Skeptic Depression by Grappling Ignorance - video

This is a video a friend linked me to , it's about the potential for depression when you've cast off superstitious beliefs and magical thinking (aka: religion). While at first he sounds a little dismissive, he does actually make some really good points later in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBBWMo8ISe0&feature=colike

Here's the text if you can't watch the video:

Believers and non-believers alike have asked me about the potential depression that comes with a life free of the belief or faith in a purpose granting, paradise promising deity. It's old hat for theists to accuse me of being miserable and depressed due to my life without God, but recently I've also heard from atheists who seem legitimately depressed as a result of their delusion free world view. They've tried to explain to me that they can now understand why the religious people so desperately clutch to illogical, nonsensical, and absurd beliefs. They explain that it makes sense to do so, being that their lives of free thought have exposed to them just how pointless and empty life must be.

In my opinion the meaning of life question is a trite and trivial one- and no, the answer isn't 42. The decision of life's purpose belongs entirely to the individual. The evident understanding that our lives don't have a pre-determined meaning or a guaranteed afterlife waiting for us shouldn't be depressing. I prefer being the lone drafter of my life goals and evaluator of my success. This preference, however does not dictate my position. I didn't decide to take a path of free thought, skepticism and atheism because I like being personally accountable for what I do with my own life. Even if I took the position of those depressed skeptics who consider life meaningless without the illusion of God-given purpose, no level of desire for that perspective could allow me to convince myself of that for which I can see no actual evidence or logical presence of, and if I was genuinely convinced a god exists, no level of desire to the contrary would allow me genuinely disbelieve my own convictions. I might really want to believe that when I wake up tomorrow I'll have a job as Beyonce's personal masseur- but my desires do not inform my actual beliefs.

So, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the many things life has to offer, even though it also offers plenty of things to be upset about. One of my favorite teachers taught me that nature craves balance. There are emotional valleys and plateaus to suffer through and be enthralled by. We are fortunate enough against all odds to be living beings, to enjoy a sliver of time as a part of this colossal cosmos with an intellect just strong enough to be self-aware, and capable of appreciating the majesty of all existence around us. I consider it a privilege to have the atoms and molecules that make up our physical existence temporarily taking the form of sentient beings with conscious brains.
As living beings with those complex brains, we're able to experience the emotional jolts of terror, love, hope, victory, defeat, and wonder in a way the overwhelmingly vast majority of molecular compositions throughout the known galaxy ever could. In my opinion, the ability to hold those experiences, and the understanding of just how rare and finite they are make this life very special, and I'm humbled and appreciative to partake in it. So no, most other people living their lives don't see eye to eye with me, and I think they'd be better off if they did- and no, life doesn't come with a neat little instruction booklet, or a gift-wrapped objective meaning. But, from my perspective, life is just too short to spend it in depression because of it.

Unblocking

My Depression is NOT a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain. I may have an imbalance, but I firmly believe that if there is one, it is a mere effect. We're social animals, human beings, and physiologically we have certain needs. If those needs aren't met, the body (and brain) suffers. I have been cowed into a state of near-permanent submission because I'm different to those around me, my needs as a social organism have not been met for a long time - most of my life, in fact. My parents and siblings have disowned and belittled me, friends and romantic and sexual partners have criticised and condemned any nonconformity and suppressed me. I have been at the bottom of the pecking order all my life, the dog the others all snarl at. My depression, therefore, is the result of being effectively 'shut-down' by almost everyone around me, and of course my health has suffered as a result. I have not been my authentic self because I learned from the people around me that my authentic self was unacceptable.

I'm an artist at heart - I draw and paint, I write poetry and stories, I love to sing and dance. When I felt ashamed of these things and stopped doing them, THAT is when I developed an unhealthy relationship with food, gained weight, lost muscle, lost my self esteem and became depressed. All that external stuff stopped my brain and glands from functioning as they otherwise would. My task for 2012 then is clear - to recover what I've lost. And I think I can do it now because I no longer NEED anyone as much as I used to, I've learned to validate myself (see my last post). By living authentically again, I will encourage my body to recover from the years of repression and rediscover happiness and the feeling of being whole.

