traipse all through the supermarket on a rainy afternoon and pick up the iced bun cake in the first place. The rest of us summarily dismissed this claim as “rubbish” and “boring”.

Anyway, more than reminiscing about lacklustre dessert in Yorkshire in the nineties, I want to talk about happiness.

Because, as far as I can tell, there are two types of happiness. There is the happiness of gaining, and the happiness of doing. The gaining happiness, which you feel when you succeed, when you win, when you get a reward, is like the bun with the cherry on top. It’s the happiness of a notification pinging your phone to tell you that your recent Instagram post has new likes. The happiness of taking home a glamorous new outfit from town. The happiness of someone you find attractive paying you a compliment. Mmm. Succulent red cherry.

It’s a good feeling, this, and one intrinsically tied into our existence. We use this feeling to reinforce behaviours that offer the maximum potential for staying alive and securing the survival of our offspring and thus our species - eating, socialising, sex, novelty, competition.

But it’s only the cherry on top of life. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it isn’t. Cherries can’t fill up a life. There aren’t enough of them. Orient yourself based solely on chasing cherries and you’re setting yourself up for terrible failure and sadness. You either don’t get the cherries, in which case everything was for naught, or you do, and that becomes your baseline, and next time you need a larger cherry, a brighter cherry, more cherries, to relight that pleasure of gaining.

Desire cannot be satiated. As creatures in the world we want. It is part of who we are. If you get what you want then next day you want more. Every day of your life you will want. Accept this. Extinguishing desire isn’t happiness, it is anhedonia, depression.

But there is another kind of happiness, the happiness of doing. This is the rest of the iced bun. You get it when there’s a cherry, but you get it without the cherry, as well. It’s the happiness of being absorbed in a process - designing tattoos, streamlining workflow in the office, writing a blog. It is the happiness of concentration, of flow, of trying at something, before the feedback that tells you whether or not you were successful.

And it is the happiness of awareness. Not just of doing but of being. The doing of being alive, which your body is doing all the time, and can be rested within in meditation, in simply paying attention to this moment now.

There’s always going to be a child inside you that grasps for a cherry, that grins when it gets it, sulks when it does not, frowns when it is gone. This rollercoaster of pleasure and pain is one we all must ride, as Ronan Keating so astutely observed.

But just remember the other type of happiness, as well. Simply by being alive we all get this gift of an iced bun every day. So find something on which you want to concentrate, and concentrate. Be it designing clothes, running a business, raising a family, sitting cross-legged in a park listening to the wide river of life flowing on.

Enjoy the cherries, when they come your way, but set yourself up so that you appreciate the bun with or without the cherry. Learn to ground your focus in that, and you'll see the cherry for what it is - a nice addition, but not the whole of the story, not even nearly.

...... 

Music: That's That, by Cass McCombs. 

Day 231: Why meditate?

It's the obvious question. If meditation is so difficult and frustrating and boring and slow, why do it? Why spend ten minutes every day of your life sitting still with no phone and no TV and no music, no entertainment, no stimuli, simply counting your breath over and over again?

The answer: because we have lost control of our brains. Our thoughts are running amok. We have evolved to be so good at thinking that we do not know how to let go of thinking, we do not know how to be grounded and present, rather than lost in thought, and this is lessening the value of our lives.

You've heard the aphorism that to the man with a hammer everything begins to look like a nail? Well we are like that with thought, with the narrow thinking of the intellect, the voice in our heads, which is but a minuscule portion of the far more diffuse and disparate and complex system that is the mind. We bring our intellect to bear on the world to such an extent that soon we forget that not everything in the world needs to be dealt with intellectually.

Rather than a hammer, picture a man with a sword. This is the intellect. Its great strength is that it cuts. It separates the world into component pieces - cuts Northern from Southern Hemisphere, cuts Europe from Asia, and Britain from Europe, us from them, cuts the self from the environment, one from two, nouns from verbs, now from then, observer from observed.

We've needed this swordsman to survive, to fight our way out of the primordial swamps and on to success. He has won us many battles, many wars. We have promoted him from guard to lieutenant to captain to general, and his confidence, and arrogance, has grown. He has started ruling for us, in our stead, and we have let him, because he did such a good job of getting us here.

But he isn't a wise and benevolent king. His heart is that of a simple swordsman, and thus, whenever a problem arises, whatever the problem may be, his first thought is to reach for his blade...

The intellect is vital to us. We need it when handling our company's accounts. When rewriting complex laws. When studying economics. When attempting our maths homework.

But what about when taking in a sunset? Admiring a work of art? When walking alone through a forest in the pale morning light with the spring's first bluebells coming to bud? When lying naked in bed with a lover?

Of course we always require the intellect to some degree. The swordsman must always be at our sides. But how much use is it, how worthwhile, to be stood on a mountaintop staring out at the expanse of land stretched below, and to be able to only focus on your little swordsman as he jabbers about this and that and the other, what happened last Tuesday, why Linda didn't reply to your email, when the next season of so-and-so is coming out, why it is that you'll never be happy?

Meditation is the antidote to this. It is a technique for putting the swordsman back in his place.

By focusing on your breath, or the sounds coming to you, or a repeated mantra ("om mani padme hum") you are giving your swordsman a block of wood. He has to be alert, has to be chopping continuously, to be prepared for danger, but with meditation you are giving him a block of wood and saying, Here, chop this!

And he chops at the wood, chop, chop, chop, and he chops away from the wood, and at the ground, and the air, and pretty soon he's chopping everything in your awareness again. And you bring him back to the wood, No, chop this!

And he chops at the wood, and away from the wood, and at...

No, chop this!

And you keep bringing him back. And slowly you give him a distraction while you build the strength of all the rest of your awareness. While you concentrate on ruling, and appreciating, this existence that your swordsman has won for you.

Because everything that the intellect does is about keeping you alive. But there's a whole depth of mindfulness within you that isn't just trying to stay alive, but is the reason for living.

