The Big Meh

The clearest visual representation I can give you of my life at the moment.

I am at once a skeptic and a soft touch.

It's all fake.

I am a skeptic in that it is very, very difficult to truly convince me of something. I am deeply wary of virtually everything -- every person I meet, every philosophy I encounter, every emotion I experience. When faced with a new concept or ideology, I'm always suspicious there's a catch to it or that the whole thing is merely a false front, like those sets built for movies or plays. From the front, a structure may look like an authentic Old West saloon. But if you simply walk around to the back, you see it's just a two-dimensional facade being propped up by wooden beams. That's how I approach life -- always looking for the seams along the edges, always scanning for the fine print. So there is very little in which I truly believe. I have the information relayed to me by my senses, and I have no guarantee that this information is truly accurate. It is only "meaningful" if I choose to assign it meaning.

On the other hand, I am a soft touch, an easy mark, a pushover. I fear and dread confrontation, and I long for the approval of others. Because of these tendencies, I am usually complacent and compliant. I am almost always the first to surrender. I am accommodating past the point of all reason. I will go out of my way to do something for someone else, but I will feel awful about doing it. I am far too nice, and I let other people take advantage of that fact. I find myself frequently apologizing to others, even when there is no need to do so. Sometimes, I feel I was put on this earth to absorb the negativity of my fellow human beings. I figure, all that negative energy has to go somewhere, right? Why not into me? Let me take one for the team, humanity!

Even though I am on "happy pills" now and attending therapy weekly, I am far from sold on the inherent worth of human existence. I am not angry, nor am I particularly sad. Currently, there is little in my life to anger or sadden me. My days tend to be gray and interchangeable, marked by dull routine and dominated by trivia. I suppose most people's days are like this... if they're lucky. We must never forget that many people live in absolute misery (due to illness, poverty, or political injustice) and do not even have the luxury of leading a boring, repetitive life like mine. They might well envy my monotony. What right do I have to yearn for more when others have less than nothing?

A metaphor approved by the ADA

Today, readers, was not a great day. Nor was it a particularly bad one. It was a day. Oh, I suppose work went fine, though I had to make more of an effort than usual to cope with the stress and to suppress the anger and resentment which I often feel inside when haggling with coworkers over topics which ultimately do not matter. Sometimes, when I am especially weary, I feel like a tube of toothpaste which has been flattened and spindled to the point that it has nothing left within it. But somehow, through a combination of stubbornness and medication, I am functioning and functional. Is that enough? I don't know. I sometimes feel like life is one great big exhibit at a museum. There comes a point at which the spectator has seen all he or she cares to see. Why can't I simply say that I am finished, that my curiosity has run its natural course? What is immoral about that?

This has not been a very inspiring post, and I am fine with that. Who says that the narrative of my recovery has to be an infinite incline or a never-ending crescendo? There are bound to be plateaus along the way. Today was one of them. That's all.

Goddamnit, I just want to go out and have a little fun. Maybe that's all I need. But I don't know how to do that. I'm 37 years old, and I don't know how to have fun. I don't know what fun even is. I don't have a concept for fun. Maybe I should get out to a public place. But I'd have to do so alone, and there is no experience quite so lonely as being unaccompanied in a crowd of strangers.

Right now, there is an episode of Glee in my DVR, waiting to be watched and reviewed. Based on past experience, I am fairly certain it will be mediocre-to-terrible, like most recent episodes of that ironically-named series. In all likelihood, my Friday night will consist of watching that episode, composing some e-mail feedback about it, and then going to bed. I have been awake for a long, long time now.

Tomorrow, I will rise again and confront the Big Meh. Wish me luck. Or don't. I don't believe in luck. The confrontation will happen tomorrow -- and every subsequent day of my life -- no matter what.