Of course another part of my Depression that I've only just started to understand is that I did this to myself - my Depression is a by-product of the way I have lived my life. But don't think I'm being negative here - because the way I've lived that I'm referring to I would not change for the world. I have sought to empathise with and understand others all my life, I've forgiven and explained away every hurtful word and action directed at me and gained invaluable insights into the way people's minds work, and as a result I've been able to provide greater support and comfort to others in need than many other people do. I'm PROUD of that, if nothing else, THAT'S what I exist for. But I haven't been able to find my own my to release all that hurt and frustration, my art would have been the ideal outlet but I was convinced I did not have those avenues for expression. I've been drowning in the emotions I haven't been able to release.

Do YOU Have A Relationship With Satan?

As I was out for my early morning walk today (in the rain - love that) I had a bit of a revelation.

Christianity has misunderstood ha-Satan (Satan), as it has misunderstood so many things about the Jewish tradition on which it was based*.

Under Christianity, Satan has become something of a boogeyman, a malicious and evil entity in perpetual conflict with God, trying to tempt the unwary into sin and destruction. But that's not what ha-Satan was at all as originally conceived by the ancient Hebrews.

Ha-Satan is a TITLE, not a name, the prefix 'ha' simply being the Jewish 'the', the noun 'Satan' simply meaning 'accuser' or 'adversary'. So it's 'the Accuser', or 'the Adversary', a being that opposes or obstructs but which - crucially - is not necessarily in opposition to God, and which isn't, in fact, even evil as such. The term only crops up twice in the Hebrew bible referring to a supernatural entity (in the first two chapters of Job, and in Zechariah 3:1-2), the rest of the time it refers to human agents standing in opposition to a character or the kingdom of Israel.

In Job, ha-Satan is a member of the divine council, "the sons of God" who are subservient to God. Ha-Satan, in this capacity, is often translated into English as "the prosecutor", a being that is charged by God to report back on all who go against God's decrees. At the beginning of the book, Job is a good person "who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1), and has therefore been rewarded by God. When the divine council meets, God informs ha-Satan about Job's blameless, morally upright character. But ha-Satan counters (between Job 1:9–10 and 2:4–5) that God has given Job everything that a man could want, so of course Job would be loyal to God; if all Job has been given, even his health, were to be taken away from him, however, his faith would collapse. Seeing the logic of this, God proceeds to take everything away from Job - his home, his family, his property, his health - in order to test him. This would seem to imply that ha-Satan is an agent of God's rather than a rival. In Zechariah, 'the Accuser' merely stands at the right hand of God looking upon Joshua and Jerusalem as God himself defends them. The overall impression then, is of a servant of God who acts a bit like a prosecuting attorney. And this, I think, is important.

Thinking about it this morning, I concluded that modern Christianity has in fact robbed people of an important psychological tool. I personally don't believe in supernatural entities - being an apostate and atheist, I think Biblical literalism is fairly childish. But the IDEA of an accuser can be a very helpful thing, perhaps even something crucial to our mental, emotional (and even physical) well-being. I'd like to think that people are all nice, that everyone can get along, that there's no need for aggression or hostility, but we're simply not like that in reality. We NEED enemies, it's hard-wired into us... you've only to look at the nice, decent people on both sides of the political spectrum who habitually demonize those on the other side to see that. But WHY must it be so?

Having an accuser is a bit like having a yard-stick, it allows you to see where you're at, where you're failing, and spurs you on to do better. It's like an externalization of conscience, a concept that the ancient world was largely unfamiliar with. But, more importantly I believe, it's something you have to fight back against - it's no accident that ha-Satan is basically a prosecuting lawyer - imagining a being like that pointing out all your flaws forces you to defend yourself; having your own inner ugliness held up before you in a mirror with no acknowledgement of the good you do pricks at your innate sense of fairness and arouses your indignation, forces you to fight back. In doing so, you assert your own goodness and worth, and convince YOURSELF of your own worthiness, which lifts your self esteem and confidence and makes you happier and ultimately healthier, both mentally and physically**.

Of course, some people have a very low sense of self worth (I'm one, and I seem to know quite a few others, particularly in the more marginal communities of which I am a part***), and such people are not likely to defend themselves against real or imagined accusers. People who have been convinced by others that they're worthless will just agree with their accuser(s), and that is why it's so crucial that we all, everyday, express our sincere gratitude for, appreciation and admiration of those with whom we come into contact, to build up their confidence so that they can defend themselves against the one-sided accusations of their real or imaginary accusers, against their own minds, which are the cruelest adversaries of all.