We're talking sunsets, bluebells, lovers, croissants. Saint-Saëns. Tarkovsky's Solyaris. Sundays by the fire with the dog.

These things don't need cutting apart, analysing, measuring, weighing. They need experiencing. You don't think about them. You exist with them.

Meditation is a way to deepen your ability to exist with the world.

You should try it.

......

Music: The Swan, from The Carnival of the Animals, by Camille Saint-Saëns.

Day 230: Meditation

Here's one I've been meaning to write for a while now. I've begun meditating again, and I want to say something about it.

I’ve been meditating off and on (mostly off) for a decade now, and I want to talk a little about my process, and what I see as its point, because I think there’s still a fair amount of confusion about these things.

Meditation is a programme of training to help you pay attention to the present moment on purpose. Paying attention to the present moment on purpose is where we want to be. It’s like “being strong” in bodybuilding terms. It’s the end goal.

Meditation is the lifting of the weights. It’s how we get our minds strong.

Here’s how I do that:

I kneel on the floor upright and alert. I kneel on one cushion, and put another between my calves and thighs, to stop my heels digging into my bum. I rest my hands in my lap, palms upward, one on top of the other.

If I could get into the lotus position, or half lotus, or a similar pose, then I would do that. These are very stable positions, if you possess the flexibility for them. Conversely, if I couldn’t kneel then I would sit upright on a chair. If I couldn’t do that I would lie down. What’s important is that you feel comfortable, but alert, that you can breathe deeply, and that your posture embodies a willingness to face this moment, not slouch away from it.

Next I take a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, because this is a nice thing to do. If I’m feeling particularly stressed I might do a body scan, which involves focusing on my toes, then the balls of my feet, my heels, my ankles, shins, calves, knees, up through my body, spending a little time with each area, gently, in no rush, noting where there is tension, letting the tension go if it feels appropriate to do so.

And then I start meditating. And what, precisely does this occult, mystical process involve?

It involves paying attention as I breathe in and out.

That’s it. Sometimes I count my breaths, once after every out-breath, up to ten, and then start again from one. Sometimes I focus on the sounds around me instead, letting whatever comes to my ears be the object of my attention, holding it in loving awareness, simply watching it, allowing the sound to exist. Sometimes I repeat a neutral word, like “flower”, or “river”, over and over again. The object of attention doesn’t hugely matter; it is the attending to it, with mindfulness, that is important.

I pay attention as if this out-breath, this sound, this word, was the gaze of a lover, or a newborn child, or a treasure brought forth from the deep. I pay attention to this mundane moment of my life wholly, and lovingly, and with unquenchable wonder.

And what happens when I do this, when I attend to my breath, or to a repeated phrase, with watchful, loving, mindful awareness?

I get distracted. The voice in my head starts up, chundering on, and I lose myself in thought.

This usually takes a second or two to happen.

I get distracted. I cough, renew my focus, bring attention back to the breath. And I get distracted. I kick myself - you dummy - I shift my weight, get comfortable again, bring attention back to the breath. And I get distracted. I realise I’ve been thinking about… something or other, down twisting rabbit holes of thought, for minutes. I get annoyed. I feel anger rising. I quash the anger down. I feel despair that I’m spending my meditation time quashing down anger, that I can’t obey even the simplest of instructions, that I’m not a venerable Zen master cloaked in billowing robes immovable as a rock. I picture myself, kneeling on a dusty cushion on a carpet I should have hoovered weeks ago, and I… dammit, I bring attention back to the breath. And I get distracted. On a dusty cushion on a carpet I should have hoovered weeks ago. And I haven’t washed my sheets. Or done last nights dishes. And then there’s that presentation for work next week, I haven’t even started that. I sag. It’s hopeless. No. It’s not hopeless. I force myself to focus. I do it. I sit up straight again. I wrench my awareness away from negativity, bring attention back to the breath.

And I get distracted...

This happens. It happens to me. It happens to meditation teachers. It happens to billowy-robed Zen masters. And it will happen to you.

This is meditation. Bringing your attention back is meditation. If your attention didn’t need bringing back then you wouldn’t need meditation. If you could magically lift a car in one hand then you wouldn’t need to do bicep curls and press-ups.

Maybe Superman can just be strong without effort, because he's a special alien. And maybe there are super-meditators who are equanimous and tranquil as the morning sun’s first shining rays, with minds like softly bubbling brooks. But the rest of us need practice.

Meditation is practice. It isn’t having a calm mind. It is the training of calming your insanely fractured and ever-leaping mind. And it takes a lifetime. You don’t do ten press-ups and then find yourself able to lift a car forever afterwards. You do ten press-ups every morning, and gradually, over many months, you find your strength improving, your physical grounding in the world becoming more vibrant and active and alive. And if you stop doing those daily press-ups, you lose it.

Of course some people become obsessed with bodybuilding, and spend every hour of every day lifting enormous weights. There are good things that can come from this: being part of a community of like-minded individuals, developing a life with structure and routine, setting and achieving difficult goals - and there are bad things that can come from this: obsession, addiction, the feeding of the ego, the irony that the singular fanatical drive to be strong in many ways only shows that underneath it all you are so very weak.

Similarly, there are people for whom meditation becomes their all. They join clubs, post in groups, obsess over correct posture, argue about schools of Buddhism, pay large figures to attend intensive meditation retreats.

And if you want to do this, more power to you. It’s not wrong. But be aware that the necessity for meditation is the necessity to assuage ego and overthinking, and devoting yourself to the cult of meditation can increase your vulnerability to precisely these problems of ego and overthinking.

(But then so can everything. I have to be aware that my ego is playing the game here, playing at being modester-than-thou. We all have egos, and they all do ego things. Meditation is in fact a great way of watching the ego, accepting it, and not taking it too seriously.)

What I’m saying is: don’t worry about not being fully invested. You don’t need to shave your head and sit in zazen, just as you don’t need to bench-press like Hulk Hogan. In many ways doing so can make you less whole. Ten press-ups and five minutes meditation a night is a fine way to live.

