Day 39: Small-talk

Mike and I are in the pub after the Regular Features show. We've made some awkward small-talk with the hosts, and are now lurking by the bar being weird. There's a woman beside us standing by herself, but not by herself like I'd be standing by myself, drowning in anxiety, feeling blood pumping in my head and a heaviness in all my limbs. This woman is just leaning there looking relaxed. I assume she's either a space alien unconcerned with human social mores, or she's Friends with the Band. The band, in this case, being four games-journo types who do a comedy podcast rooted in nerd culture.

The woman turns to us and starts talking. I'm not sure her exact opening gambit. She's just all of a sudden in a conversation with us.

Mike and I reply for a bit, trying to seem normal. After a while the conversation inevitably, as this is the live performance of a podcast that we are currently attending, turns towards podcasts.

"What other podcasts do you guys listen to?" the woman asks.

"Oh, you know," we stammer. "Just, ooh. Loads. umm. Where to even begin? Just all the usual ones."

Mike manages to conjure up a podcast he has in fact been listening to, which the woman obviously knows, and they talk about that for a while. It's something to do with the radio show of a fictional town filled with Lovecraftian goings-on, with fake adverts and musical interludes by hip unsigned bands. It sounds amazing. I hate Mike.

The conversation falters, and Mike turns to me. "This guy listens to the more serious podcasts though."

Thanks, mate.

"Oh, yeah," I say. "I mean--"

--At this point I've got two choices. I either tell the truth, which is that I don't know anything at all about podcasts, though I've been listening to Regular Features for a long time. That I've heard the odd gaming podcast before, and recently I've listened to a few others in an effort to broaden my horizons, but really I don't know anything, but that's fine, that's just who I am, and maybe this woman could point me towards some interesting ones to try out, if she knows her stuff...

... Or I could -- and do -- say: "Well, most recently I've been into the Jon Ronson -- do you know Jon Ronson? He's an excellent journalist and writer and presenter, he did the Psychopath Test and the Men Who Stare at Goats and things -- well I've been listening to his series called the Butterfly Effect, which is about pornography, but it's not salacious at all, in fact the point he makes early on is that if you take the sexually-explicit content out of it the story quickly becomes very strange, and interesting, and funny, and moving. It's an exceptional piece of work, you should really give it a listen."

I mean that's mostly what I say. In reality there's more stuttering and sweating.

"That sounds great," the woman says. "What else have you been listening to?"

Fuck. I literally know three other podcasts. One is a daily bulletin of the New York Time's most salient story that day, which will make me sound like an unmitigated prick if I bring that up right after I just used the word "salacious" in a sentence. The second is the Adam Buxton podcast, which everyone in the world has heard of. The third, and most appealing option, is a show that keeps watch on President Trump and all the batshit crazy schemes he's been up to. This is probably the one with the most hipster cachet (just), which is obviously what I'm after, but name-checking it would have the following issues: I've only listened to half of one episode and couldn't say anything about it, I don't actually remember the podcast's name, and I heard about it through an interview with Jon Ronson, on the Adam Buxton podcast, which if these strands all came to light would show the pathetic fragility of this house of cards I'm attempting to build.

Basically I listened to one episode of a famous podcast, and this is the nexus from which all my paltry knowledge springs.

Luckily, at this moment we are interrupted by the woman's partner returning from elsewhere -- turns out the woman wasn't alone after all -- and after introductions and whatnot the conversational initiative falls naturally to me, and so I say, "But what podcasts do you guys listen to?" and then I just nod sagely and pretend that each one is the singularly overlooked fish to have slipped through the otherwise tight net of my vast and comprehensive knowledge.

And then the woman wants to go spontaneously be in conversations with the hosts, and so she does, and Mike and I have escaped. We look at each other sheepishly and shrug.