So I'm going to cultivate an adversarial relationship with an imaginary supernatural entity, because the argument in my head has been pretty one-sided most of my life. Nobody's stood up for me against my attacker (and how could they? He's in my head!), so I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm going to remind myself of the good I have done and point out the good I continue to do, I'm not just going to sit and take it. And I expect I'll be better off for it :)



* Of course, I understand that 'misunderstood' is too simple a description for what has occurred over the 2000 years of Christian tradition, there were a lot of forces at work, personal, priestly and political, seeking to distance Christianity from its origins for a host of reasons.

** Physical health is a good indicator of overall happiness, and in fact laughter, excitement and joy have positive effects on overall physical health.

*** I think the LGBT communities have lost something really important in forgetting the song that used to be our anthem - 'I Am What I Am' by Gloria Gaynor. Whether or not you like the style of music, the song is a powerful assertion of one's individual worthiness and innate goodness, one that very few subsequent songs have emulated. The most recent 'gay anthem', Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way', simply pales in comparison.

Do Y'all Get This?

Ok, so I'm really, really pissed off this week, with basically everything about me and my life. People disappoint me, I feel like study, work and hell, even breathing, are a waste of time, I don't want to leave the house or eat or talk to anyone... and when I bring myself to blog about it I just can't seem to articulate it.

What about you lot? Is it easier to write when you're calm and lucid or when you're spitting tacks?

Cos I Can't Actually Be Bothered Writing Anything...

Cracker Lilo found this very good post about the Gay Generation Gap...

The Gay Generation Gap
Forty years after Stonewall, the gay movement has never been more united. So why do older gay men and younger ones often seem so far apart?
From http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57467/
By Mark Harris Published Jun 21, 2009

This week, tens of thousands of gay people will converge on New York City for Pride Week, and tens of thousands of residents will come out to play as well. Some of us will indulge in clubbing and dancing, and some of us will bond over our ineptitude at both. Some of us will be in drag and some of us will roll our eyes at drag. We will rehash arguments so old that they’ve become a Pride Week staple; for instance, is the parade a joyous expression of liberation, or a counterproductive freak show dominated by needy exhibitionists and gawking news cameras? Other debates will be more freshly minted: Is President Obama’s procrastinatory approach to gay-rights issues an all-out betrayal, or just pragmatic incrementalism? We’ll have a good, long, energizing intra-family bull session about same-sex marriage and the New York State Senate, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Project Runway and Adam Lambert.

And at some point, a group of gay men in their forties or fifties will find themselves occupying the same bar or park or restaurant or subway car or patch of pavement as a group of gay men in their twenties. We will look at them. They will look at us. We will realize that we have absolutely nothing to say to one another.

And the gay generation gap will widen.

You hear the tone of brusque dismissiveness in private conversations, often fueled by a couple of drinks, and you see the irritation become combustible when it’s protected by Internet anonymity. On the well-trafficked chat site DataLounge, a self-described repository of “gay gossip, news, and pointless bitchery,” there’s no topic, from politics to locker-room etiquette to the proper locations for wearing cargo pants and flip-flops, that cannot quickly devolve into “What are you, 17?”–“What are you, some Stonewall-era relic?” sniping. And some not entirely dissimilar rhetoric is showing up in loftier media. In April, a 25-year-old right-of-center gay journalist argued in a Washington Post op-ed that many gay-rights groups are starting to outlive their purpose, and chided older activists for being stuck in “a mind-set that sees the plight of gay people as one of perpetual struggle … their life’s work depends on the notion that we are always and everywhere oppressed.” The scathing message-board replies pounded him at least as hard for his age as for his politics. “You twentysomething gays seem to think being out equals acceptance … Don’t be so quick to dissolve the organizations that made it possible for you to be so naïve,” wrote one reader. Another, blunter response: “Forgive me for not falling all over myself to do exactly what an inexperienced 25-year-old decrees … Don’t waltz in and start barking orders, little boy.”