So, then. Sit down. Bring your attention to your breath. Every time your mind wanders, bring it back. When you notice yourself feeling pathetic at how many times your mind wanders, simply ask, are you still lost in thought right now, or are you bringing attention back to the breath? When you find yourself thinking how bored you are, simply ask, are you still lost in thought, or are you bringing attention back to the breath? When you’re thinking about how you’re going to bring your attention back to the breath, simply ask, are you still lost in thought, or are you bringing your attention back to the breath?

There is only the bringing of attention back to the breath. Everything else is distraction. You will have a mind full of distractions. These are your weights. Lift them. Bring attention back to the breath, over and over and over again.

This is meditation.

Next time: but why?

...... 

Music: kinda want to do some dirty Run the Jewels hip hop, for the incongruity, but no. Let's go with the lilting, soaring Tibetan folk of Tenzin Choegyal and the Metta String Ensemble. It's no Run the Jewels, but it's pretty good.

Day 216: Clockless

Oh hey, you. I’ve been slepping. That’s like sleeping, but lighter, when you were so tired last night you couldn’t get to sleep, your brain kept scrunching everything up tight yelling “Get to sleep! You have to get to sleep!” - and in the end you drifted off about six, then your alarm is piercing the emptiness of your room two hours later, a muddy daze of shower and walk in rain and bus and work, mind twanging in and out of focus, useless all day, then you finally come home and your legs are throbbing, your eyes are diodes, too zonked to eat tea, sit in your office chair for a while and then go fall in bed, and there you are slepping, in and out of consciousness, knowing you can’t be properly asleep, that you have to do the day’s blog before you can rest, but you’re not getting up yet, another ten minutes, another fifteen, on right through evening into another time - not night… the reverse side of night, with the phantasms howling and dark spectres creeping down your spine.

And it’s in this time when the negative voices start up. They’ve been looking for an in for a few days now, since you kicked them out, and in this clockless time with your basic consciousness too tired to switch off but higher awareness fizzling and sputtering out of focus, this is when they make their play.

“You know, it’s only reasonable,” they say. “You’re just a failure, aren’t you? We’re not being cruel, it’s just facing the facts, isn’t it. Look at the facts. We’ll go through them, together, sensibly…”

And then they list everything you dislike about yourself, every secret shameful gesture, memory, moment. All your weaknesses. All your fears. One after the other, a litany of loathing, an entreaty to broken ego.

AND THAT’S WHEN YOU TELL THE VOICES TO GO SUCK IT.

Not a chance, you pesky mutts. Goddamned voices. Not happening. You shake yourself awake and go make a Lady Grey, eat a banana and satsuma while kettle boils, and you go write your blog post, not being despairing or angry or anhedonic, but hopeful and content. This is your life. These voices are your voices. But they are such a small part. They’re echoes of past trauma, no longer holding any but the faintest residual power, so long as you don’t bestow them with more. And that is your choice. Sit through the voices - you gotta do that. You force them down and they just come back out another opening when you’re not looking. You gotta sit through them. But believe them? Naw, man. To hell with that.

MUSIC: Saint Huck, Nick Cave. What the hell put Nick Cave in my head? Where did he come from? I don’t know, but he arrived, from some other place, clanging and crashing cymbals and wailing into the void. Saint Huck is a song about Huckleberry Finn, recounted by a mechanical spider vomiting up its metallic innards after some bad lysergic acid. Jagged, piercing, and spasmodic, it is made for nights like this.

Day 209: Present

Voice of negativity has been howling of late, stomping its feet, threatening to blow down all my houses of cards. "Blog is pathetic," it screams. "You're a heap of dirt. You're grosser than the matter you find collected under the nail of a big toe."

The voice wants me to give everything up, crawl back under the covers, slink away to where it's dark and silent and safe.

Yeah, it's been howling. And in fact it turned up just then. "How many times have you written this exact post? How many times have you thought you had something interesting to say, but you never learn, you never move on. You should just admit that you're making a fool of yourself, and quit this blogging nonsense once and for all."

But it's good to hear that voice. Good to be present as it attacks. Because normally it sneaks in the back entrance, slinks up the stairs, and before I know it there it is in the control room of my brain manoeuvring me around without me ever giving permission.

I'll be distracted, lost in this or that, and then from the depths of my mind a thought arrives, like I'm figuring something out, finally recognising, that, for example, everything I create is worthless - and there's no arguing, because it doesn't feel like an opinion with which you can argue. It's more that I myself have finally noticed, or perhaps admitted, something that has always been present in reality. I have always been pathetic. Every word I write has always been atrocious. Yes, I am like that sad hopeful in every season of X-Factor, shuffling into the audition room certain of their secret ability to sing, but they can't, they can't sing, and it's clear to everyone else, and they're not the freak show or the star they're just another nobody, filled with delusions, to be summarily dismissed halfway through a long day with the judges thinking only of how long they still have to wait before they can break for lunch.

And there's always the sense of shame and despair in recognising that to be true, the feeling of all the energy seeping out of my muscles, and the voice becomes self-loathing, gathers momentum, spirals, and soon I'm actively searching out every example in my life that proves the initial thought to be true.

But it's not true. It's not reality. It is an interpretation of reality. An opinion about reality.

And, like the voice of a smoker screaming that they have to have a cigarette, that they cannot cope through the day without one, the voice of negativity has a motive. Addiction wants the smoker to smoke, and will tell any lie, warp reality in any way, to make it happen. But if the smoker doesn't take up the impulse, if they watch the craving, then the craving will rise, and peak, and fall back, and the person will be left, still there, like a beautiful blue sky after a storm.