- - -

Why am I like this? Why do I try so hard to trick people into liking me? Why not just accept that who I am is good enough, that if I'm always aiming to be the person I assume others want me to be I'll never end up as anything but a rapidly cracking shell? That all anyone truly wants in a conversation is a genuine human being, flawed and imperfect like themselves, and that Hannah (which was this woman's name) was I'm sure nervous in her own way and drinking a little too much wine and worrying about making a good impression, and I would have made her feel a lot more comfortable by letting go of my dumb ego and being interested in her, appreciative of her, rather than trapped in my boring skull bombarded by ricocheting thoughts all focused on my own tiny unimportant self.

I mean we're just all going to fucking die. It does not matter. Not any of it. So why are we like this? I'm asking you. Why?

A new plan, again: Day 25

I am struggling today the most I have struggled since beginning this diary. I am depressed. It's hard to get the words out, I'm sorry, it's a bit like having a migraine. My thoughts aren't thinking themselves properly. They are all tangled, dissipating and dying as fast as they grow. I'm sorry.

It was a storm that struck last night. Going to work I had a sense of futility, of hopelessness. It was as if it had always been thus. I got to work and I couldn't deal with anything. I had zero motivation. I didn't want to talk to my co-workers; the idea of interacting with customers filled me with despair. I wanted to yell at everyone to fuck off, I hated them all, everything was bleak and lifeless and shitty.

I withdrew, isolated myself, took myself off to do any job I could do alone. I couldn't face people, with their empty sallow faces, their inane grinding chatter. Trying to smile and follow conversations and force out replies exhausted me, made my eyes want to lose focus and roll back.

So I went off to fill in paperwork and clean lines and put the beer garden away, unhappy yet mercifully alone in my skull.

But that is when the negative rumination started up. How the podcasts I'd been listening to earlier that day were all created by people doing something worthwhile, telling stories, giving voices to the voiceless, informing, educating, entertaining, while all I was doing with this blog was writing the same old self-obsessed rubbish over and over, always about myself, about how miserable I am, moaning, whining, or else how amazing I've been, slapping myself on the back because I've managed to get out of bed at 10am, walk to the shops, attend a social gathering without bursting into tears and running home like a disgusting coward with my tail between my legs. That everything I praise myself for is something that normal people have figured out by the time they're out of secondary school, here I am 33 and still barely able to function. That I can't write and all the blogging is pathetic and even if I could write I should be writing fiction or journalism or nice funny little reviews, instead of listing all my disgusting lame failures like anyone cares, worthless fucking loser, what a pathetic crock of shit.

- - -

So that's what was in my head. It wasn't nice, but that's what it was. And I kept trying to argue against it, but it was like talking rationally into a thunderstorm. Every time I opened my mouth the storm just roared louder.

But I did keep trying. I didn't give up entirely. I was forced to my knees but I didn't allow myself to be blown away. I said to the storm that I was going to continue writing no matter what. That humans are creative beings, life itself is creative, and however we express that, in dumb journals or pencil doodles or building model train sets, it is worthwhile for its own sake, as a function of the universe. That the storm sounded like people who bullied me decades ago at school, that it didn't apply now, that I didn't have to listen. That it was mental illness, depression, that it would pass.

And as I argued the storm would subside a little, and I would get on with whatever task I was doing, and as soon as I was distracted the winds would start up howling again. And I talked it down again. And then it was winning again. And then I couldn't see anything but storm. And then I talked it down again.

And the night went by.

- - -

I felt groggy and blue when I woke up today, but I've spent the day writing, listening to more podcasts, doing washing, reading, keeping myself busy.

21:35 now, and I actually feel better. Maybe it's a temporary abatement, but I'm hoping the worst of the storm has passed.

Here's what I want to take from this, because I think meaning gets to be what we choose it to be. I want to take from this that I am making incredible progress. This time five years ago I would simply have been the storm, destroying everything in my path, raging, tearing apart my heart. This time a few months ago I would have collapsed in front of the storm and let it crash around me, then reached for the whisky to fill up my body so there was nothing left dry enough for the winds to wreck.

Yet last night I stood up, unsteadily, I argued, quietly, and at no point did I entirely give up. The storm did win yesterday, and this morning, but I think I tempered it somewhat.