Public infighting is a big minority-group taboo—it’s called taking your business out in the street. And it may seem strange to note this phenomenon at a juncture that, largely because of the fight for gay marriage, has been marked by impressive solidarity. But let’s have a look. Here’s the awful stuff, the deeply unfair (but maybe a little true) things that many middle-aged gay men say about their younger counterparts: They’re shallow. They’re silly. They reek of entitlement. They haven’t had to work for anything and therefore aren’t interested in anything that takes work. They’re profoundly ungrateful for the political and social gains we spent our own youth striving to obtain for them. They’re so sexually careless that you’d think a deadly worldwide epidemic was just an abstraction. They think old-fashioned What do we want! When do we want it! activism is icky and noisy. They toss around terms like “post-gay” without caring how hard we fought just to get all the way to “gay.”

And here’s the awful stuff they throw back at us—at 45, I write the word “us” from the graying side of the divide—a completely vicious slander (except that some of us are a little like this): We’re terminally depressed. We’re horrible scolds. We gas on about AIDS the way our parents or grandparents couldn’t stop talking about World War II. We act like we invented political action, and think the only way to accomplish something is by expressions of fury. We say we want change, but really what we want is to get off on our own victimhood. We’re made uncomfortable, or even jealous, by their easygoing confidence. We’re grim, prim, strident, self-ghettoizing, doctrinaire bores who think that if you’re not gloomy, you’re not worth taking seriously. Also, we’re probably cruising them.

To some extent, a generation gap in any subgroup with a history of struggle is good news, because it’s a sign of arrival. If you have to spend every minute fighting against social opprobrium, religious hatred, and governmental indifference, taking the time to grumble about generational issues would be a ridiculously off-mission luxury; there are no ageists in foxholes. But today, with the tide of history and public opinion finally (albeit fitfully) moving our way, we can afford to step back and exercise the same disrespect for our elders (or our juniors) as heterosexuals do. That’s progress, of a kind.

These unnuanced generalizations, as everyone who makes them quickly notes, do a gross injustice to both groups. The gay community—or more accurately, communities—is hardly monolithic, and its divisions, not just of age but of race, gender, region, and income, are too complex to paint with a broad brush. And Pride Week—which this year falls on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots—is a reminder that we have always been able to unite when faced with either a common cause or a common enemy. It’s when we’re not on the front lines that tensions flare. “On its simplest level,” says Jon Barrett, 40, the editor-in-chief of the 42-year-old gay magazine The Advocate, “we think they’re naïve. And they think we’re old.”

Even on those front lines, it’s a complex moment. Last November, eight days after the election, I found myself marching with thousands of gay men, lesbians, and friends of the cause from Lincoln Center to Columbus Circle to protest the passage of Proposition 8 in California. The air was charged; many of us were eager to call out the enemy—a well-organized, well-financed coalition of conservatives who were using churches as political-action bases designed to roll back civil rights for gay Americans. And our response was anger. We held up signs with slogans like TAX THIS CHURCH! We yelled ourselves hoarse.

But the demeanor of many of the young attendees felt unfamiliar to older protesters. They were smiling more than seething, and I noticed that many of their picket signs—LET ME GET MARRIED, LOVE ISN’T PREJUDICED, NYC LOVES GAY MARRIAGE—were more like let-the-sunshine-in expressions than clenched fists. Shouting did not come as naturally to them.


“There’s nothing duller than a young gay man whose curiosity about the world doesn’t appear to extend past his iPod.”


Activism is an unlikely realm in which to spot a generation gap; by definition, a rally attracts people who identify themselves by a shared goal. But it’s sometimes an uneasy union; the march marked an encounter between age groups that, although part of the same community, had previously spent little time together. And a difference in outlook was unmistakable. “After Prop 8 passed, a tremendous number of young people who had never been to a protest before wanted to release that energy,” says Corey Johnson, the event’s 27-year-old organizer. “And that night was a great example of the two generations being bridged in a productive way. But my impression is that there is a difference. Young people are, I think, upset, but it’s not with the level of anger that a lot of older folks feel, and perhaps there’s more hopefulness involved.”

To many young gay people, the passage of Prop 8 was shocking but not alarming; it has jolted them into action, but one suspects it’s out of a Milk-fed belief that identity-politics activism can be ennobling and cool. What doesn’t seem to be driving them is fear; their cheerful conviction that history is going their way seems unshakable compared to ours. That can lead to callousness on both sides; we patronizingly warn them that their optimism is dangerous; they patronizingly tell us that we’re too embittered by our own past struggles to see the big picture.