And so it is with depression, with that voice of negativity. It wants me to give up writing, because writing is scary, and leads into unknown places. It wants me to stay small, and beaten, and not make a fuss. And so it twists truth until it has ammunition to use against me, and it deploys it, in a voice engineered to be effective. It explains, beseeches, begs, or shouts, depending on what works best. It doesn't want discussion, ambiguity, consideration of alternatives. It wants to take control, and to have its way, and everything it says works to further those aims.

But smokers do give up smoking, although the urges always stay with them. And I will give up depression, although that voice will always remain.

I'm getting better at catching the voice. Standing here, in the light of awareness, and watching the creature creep up the stairs, settle into position, clear its throat.

I'm getting better at staying present as it speaks. Hearing how what it says is not reality, but the same old voice spouting the same old warped interpretations of reality.

The creature turns malicious, thunders, threatens to smash apart the world. And I'm getting better at remaining still, giving the voice space, and letting it thunder out of steam, falter, fall silent. I stay present, and the creature sighs, retreats, slinks back into the dark.

Until, of course, thirty seconds later, when it returns for its next attack. But it has only a few strategies, it's all bluster and no bite. My approach need never alter. Be mindful. Be here. Be awake to watch the voice arriving, to not react, to let it exhaust its bag of tricks.

Negative voices can do nothing without our permission. We need only be alert enough to ensure we do not give it.

Day 207: Remember

Been off work with a sick bug today, spent last night throwing up, today huddled in blankets eating soup and fruit and watching Netflix.

Not feeling as down on myself though. The world is difficult and painful enough, there's no need to heap more suffering on my shoulders in the form of self-loathing.

The old negative voices have been seeping back in steadily for a while now. Been falling back into unhealthy habits, sleeping all day, staying up all night, eating junk food and staring at Youtube and scrolling down social media, squeezing out a few meaningless words onto the blog last thing before bed, feeling the pressure of depression forcing me down as a voice of shame whispers that I'm 33 and I just work in a bar, I can't drive, I'm going nowhere with this blogging and I've got no forward momentum and I've saved up no money and my skin is awful and I've utterly failed at life.

But you know what? That voice can get fucked. Can get itself directly to fuck.

I've heard that voice so many times before, and dealt with it so many times before. I know how to deal with that voice. I know what to do. I've forgotten to do it of late, because I've been tired and stressed, and worried about breaking up with Fran, but I do know what to do.

It's like meditation. You bring your attention to your breath, you forget, you bring your attention back, you forget again. Over and over. You don't fail because you forget. The forgetting is part of the meditation. It is training.

Well, here I am remembering. Bringing my attention back.

I know the steps. Be mindful of the negative voices. Hear them, acknowledge them, bring them out into the light. Then challenge them. Find alternative interpretations for reality. Keep working. Keep taking baby steps. Focus on the positives. Accept help. Accept praise. Work on feeling worthy of love.

I've learnt how to do this and then forgotten again a thousand times before. That just means that remembering is easier than ever.

I can do this.

Day 183: Six months

Another busy Saturday shift. Another long bus ride up the hill, eyelids dropping with head bumping gently against glass. Played an hour of Red Dead when I got in, tramped around the first town, looked at new revolvers I couldn’t afford, thought about buying an engraving for my current pistol, hung out in a saloon, squelched through mud, went to a church, took in a show, had a fist fight… then let my character lie back in a bath in the town’s hotel, the drip of water, muffled voices through the wall, moody cowboy blues playing lugubriously in the background.

I’ve had rejuvenating carrot and ginger soup for tea (back in the actual world), with plump brown rolls and lots of butter. I’ve eaten an apple and an orange for dessert, and drunk a mug of steaming blackcurrant tea. I’m going to put this up, and then get an early night, for the first time in far too long.

I’m trying, trying to go easy on myself, to resist the gravitational pull of negative thoughts. To carefully direct myself away from their orbits, to learn to rest in the empty space outside of harmful routine.

Day 183. Somewhere between yesterday and today I reached the halfway point; I have now been doing this for six months. It never feels like it but I have made real progress. I am better than I have been in a long time.

Keep going. It will get worse, and harder, and easier, and harder, and better. And gradually, gradually, life will change.

Day 169: Stubborn

Oh hello there. Hello hello. I am very self-conscious right now. I'm finding writing is making me very self-conscious. Well that's just the way it is. Got to put those words down. Got to put up this blog. So write and write and power on through regardless.

I was working today. I was at work. It was... no, let us not talk of it. Afterwards I came home from work, and that was good, except I was tired from the work, and my brain had turned to gravy. But that was also the fault of me staying up till half two last night editing more photos, which I didn't mean to do but then I did it, and then I'd done it and there was nothing I could do. 

Oh well. I've cooked a meal this evening, with actual vegetables, so I'm pleased with that. I've edited more photos. Put photos on Facebook for my family who don't have Instagram to see. I did my Instagram post for work earlier, and I did one for my own page after that. Did a gratitude list. I'm doing this writing now.

Small steps. One foot in front of the other. Don't look down, don't get dizzy, just keep on concentrating a foot ahead. Yes. It's a kind of vertigo I suffer from. Writers' vertigo. As soon as I start writing I feel myself to be dangerously high, and I watch myself writing, turning myself inside out for the world to see, and my head swims and I get wobbly and I panic, and suddenly I can't move forward or go back, I'm paralysed, like stage fright, like the fear at the edge of a cliff.

But I've got over this, in the past, time and time again. I was doing much better with it, then recently I was doing worse, and now I feel myself ready to face the problem again. I'll keep going, and it will get easier, as it always does.

There are things, and if you do these things you can succeed. It's true in anything. In learning the trombone or building a rocket ship or setting up your own meringue business.

For me right now writing is a thin mountain path beside a fiery abyss. Well then I simply focus on my feet, lift one up, find a good spot ahead on the ground, put my foot down, transfer my weight, repeat with the other side. Over and over, and eventually I'm back into bucolic meadows.

If you're struggling with mental health, this is my only advice to you. Find very simple tasks that you can complete, and complete them. Make a plan for how to go to the shops. Lay out the steps for getting through the shower. Create a foolproof guide for getting out of bed.