And I was present enough to really hear that negative voice, to pay attention, to remember what it said. And so much of what it said was outright lies, or exaggeration, or really skewed logic. None of it stands up to scrutiny. It's loud, furious, but devoid of meaning.

There are grains of truth within it, often -- like last night, in that eventually I would like for my writing to be more outward focused, for me to take more risks -- but that grain is so buried in layers of bile and hatred that all it does is cause me harm.

Which of course is the point. The voice doesn't care about the truth, it just uses a touch of it to trick me into swallowing the bile, because that makes me sick and stops me writing. And the voice doesn't want me to write, it wants me small and meek and safe. It's the voice, in fact, that causes my writing to be inward looking, because it's hard to plan for anything else when you've got negative crap yelled at you day and night.

So good try, depression, but try harder. I'm not going anywhere yet.

A new plan, again: Day 24

I've been listening to podcasts this morning. Adam Buxton, Jon Ronson, the NYT's Daily, filling my head with current affairs, politics, storytelling, comedy.

Depression is isolating, it is a withdrawal from the world and from previously held interests and passions, and over the last few years I have consumed very little journalism. I haven't had the energy.

Cutting out harmful distractions and blogging every day has been part of my recovery process, but replacing the time I used to spend watching "Top 8 Easter Eggs in Marvel Movies" videos on YouTube with more productive browsing, like listening to intelligent, interesting podcasts, is vital as well. It is part of the process of re-engaging with the world.

I don't feel like doing it, don't feel like anything but lying in bed with the covers over me, but as with not drinking and with writing every day, what matters I think is that I just force myself to do it anyway, again and again, until the habit forms.

So this morning I listened to Adam Buxton interviewing Charlie Brooker about his creative process and his toilet hang-ups; I listened to Jon Ronson uncovering the permutations of a butterfly effect that lead from a geek from Brussels creating a free porn empire that now rules the world to the out-of-work porn performers in the San Fernando valley; and I listened to how Donald Trump has called for an investigation into the investigation of his campaign's links to Russia and the Middle East, and what the FBI and the DOJ might do about that.

I head difficult stories, funny stories, moving stories. I heard life being lived, all over the world, and thought about what it all means. It was more effort than tapping away at Youtube (or Youporn) or scrolling down Facebook or Instagram, but it was far more rewarding.

- - -

I'm not happy with yesterday's post. It didn't come out the way I wanted. I don't think I got to the heart of that feeling when you're depressed that it's the darkness that is the ultimate truth of reality, love that is a lie -- that axiom of emptiness from which all else is derived.

I spent most of the day staring at the words and I couldn't get them to fly, couldn't bring them to life. They were just blocks that I had to put one on top of the other and move around until they were as finished as I could get them when I ran out of time.

But it's a nice feeling to let that go and to move on. Some days the words fly, other days I have to push them from behind. And that's the reality. just sit at the keyboard and get it out, and move on.

If I was writing one large thing I could have left yesterday's section for a week and come back to it for another pass, but this daily blogging project isn't about that. It's about overcoming my fear of imperfection, of learning to be OK putting out flawed, average writing, if that's all I can produce, separating my sense of self-worth from the finished pieces and more into the act itself -- learning to enjoy being someone who writes, not someone who has written.

I know that with enough time and focus I can pinch and prune words into precise shapes, I can edit writing until it is good -- my issue has always been with sustaining that drive, with not being pulled down by insecurity and self-doubt and -loathing.

That has been my failing, but failings are fine. They're great. We all have them, and one of the wonders of life is in learning to face those failings, to overcome them, to turn our demons into angels that can lift us higher than we ever could have reached alone.

So I'm letting yesterday be yesterday, and now I'm concentrating on today. Another blog post done, another day with some hesitant progress and no slips backwards into addiction, and now I'm off to work to earn those pounds that pay the bills.

Bloody pounds. Bloody bills. Bloody work. Let's burn the modern world down and start again, only with more love. Yeah? Yep? Yep.

See you tomorrow.