The notion that anger no longer has a primary place in the gay-rights movement can feel awfully uninformed to anyone raised on the protests of the late eighties, when say-it-loud outrage was one of the movement’s only effective weapons. To some of those whose identities as both homosexuals and activists were forged in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, this new aura of serenity is way too “Kumbaya.” It’s hard to overstate the centrality of the AIDS crisis in any gay generation gap (the divide between those who are currently 45 and their elders once yawned at least as wide). If you want to know where you stand in gay history, ask yourself where you were in 1982, when the disease took hold in public consciousness. If you were already sexually active by then and you’re still here to read this, you are someone who surely knows that fury has its uses. If you were in your teens, wondering how to take even your first steps into life as a gay man in a world in which a single encounter could become a death sentence, you understand fear, and its warping effects down through the decades. And if you were a kid, you grew up seeing AIDS as an unhappy fact of life.

But what about the ever-growing cohort of gay men who weren’t even born in 1982? For most of them, AIDS is not their past but the past. No wonder some of us feel frustrated; when we complain that young gay men don’t know their history, what we’re really saying is that they don’t know our history—that once again, we feel invisible, this time within our own ranks.

Were we that uninterested when we were that young? Actually, no, we weren’t; we were thirsty to acquire the vast range of knowledge, tastes, and encoded references that seemed to derive from some mysterious User’s Guide to Homosexuality, because even if we then rejected them, they still constituted a lingua franca (in an era well before LGBT studies programs or even many books on gay history made that kind of information easily accessible). Now, a familiarity with those movies, those plays, and those books will likely get you branded an “old queen” by people for whom “old” is by far the worse of those two epithets (unfortunately, a morbid fear of aging is one of the few ideas we seem to have done a good job instilling in the young).

For gay men who came of age 25 years ago in a tougher environment, knowing your (sub)cultural iconography was not only a way of connecting to past generations but a means of defiantly reorganizing the world, of asserting your right to literally see, hear, and perceive things differently. The need to hide yourself was thus transformed into the privilege of joining a private club with a private language. But to many younger gay men who grew up with gay public figures, fictional characters, and references, it’s a dead language—a calcified gallery of Judy Garland references and All About Eve bon mots that excludes them as much as it does the straight world.

So they react, as they react to many things, with a pose of bored indifference. Which is, of course, infuriating: There’s nothing duller than a young gay man who ornaments his ignorance with attitude and whose curiosity about the world doesn’t appear to extend past his iPod, certain that anything not already within his firsthand experience is by definition antiquated. But once we start blaming gay twentysomethings for not having gone through what we did, we turn into sour old reactionaries telling ourselves self-flattering lies about how misery builds character. Worse, we may in fact be doing damage. According to a 2005 report by the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, our “emphasis on suffering reflects not the current reality of many LGBT adolescents so much as recollections of previous generations’ own ‘horror’ … LGBT adults’ residual fears and pain may be acting to magnify the real difficulties of LGBT teens.” Put simply, we talk too much, telling nightmare stories about AIDS and the Reagan administration when we should be listening—and then we get angry that they’re not listening to us.

“We’re just like our parents,” says a colleague of mine who came out right after college, in the mid-eighties. “We fought really hard so that our children would have things easier than we did, and now we resent them for it and sit around complaining that they lack character because they had everything too easy.”

That parent-child analogy also points to a larger cultural change, one that helped breed the hurt feelings that created the gay generation gap, which is that young gay men are, by and large, not our kids, even symbolically. The last twenty years—thanks to political progress, activism, education, the dying-off of a lot of homophobes, the Internet, and the mighty guiding arm of popular entertainment—have brought about a remarkable growth in straight America’s acceptance of homosexuality. Without forgetting that for too many gay kids, coming out is still hell, we’re also witnessing the rise of a parallel generation of gay kids with unflinchingly supportive parents, buddies who cheer their comings-out on Facebook, high schools with gay-straight alliances—in other words, kids who have grown up in a world that’s finally beginning, in a few places, to look like the one we wanted to create for them, or for ourselves.