My mental health is not that bad at the moment. But trying to write, to tread the treacherous journey upwards climbing the mountain of self, has been difficult. There's been a sandstorm of self-consciousness howling at every turn.

But I can still put one foot in front of the other. I can still slowly, stubbornly stumble on.

The storm will abate. It will cease. And until then there is only this. Do the things. Keep on going. Repeat and repeat and repeat.

I hope that whatever your things are you are able to find the strength to do them, and that you are able to carry on.

Day 160: Storm

I can feel myself getting depressed today. I can feel it coming on. Everything is slower, more difficult. I'm wading through sludge, there is black tar between objects. My thoughts are dragged downwards into negativity. I force myself to think something positive, and immediately a weight is tied to it and it plummets down through the clouds into frustration and despair. The flowers of thoughts begin to sprout and immediately curl into weeds and rot and die as ash.

It's tiring. Getting from one thing to the next takes so much effort. Nothing flows. There's no buoyancy, no accomplishment, no reward. I must drag myself by my fingernails into the next moment, and all that is waiting is the need to drag myself again to the moment after that.

My soul has no poetry. Words are leaden and crusty and weak.

So I do what has to be done. I write long lists of reasons to be grateful. I shower, put on clean clothes. I do three loads of washing, clothes and towels and sheets. Drink water. Eat food. Walk around the houses as the sun goes down.

And I don't ask too much of myself, I accept that when I'm like this I can only get a basic post up on my blog.

It's so disheartening being like this, falling into this mindset every couple of weeks, every week.

But what does arguing with reality get me? Nowhere. Better to stay completely still, be very calm, do the things that help even though they don't feel like it, avoid the things that make it worse though they whisper of momentary relief.

Stay still. Accept this. Let the storm within me bluster, rage, and pass.

Day 154: Interstices

Walking to a coffee shop before work, the September sun low in the sky, the sun shining through leaves that are turning red and bronze in the air that is empty and infused with the first brittleness of an autumn reaching out its clawed hands. The leaves cast complex shadows that dapple across the brick facades of the university buildings; beneath the buildings is a lattice of shadow on the ground stretched through an iron walkway's open interstices. Throngs of students jostle and wait. One brown leaf on the ground, two more, mushed under foot. A beggar crumpled against the wall of an express supermarket. Chinese students with face masks clenched over mouths.

In the coffee shop the lamplight is warm. The customers wear olive green and navy and black. They talk, type on laptops, cradle their phones. Coffee cups clatter. The din of conversation is pleasant. A group of female students in a cloud of cloying perfume debate about boys in their lectures, about who doesn't do the washing up in their houses, about how to edit Bitmoji avatars. The lampshades are opulent. The girders are polished metal. The tabletops worn varnished teak.

From the table of perfumed students, incongruously: "Is any of this real? Are we living in a dream world?"

...

Work is the screaming maw of an insatiable beast. All commotion. All noise. Swallowed for hours into the dark, not knowing which way is up, struggling to breathe.

On my break I pass another homeless man on my way to the shop. He is sat with his legs out, against the wall, shuffling this way and that. He is trying to get his behind onto a thin strip of cardboard, warmer (moderately) than the cold stone of the ground. The cardboard strip is so small. He's trying to find the placement that causes the least pain. Every option causes some pain.

I think about him as I walk on, and returning I offer him one of my cookies. He nods. I open the packet and hand him two. He tucks them into an inner fleece pocket. I don't know what to say so I leave.

The ground is hard. It is cold. The leaves are falling and they are red and bronze and brown.

Everything you have ever seen is made of universe. All matter is patterns moving at speed.

Know this. Sense this. Walk on.

Day 141: Singing to get out

It is Saturday so I pour pints of San Miguel. I serve Jagerbombs and double vodka Redbulls and tequilas with salt and lime. I wipe the bar top. I float the tills. The change box is out of 50ps. I get 50ps from the office. I wipe the bar top. I serve pink gin and tonics. Rhubarb gin and tonics. House gins with lemonade. I stack glasses. Wash glasses. Put glasses away. I refill toilet roll. I wipe the bar top. I serve dry white wines, rosé wines, glasses of prosecco. I top up stouts. Correct staff till mistakes, refloat the tills. I wipe the bar top. I pour Tuborgs and Budvars and pints of keg flow bitter. Half bitter shandies. Half lagers and lime. I make coffees. Take coffees to tables. Collect glasses from the floor. I shake espresso martinis, churn mojitos, look up the spec for raspberry chews.

A keg beer runs out so I go upstairs to clean it. I put the line on water, go downstairs to pull it through. Gas sputters out, and nothing more. I go back upstairs. The inflow pipe is above the surface of the water in the water butt. I move the butt closer, unravel the hose, attach it to the tap in the sink, fill the butt with water, fill the bucket for line cleaner. I go back downstairs. The bar is busy, so I serve. I pull the line through to water. Go upstairs and switch the pipe to the line cleaner bucket; downstairs to pull it through. I wait. I serve. I pull through more line cleaner. Wait; serve. Upstairs I switch the pipe back to water, downstairs and pull it through. Upstairs I heft a Beavertown Lupuloid keg into place, find a coupler that fits the keg, look for the spanner, find the spanner, unscrew the product and gas lines from the old coupler, screw them onto the new one. The coupler is wet and the spanner is wet and my hand slips, and I jab myself in the arm. I yell. I get the coupler attached, clamp it onto the Lupuloid keg. I fill the float with beer. I go downstairs, look for the Lupuloid lens. It isn't in the plastic wallet for upcoming beers. I look through all the alphabetised drawers. Nope. It isn't on the shelf in the spirit cupboard. It isn't on the shelf in the office. I look in the tub on the bar, I look underneath the tills. I can't find it. Kieran finds the Lagunitas IPA lenses, says we've got a keg of that upstairs. So I go upstairs and unclasp the line from the Lupuloid, put it back to water, pull it through. I find a coupler for the Lagunitas, unscrew the product and gas, screw them onto the new coupler, attach them to the keg, fill the float, downstairs and get the lenses, the gasket stickers, stick them to the front of the fonts on the delta bridges, pull through the beer, put buttons on the tills on the computer in the office, send the new layout to POS.

