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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Someone please remind me that the world is not devoid of all hope and good things

All things considered Thanksgiving went pretty well.  I saw my family without any massive fallout, I saw my dog for the first time in ages (he's moved out of the house along with the rest of my family) and my nephew for an extended period.

The only significant down side was being trapped in a car on the way there with someone who I'd say thought every random thing she saw out the window was totally more important than what I was doing (writing, if it matters) but that assumes she cared about me as a person enough to consider what I was doing and that it might have value.  That wasn't the bad thing, the bad thing was that apparently my lack of enthusiasm for random largely unremarkable things out the window was apparently unacceptable, "Fake it until you make it," was preached at me as a valid philosophy of life for everyone, notably in this case: me, and (don't remember exact words, so paraphrase) "It doesn't work for everyone," just ratcheted pushy evangelism while trapped in a car from which you cannot escape to infinity squared on a scale of one to ten.

So, basically, nothing out of the ordinary and better than sometimes.

Still, I'm left feeling bereft of things like hope and purpose and whatnot.

You all already know I have money problems.  I got donations to help.  And they did (seriously, thank you), not enough, but enough so that I could pay the bill that was due first in full and then use a short period between when I get paid for the month and when most bills are due for the month to kick the other problems a bit down the road, at which point they will join the far larger problems of next month and then the sky will fall.

Money is a serious, serious problem.  Unfortunately I have no solution to it.  Even what should be simple things I seem to lack the impetus to accomplish.  For example I mentioned before that some of the money I owe right now is because to buy [thing I need] I had to buy [set of things I mostly don't need because it includes [thing I need]] and some of that money can be recouped by selling [things I don't need].  It's a simple process, really.  But to sell them I need to know what they cost to ship, and to do that I need to know, at the very least, what size box they'll fit in (if it's the right box then weight doesn't matter) and to do that I need to measure them.  I have rulers.  Note the plural.  I have tape measures.  In theory getting measurements should be as simple as pushing the keys needed to type this post.  In practice I haven't been able to make myself do it.

It's the only part of my depression that we've never been able to put a dent in: I'm shit when it comes to initiating things.  Self motivation and I go together like water and highly concentrated antimatter in just the right quantities to annihilate every proton neutron and electron in the water.  It's the invisible staircase

Oh, and forget about smaller debts.  If I can't come up with one thousand two hundred nineteen dollars by the end of the semester for university (that includes the late fee since I was supposed to pay it at the beginning of the semester) then I'll be out of a psychologist and a psychiatrist.  The good news: I now have insurance and can presumably get new ones.  The bad news: I'd have to start with new people from scratch.  Also abruptly stopping being a student means that all student loans come due (I never had that many, but probably fair to say I can't afford to pay them.)

But even non-money related things, non health related things, seem utterly hopeless too.  No one is paying me to make .hack//Sign or Deus Ex posts, that's something I do simply because I want to.  In theory that should mean motivation, thus initiation, thus getting shit done.  Right?  In practice it seems that nothing I try to do, whether for myself or for others, ever gets the slightest forward progress.

Which leaves me without hope.  Because hope is the idea that somehow things will be better in the future than current conditions would indicate.  And that means that current conditions must change.  And in order for current conditions to change shit must get done.  And in order for shit to get done shit must be started.  And I can't start shit.

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The topic of fundraising was brought up in another thread, and by me more than once.  I'd love to be able to do a fundraising drive where I say, "If you give $X, I'll write a Y for you," where Y could be... whatever.  I honestly don't know what people would want.  (Story where the main character has your name?  A time traveling dragon's story?  A guide to how to deal with an interdimensional lifestyle?  Seriously, I have no idea what people would want.)  The thing is, I can't even consistently write for myself, there's no way in Hell I could promise to write something for someone else.  If I said, "Pay me and I'll write Y," I'd be, basically, lying for money.  I have no desire to do that.

I suppose I could say, "Pay me and I'll move the story of your choice to the top of the list of things to write a new installment to," but that amorphous non-written list isn't exactly followed.  If it were there would be one .hack and one Deus Ex post a week, I'd have gone back and brought Edith and Ben and Snarky Twilight up to the points where I started writing them so there isn't just this gap where the beginning of those stories should be, Skewed Slightly to the Left would have finished World War III by now, Not Even The Angels in Heaven would have never stopped being updated, A World Without God wouldn't have stalled, and so on.

Which is sort of the problem in a nutshell.  There are things that I want to do.  There are things that I need to do.  There are things that I can do.  The third group doesn't include many members of the first two groups.

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So, someone please remind me that the world is not devoid of all hope and good things.

7 comments:

  1. Argh, If I knew you were going to be awake this late at night I would have called.

    I like you. I'm sorry you feel like shit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, I'm not exactly the ray of sunshine myself.

    Um. Lonespark likes you. I also like you. If it helps.

    Best wishes aren't a good alternative to money, but it's not like I can offer anything else. (Well, I can offer you any number of imaginary Pallas cats in flower crowns, but somehow I don't think you'd have any use for them.)

    Sorry.

    ---Redcrow

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  3. I reckon you're a Good Thing too, and I don't say that to many people because I am a grumpy old firedrake much of the time.

    If your arm had in fact been broken, you wouldn't expect to be able to lift things with it. This is an actual dysfunction, not a thing you should expect to laugh off or ignore. (Which isn't to say that motivating tricks don't ever work.) Things will get better, and separately things will seem better.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am not great at phrasing comforting speeches.

    I can*, however, give you what I would give myself if I were facing an excess of pessimism, and perhaps that will help.

    *I think. It assures me that unlike most of the things on its site, it isn't Canadian-geolocked. I haven't tried testing that. (Maybe a proxy if it doesn't work out of the proverbial box.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish I could help! Which does you no good at all, of course. :(
    Anyone around who could do the things depression eats? It might sound silly to ask a friend to measure things for you, but, hey, what are friends for? (Sadly, I can't volunteer to help with that. I'm in the wrong part of the country. But if I weren't, I would!)

    If it helps at all, I also think you're a Good Thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I also think you are a good thing. I've been struggling with some of these issues myself and trying not to sink into hopelessness. It helped a lot that my brother was able to come home for the first time in 11 months. Protracted hospitalizations, being confined to bed and the resultant weakness had prevented him from coming home and making it up the 7 steps. So I'm feeling hopeful and would like to offer through the internet to share it, if that is helpful to you.
    Kay

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  7. As another thought, you might be interested in a proposed Q&A site on Classical & Koine Greek (the more people who sign up and say they might be interested in participated, the more likely the site is to start).

    TRiG.

    ReplyDelete