And it would be dishonest to suggest that those kids—brash, at ease in their own skin, exuberant, happy—are being greeted by older gay men with nothing but uncomplicated joy. We can’t help but wonder how our lives might have been different if things had been easier for us, too. Some envy, some wistfulness, even some resentment is only human. And to add one further injury: Those kids don’t seem to need us anymore. For decades, gay men functioned as unofficial surrogate parents to the newly out and/or newly outcast. They’d offer reassurance that being gay didn’t mean being lonely. It was a bond that linked many generations of gay men across the age spectrum and created a real emotional connection, even if what necessitated it was pervasive prejudice. Today, though, the notion of quasi-parental gay mentorship feels ancient, a trope out of Tales of the City.

Unlike heterosexuals, most gay kids don’t grow up around adults who are like them, and gay adults in their forties, fifties, and sixties don’t have many occasions for routine, ordinary contact with a younger group of gay people. One of the benefits of Pride Week is that, however artificially, it breaks that barrier down and restarts the conversation. That’s appropriate for an occasion that’s meant to be steeped not just in optimism but in an awareness of history—a history that, by the way, includes a generation gap of its own. As author David Carter reminds us in his excellent 2004 book Stonewall, back in 1969, gay New York was deeply factionalized. Gay older men “passing” in coat-and-tie jobs on Madison and Park Avenues and then discreetly meeting each other in Turtle Bay bars had contempt for long-haired, sideburned Village hippies, and the reverse was also rudely, robustly the case. Even though gay Americans seem to have lived a century of tumult and progress since then, it’s good to know we still have something in common with our ancestral brothers-in-arms.



Comments:

I am a 29-year-old queer male and it is my belief that gay 20-somethings with no interest in the culture that gave birth to their own luxurious insularity are not so much a symbol of a generational gap as they are a reminder that LGBTQ History has been successfully marginalized in the education system -- despite the proliferation of Queer Studies as a tokenized academic discipline. LGBTQ Studies have been effectively relegated to a self-selecting minority of queer youth. From a pedagogical standpoint, the best course of action is to ensure the inclusion of the LGBTQ struggle for equality (and the slices of surrounding cultures that informed, inspired & supported those movements) within a broader framework of a living civil rights history. Trying to overturn Prop 8 is a noble and necessary stepping stone, but we won't bridge any gaps within or beyond our own movement until _all_ youth are educated that everyone is entitled to equal rights and treatment under the law (however far behind legislation is in making this a reality), and that all movements of oppressed groups are connected in that they all must struggle against bigoted policy. Our voices (angry or...gay) are important at a protest, yes, but perhaps not as paradigm-shifting as they are in history books.
By jorkane on 06/26/2009 at 2:14 pm


I'm 63. I came out during the Stonewall era. I feel enormously proud of what my gay brothers and sisters have accomplished over the last 40 years.
I feel proud every time I see how matter-of-factly kids say they don't think it's any big deal to be gay. It's only natural that they have a different point of view, and, in fact, we wanted them to feel the way they do.
But, if you're 25, it's unlikely you know how hard it was to get to this place. And, in a way, I'm glad you don't. But at the very least you should be aware that every gay man and woman who came out in the Stonewall era made social, financial, familial, and personal sacrifices to live openly and freely. And so did everybody else who came out after us.
If you're 25 and want to know what we were up against back then, take a trip to Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria, and live openly gay in those societies. Think I'm kidding?
When you're at the parade and see somebody my age, ask them what it was like. They'll appreciate being asked, and you might be surprised by what you hear. Don't assume we disdain who you are. We love who you are.
By ekeby on 06/25/2009 at 6:05 pm

Fingers

These fingers of mine,
Neither slim nor long,
Neither manly nor strong
Nonetheless suffice
To service my vice.
The shower affords me
A suitable place
To invite my disgrace,
My fingers to employ
With horrible joy.
These fingers aren’t pretty
But neither am I,
We’re ideally suited,
These fingers and I.
Come fingers, I long now
To feel you within,
Punish me, purge me
Of gluttonous sin.
Come, fingers, now bring me
That I crave and yet loathe -
The hideous bliss of your
Rape of my throat.

-DannyR

Loathing

Dear S,

I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say to you anymore. I know I’ve been rude to you lately, but sometimes I just don’t want to look at you, I don’t want to talk. The thoughts are all mixed, I can’t make any sense of my life.