Then I serve. I wipe the bar. I collect glasses. I serve. And then it is my break and I walk to the shop in the cold air of evening.

There is a green tree in the pavement that has dropped yellow leaves onto the ground. The yellow leaves are pale and they are crisp on the ground. A paving slab is cracked and juts jarringly out from its neighbour. Above me the stone facade of the central library looms. The neon signs shine purple and pink. The light creeps from the evening. The bark on the birch trees is peeling. A group of men pass laughing into the night.

I see these things. I feel them. The pressure of my feet inside my old trainers. The clouds spread flat across the sky. The irregular pulse of traffic down at the main road.

Everything vibrates with its own internal energy. Everything is the same one thing singing to get out. The delicacy. The majesty. This is the one and only moment in which each of us lives. We walk through this moment together. It is our home.

I take a breath. Hold it inside.

Then I walk back into the babbling din of the machine of the pub, the murmuring disturbance, groaning, wailing, where all is noise, all clamour, all fuss. I walk back inside, and I pick up a glass, and I get to work.

Day 139: Toes

Mulchy quiet Thursday shift at work. The customers are not drinking. The fish are not biting. One man stumbles in off the street, after we watch him leaning against a taxi and laughing to himself. He can’t understand why we won’t serve him. But then he forgets what year it is and why he exists and he zig-zags away, his jelly legs sketching wide parabolas into the night.

I count a till and then sit hiding in the office, reading poetry on my phone. I feel small and nicely crumbling in the messy room in the big pub in the wailing world in millions of miles of nothingness. I feel on fire in my toes. I feel like putting on a comedy pirate hat and leaping headfirst into the void between life and death with a smile on my face.

Rhianna comes in and I don’t say anything about the poetry or the toes. I make jokes about some dumb thing, and she makes dumb jokes back, and we sit and stand there, humans separated by two skulls, and flesh, and empty air. And then I go and count the fruit stock.

When the customers leave Pat and Lizzie close the bar and Rhi checks upstairs, and I leap on a table to prove to God how tall I am. I grab Pat to pick him up but he doesn’t want so I rub his belly and let him go.

I’m made of curling chrysanthemums, my fingertips paint the air. I cash up the last till and watch Nina Simone saying goddamns on YouTube, and electricity sparks from her eyes to mine.

We have such vastnesses inside us. We are made of worlds of gold. And each treasure trove sits glimmering, seen by no one, touched by no one, and then collapses to sand.

What a ride!

Day 131: Untangled

Woke up hating myself this morning. All the usual reasons. I'd overslept; rather than seizing the day I'd rolled over and spent the last two hours feeling pinned to the bed, thinking how the healthy decision would have been to get up, but feeling unable to do so. And I was thinking about my writing, how I'm not pushing myself enough, how disappointing it all is, how simple and safe and boring. How I'm not making any progress. I'm trapped in stasis. How I've been eating ready meals and oven pizzas most nights again, and averaging one piece of fruit every other day. How I haven't been shopping at Unwrapped. How I never follow through on plans. The moment things get difficult I give up. How I'm a worthless waste of space, a pathetic ugly moronic loser.

Like I said, all the usual reasons.

And then I got up and stood in the shower. I got out of the shower and dried myself with my towel. I did my teeth, did my beard. Put on clothes. I took a bag for life and an empty Kilner jar and walked to Unwrapped, and then to the greengrocer's on the corner. I ate breakfast - cornflakes with milk, satsumas, an apple, a banana, a croissant - washed up, made a large pot of coffee.

I paid my rent, checked some dates on the calendar, did some other sorting work. I briefly felt awful that I still don't really get the next part of the story-structure stuff I've been putting off for weeks - but then I watched an episode of Community and made notes about the hero's journey, made notes about Bourne Identity, read up on story circles online... And by the time I had to get ready for work I felt like I had a better grasp on the subject than ever before.

And, OK, I know all that is not very impressive. It's pretty much the bare minimum that an adult should be achieving. But for me it was a big deal. This self-loathing I feel every day is such a weight on me. It is self-sustaining. It perpetuates itself. You feel worthless and that saps you of all energy, which makes it impossible to do the things you know you should be doing, which makes you feel all the more worthless.

I have had so many mornings waking up like this morning and letting that weight of negative thoughts crush me. Churning over in my head all the reasons I'm a failure, each reason leading to ten more reasons, which each lead to ten more, spreading outwards, forming strands between what were disparate incidents - the social failure last Thursday, the sense of loneliness in the corner of the party last month, not buying enough fruit yesterday, classmates laughing at me decades ago - the strands solidifying into a thick web that encompasses my entire consciousness, with me enmeshed in the centre, trapped and tiny and helpless, unable even to struggle, unable to move even a finger.

And once that process starts spinning up it's so difficult to halt, it carries its own energy and the energy builds as it goes, and often I'm not conscious it's begun, and then suddenly it is everywhere. And struggling only tangles me worse, the energy to fight back can so easily just go into energising the self-loathing, and then I get frustrated, and then feel helpless, and then suffer more.

So to feel the beginnings of that happening this morning, but then to gently, lightly climb over the first of the webs, to walk away and get on with the mundane work of my day, well for me that is huge. I'm going to recognise that that is huge. I'm going to feel good about it.

I'm going to give myself that.