You’re better off without me. I’m childish, selfish, paranoid, neurotic, moody, pessimistic and angry. I’m not there for you nearly enough, I don’t visit your house nearly enough, I don’t ask you about your day, I’m vain and attention seeking and self-obsessed. I wait for you to text me so I can ignore it. I think of you as my enemy rather than my boyfriend – I don’t think you’re on my side, I don’t think you’re interested in me, I feel like you’re always more interested in dvds and my computer than you are in me.

I’m not good-looking enough, I think you could do a lot better, and I take your interest in other people as proof of my own inadequacy. I think you’re a bit of a hypocrite, you want monogamy but you’re always checking other people out online, in movies and in real life – to me it’s the same as actually sleeping with them. You’re a lot better looking than me, I get comments all the time, and sometimes I wish you’d cheat on me or tell me to fuck off. I want you to hit me instead of have sex with me, I want you to call me fat, stupid, lazy, selfish and pathetic. I think I gave up on us a long time ago, before we broke up the first time. And in 2008 I guess I gave up on ever being in a relationship with anyone again.

I missed you, but I got used to the idea that I was going to be lonely the rest of my life. I can’t function sexually anymore, I don’t want anyone to ever see me again, and I don’t want to be touched. I can’t get you off anymore, I’m not what you want.

I want to kill myself – I think about it a lot – I don’t want to make it to 30. I imagine hanging myself, setting myself on fire, walking out in front of traffic, overdosing in the bath. Sometimes I actually try it. I’ve started throwing up again. At the UniQ conference in Auckland, while the rest of you went out clubbing, I went to the park and made myself puke out everything I’d eaten that day. I spent a little while crying, and then when I ran out of tears I climbed on the motorway barrier and tried to will myself to jump. What stopped me was not a will to live but fear of pain and the fact that couldn’t ruin someone else’s life that way.

I feel like I’ve boxed myself in, painted myself into a corner – I’ve made sexuality my whole life, stupidly, knowing that it’s something distresses me, that sexual satisfaction is something I can’t ever have because my life situation prevents me – now I’m too old, fat and ugly, I have too many mental health problems, and my body doesn’t work. I wish I was asexual, but the more I want it, and the more my body keeps responding sexually – though never fully – the more sex disgusts me.

I have made myself a laughing stock by being openly bi and polyamorous, people don’t want me and it’s because I’m fat and ugly. The gym won’t change that – neither will dieting – all that happens is that the skin gets looser and the stretch marks get worse. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it to anyone – I’ve probably embarrassed you too. I never want to be seen again, I just want to die. I keep thinking about suicide but I’m scared of getting it wrong and ending up even worse off. I have every intention of doing it before I turn 30. And I don’t want anyone to know what happened – I want to just disappear. No funeral.

It’s hard to look at you because I think you’re beautiful, and you make me look even uglier. When we go anywhere together I think I hear people laughing at me, calling us ‘fatty and skinny.’ I never want you to take my photo again, I want all photos of me erased or burned.

Will you just LISTEN already??

When people learn that I have a mental illness, everything I say tends to be filtered through their existing preconceptions of what the mentally ill can and cannot do.

Let's say I have an argument or an unconventional belief - however well thought out and logical, however long it's taken me to come up with it - it's inevitably seen as a sort of twisted logic, I can't possibly be right. Homosexuality or bisexuality? It's because I'm ill. Polyamory? It's because my illness has distorted or warped my views on love and trust. The right to die? That's my depression talking.

People confuse causation with correlation. My bisexuality doesn't cause my depression and anxiety, neither is it a result of it. Polyamory is not a symptom of mental dysfunction, it's a position I take based on my understandings of human biology and psychology, it simply makes more sense to me than compulsory monogamy. I would change my opinion on it if I found evidence to the contrary. And my stance on the right to end one's own life is something I have come to having witnessed first-hand the misery and despair that failing health often brings. I strongly believe in human dignity, that people should be given the choice to take control of this one last aspect of their lives and that their loved ones should be free to assist them (or not). It’s respect for humanity - not weariness of it - that brings me to this conclusion.

Sure, when I’m deeply depressed I might think of ending my life, and sometimes these depressions last for weeks at a time. But that impulse is coming from a different place than my intellectual stand on the right to die. If I were someone else with the authority to grant permission for Danny’s death, I would refuse it, because I understand that Danny is not capable of making a rational choice at those times.