Day 126: Coaxial cables

Well, I never showered. Mike messaged me as I was necking coffee in my boxers to ask whether I wanted to "do something" before he went to work, so I threw on clothes and walked round, and we drank more coffee, chatted about literature and politics and videogames, mostly videogames, and then we went geocaching, as is Mike's wont, and explored city centre backstreets and parks full of unconscious homeless people and cathedral grounds pocked with bird shit, and we ate sandwiches and made jokes about being depressed, and then Mike went to be a twilight file clerk and I went home, and I took photos on the walk back, got in and edited the photos, sat down to write.

And after putting down some thoughts about Zelda on the Switch I forced myself to engage with the story structure notes, and I remembered that I was stuck on the next bit, it wasn't clear in my head how it flowed, and I didn't know how to explain it in my own post.

Even yesterday this was a sign that I was a moron and a failure, but today I just went away and read up on the stuff that confused me, made notes, thought about the plots of films that overtly follow the hero's journey and how they dealt with the areas that I didn't have straight.

And it's weird. When creativity is stuck just go and work anyway. When the well is dry just do what is necessary to fill it back up. I've learnt that lesson so many times before, and forgotten every time.

And yesterday I would have seen that as a sign that I'm a moron and a failure, but from today's perspective it's fine. Every time I forget, the lesson is easier to pick up again the time after. Every time I fall it becomes easier to rise.

Negative thoughts are strengthened pathways in the brain. Neurons that fire together, synapses that have thickened their coaxial cables though use. Except they're not called coaxial cables, because those are the things that connected your TV to your antenna before Netflix, but it's a word like that, and it's late, so let's just go with it. The thickened synapses are like deep grooves worn into the ground. And when the rain of thought falls that water will run down the grooves easier than it will run across open land. So changing your mind, learning new patterns of thought, is about going down again and again and chiselling out new channels. And at first these new channels are very shallow, and the water quickly starts running back into the old riverbeds. But then you go back and dig the new channels out, and it's less effort than the first time, and you dig them a bit deeper. And then the water goes back into the riverbeds. And then you go down again and dig out the new channels...

I'll forget everything I'm saying here, and I'll feel blue again. I'll lose hope. But I'll keep remembering, and it will get easier. And one day I'll look back and find that I can barely make out those old ossified riverbeds, while the roaring rapids of healthy thought will be connected to a hydroelectric dam powering machines that change the world, and I'll dip the coaxial cables into the water and short-circuit my house and the power will go off and then I'll never be able to have a shower.

See how by referencing my mixing of metaphors and the lack of symmetry in the post I get to both show that I'm aware of those problems and provide a sort of solution to them? Writing is great.

Day 125: The right path

I’ve been drifting of late. Going to work, coming home exhausted, feeling a miserable and stubborn thing inside me refusing to engage with my writing, so I’ve spent the evenings instead watching Netflix or playing Zelda or napping, and as the night has gone on I’ve felt worse and worse, and finally forced myself to write a few paragraphs, and then stayed up too late, got up the next day on four or five hours sleep, repeated the whole process.

Isn’t it odd how we can work out precisely the course of action that will be unhealthy for us - and then go and do it anyway? How sometimes it’s like we’re wanting to punish ourselves, or wanting to prove to everyone what screw ups we are? How when your self-esteem is low enough you simply can’t accept that you are capable of creating value, can't accept that you are worthy of love. It doesn’t compute. You have to sabotage your life until external reality corresponds with the ruined reality inside you, because that makes sense.

Well, I’ve done that for so many years now. I guess it’s time I started working on it. I’ve got a day off tomorrow, and I plan to spend the time showing myself some self-care, doing the things that need to be done - showering rather than staying in the t-shirt I slept in, getting exercise rather than sitting slouched in my office chair all day, changing my sheets, putting on washing, working on that bloody story structure post and the film reviews…

Instead of lowering my external reality to make it line up with how I see myself I can put that energy into raising my inner reality up. Even when I’m tired and my mental health is bad and I’ve got very little to give, I can still treat myself kindly, I can still go ten steps, two steps, half a step in the right direction, rather than curling into a ball and letting myself roll backwards.

Now for step one: get some sleep.

x

Day 123: Slow

I’m going to finish that story structure stuff one day - that stuff that was only supposed to be preamble to discussing the story structure of Bourne Identity, which was itself only supposed to be a brief scribbled thought before I went on and watched Bourne Ultimatum, which films were only supposed to be easy thrillers to watch and review while I had nothing else right that moment to write about.

Depression always slows everything down, it’s like being encased in mud, your whole being, your thoughts get sluggish, your plans thicken and congeal, even rising from bed takes a decade, a shower takes an aeon, you focus all your energy down into an interminable battle to get one foot in front of the other, to take a single step.

All while a voice is bombarding you with criticism, with self-loathing, telling you how weak you are, how wretched, all the reasons you’ll fail, all the reasons to undo that eternity of struggle and just climb back into bed.

But, hey, considering all that I didn’t do badly today. I got up and showered. I made coffee for me and Jiggs. Chatted with Phace. I spent a few hours preparing a training session about Belgian beer to give to the staff at work, walked the 40 mins down to town, overcame the social anxiety clinging to me like a blanket, gave the training, sat with the staff afterwards and drank coffee while they drank beer, went with them for two-for-Tuesdays burgers at a nearby bar, came home before 10 and watched some filmmaking videos on YouTube, forced myself not to go down into negative thoughts, not to let the depression overtake me.

I reckon that’s pretty good. I’m going to think about how much better that was than it could have been, and take solace in that. Like I said yesterday, things are improving.

And now I’m going to bed because I’m at work for 7am tomorrow for the delivery. Toodles x

Day 122: Improving

Another day not feeling good. I’ve done a few paragraphs of writing about story structure, but I couldn’t focus on it. Other than that I’ve played Zelda, watched Matt Groening’s new show on Netflix, Disenchantment, and drunk a lot cups of tea. Drank a lot of cups of tea? No. I have drunk.

Trying really hard not to go into self-loathing mode here. It’s so exhausting doing better for a couple of days and then feeling awful again and having no motivation to write and then beating myself up for having no motivation to write and then really not being able to write anything, and all the negative thoughts and sadness and emptiness swirling into a huge storm that rumbles on and on and on.

It’s exhausting enough feeling depressed, this time I’m not going to add to it by hating myself for feeling depressed. I’m just going to feel depressed. And that is OK. And I’ll drink another cup of tea, find some simple words to write here, then watch more Disenchantment and go to bed.

I was thinking a minute ago about how pathetic I am for writing those periodic posts where I pretend to have some wisdom to impart about depression, some insight into it, into how to move past it - the posts that people get in touch to tell me were really meaningful, or illuminating, or that helped them out - and but how it’s all lies, I never learn the lessons, never practice what I preach, I don’t have the strength, I just make the same mistakes in the worn grooves of my wretched brain time and time again.

But that’s not true. That simply is not true. I will not allow myself to listen to whatever voice just said that to me. That negative voice that wants me to believe I'm weak and worthless, to keep me small.

I am improving. I am getting better at dealing with this. I'm not stuck in a loop. I'm climbing out of a deep pit. Gradually, for sure, and the path is not always upwards, but I am climbing. I write a blog post every day. Sometimes I have the energy to write things that excite me, like film reviews, or silly scripts, or discussions of story structure. And some days I only have the energy to do this. But if a couple of posts a week feel worth doing, then that’s still a couple of posts a week more than I was doing 122 days ago. And I’m still posting something on those other days. I’m still coming here and putting a few paragraphs down, which is better than nothing.

In summary then: depression, you're a moron.

Yes, yes, you're part of me, and I accept that, and I'm not going to fight you. But I am going to tell you that you're goddamned wrong.

Come in, sure, if you're standing out there berating me in the cold. Have a blanket. Sit by the fire. If you're sticking around then I'll treat you with love. But don't think I'll listen to that nonsense you're spouting.

I love you, dark parts of me, but that does not mean I have to put up with your shit. So sit there quietly and drink this cocoa, and we'll watch another Disenchantment together before bed. There's a good depression.

Day 121: Choose

I have no energy, mental or emotional, to carry on that story structure thing tonight. Home from work and done in, depressed, empty, low. Tried to write when I got in, fell asleep, crawled to bed and napped, in and out of consciousness, my brain yelling all the ways I’ve failed, every reason I won’t make it, why everything will fall apart. No energy to answer back, no energy to stand outside of the thoughts and let them be, just lying there listening to them, not sleeping, sleeping, not sleeping again.

Finally got up to make tea. Met Jiggs in the kitchen. Chatted about whatever. I put a pan to boil, emptied in handfuls of pasta, chopped onion and red pepper and courgette and garlic, fried them up and added tomato, basil. Quorn pieces for protein. Jiggs went to his room to carry on watching a film. I watched the pasta swirl in the pan. The world dark outside. The kitchen cold.

Hey. I’m not out boozing. Booze was medicine, and it made me feel good, or at least numb, and I’m not numb anymore, or good. Am I good? I’m OK. Am I?

I am. This is life. There’s so much sadness here and so much pain, and now I’m fully here to experience it. It’s harder than when I was boozing, much, much harder - but it’s also more real. To feel this pain and to not turn away from it, to stay on the path, to remain upright, to carry on going: that's the only way that matters. I choose this way. Even on goopy black nights like tonight, I choose this way.

Day 110: Things I like

Got the sadness tonight, the wailing blues, but determined not to be ruled by it, so instead here are some things that make me happy:

- When you open the coffee bag in the morning and the fresh, chocolatey aroma hits your nose and you feel like maybe you'll be able to make it through this day after all.
- Reading a novel and finding a line about a far off city twinkling in the sunlight, or a fabulous hidden garden, or a vast mountain range marching to the horizon, and getting a shock of realisation at the breadth of the world and how much magic and beauty there is waiting in every direction.
- That first spoonful of fudge brownie ice cream before it's become sickly when it's still gloriously rich and indulgent.
- Becoming aware of how your vision isn't passive, like light hitting plates behind your eyes, but something active and alert and living, a reaching out into your environment, an exploratory hand of sight sweeping the world, touching it, caressing it; a meeting of self and other, at the mystical liminal boundary where the two merge. And then catching someone's eye and sensing your alert gaze entwining with their alert gaze. Feeling all the mechanisms of defence and caution you both erect to protect those pathways through the eyes that lead back down into the depths inside you, but sensing the possibility that these mechanisms could, perhaps only for the briefest of moments, be dropped.
- The first days of autumn when the breeze comes hard and cold and the leaves begin to turn and the air is clear and the light is fading and it is all so beautiful, so delicate, so doomed.
- Miles Davis and red wine by candlight.
- That opening paragraph of The Pale King, starting, "Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust," and ending with the line, "We are all of us brothers."
- Pretty much any camera movement in a Scorcese film.
- The listening booth scene from Before Sunrise.
- The sensitive, stubborn humanity of Kurt Vonnegut.
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki, how he writes courageous and complex female protagonists matter-of-factly, as if it would be ludicrous for other male writers not to all do the same, which of course it is. How he refuses to allow his antagonists to meet grizzly ends getting the comeuppances they deserve, because in real life there are no real villains, no monsters, only human beings each with their own vast internal universes whom we should treat with respect and courtesy and love.
- That video doing the rounds on social media about the importance of the 60s American show Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood, what Rogers did for race relations, having a black policeman move in as his neighbour, inviting him round in a scene when Rogers was bathing his feet in a paddling pool on a hot day, asking the black policeman if he wanted to take his shoes and socks off and join him, which the policeman did, and the two men sat there, white and black feet naked and almost touching, the scene quietly telling children across the US and the world that this was normal, a million times normal, that, to borrow from The Pale King, we are all of us brothers. And for me now to think about this in days that grow dark with portents, as demagogues seek to divide us, and to remember that art can change the world, that there is always a choice between love and hate, always only one choice that matters, and that we are free to make it in every moment in which we still exist.