I think other people’s confusion of causation and correlation with regard to my unconventional thoughts is largely due to their simply not knowing enough about mental illnesses and the people who are affected by them. It’s assumed that my problem with depression and anxiety affects me all the time, people often fail to understand that I have significant periods of lucidity that outlast the periods of depression. In those periods, I have ample time in which to think rationally and clearly, and to reflect on whether my beliefs and understandings are the product of my illness or whether they are actually valid conclusions.

Yes, I probably do have experiences in my life that make me more likely to hold some of the opinions I do and feel the things I feel, who doesn’t? But I get frustrated with people thinking that I am incapable of thinking critically and discerning truth, that I am blind to my own condition and to the thought processes of ‘normal’ people. I think if anything my lapses into illness force me to be more critical, particularly of my own thought processes. I can’t take anything for granted.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that you can’t attribute any observable aspect of my being to another, as such, at least not without a fair bit of investigation. My mental illness is not a symptom of my polyamory, bisexuality or beliefs about death, neither does it cause any of these. It is another facet of me, it may have developed alongside some of these ideas and beliefs as a result of quite unrelated circumstances, and perhaps the marginality of my positions on these issues makes me more likely than most to experience mental illness, but you cannot attribute one to the other. Evidence from studies of other individuals and groups with these beliefs and conclusions exist, and they simply don’t support a causative hypothesis.

November 17 2008

Seven years.

I've been a self-admitted out homo for seven years today. And right now, I don't see anything to celebrate in that.

Being honest with myself and others - that was what it was all about. I believed so strongly that truth was the most important thing in life, that honesty was a force to be reckoned with. I thought I would change what 'gay' meant in New Zealand, I would reconcile homosexuality with faith and spirituality. I would prove that it was possible to be both Christian and gay. I guess I was hoping to change Christianity too.

But I couldn't do it, could I? Trying to make sense of the Bible's stance on homosexuality, I could come to no other conclusion but that the Biblical writers didn't know what they were talking about, and that actually, the truth wasn't really so hard to see. The Biblical writers were just bigots, pure and simple.

It didn't stop there though. I found I could not be selective about what I took from the Bible, it was either all inspired or none of it was. I discarded Christianity, and it was one of the most painful things I've ever had to do. I felt robbed of the world I had invested so much of my life in, my whole purpose and meaning. I guess I've been grieving ever since.

Certainly no 'family,' bological or otherwise, has lived up to the love and community I experienced with the Church of Christ. With my spirituality in tatters, I threw myself into the gay community, hoping to find the same sense of belonging. I didn't find it - I was largely ignored because I was neither rich enough or pretty enough.

But I didn't give up on the gay community, again, I sought to reform, to guide, to support and encourage. I became deeply involved in caring for and protecting queer people - I joined the Wellington Gay Helpline, helped with the Newcomers' support group for gay men, campaigned for gay rights with the Civil Union Bill and wrote to newspapers, even contributing regular articles for Deviant, the weekly gay page in the Massey Student newspaper.

Maybe I got so involved in supporting the queer community because I myself was in need of that support. I always seem to be outside the norm, even within the queer community. My committment to honesty has seen me try to find responsible alternatives to the world of nominal monogamy, first looking at open relationships, then polyamory. I've renamed my sexual and gender identity to have more integrity with who I am, from gay to bisexual to queer, and now genderqueer or possibly even transgender. And it seems that my committment to honesty and integrity actually hurts me more than it helps.

I'm lonely. I am so overwhelmingly, desperately lonley that I spent last night, before this anniversary, contemplating suicide, and actually seeking advice on how to go about it. This isn't a new thing either, most of this year I've felt completely alone, utterly hopeless. What good is polyamory if nobody will love you in return? Why be open about your capacity to love multiple people if not even one person will hold your hand?

And this is the great irony of my life. I've constructed my whole abult life around promoting love and letting people be sexual in whatever way is most true for them, and yet I personally hate my romantic and sexual impulses. I want to mutilate my genitals more than what my parents already have by circumcising me, I want to tear at and scar my body to hide the physical scars left by my ambivalence toward food ands exercise, to hide my ugliness. I want to take apill to forever erase my passions, but more tah that I just want to leave the world I can never be part of - I want to just die.

Because this is me, I'm an all or nothing sort of person. If I can't love you, and that person, and that one, then I want to love no one. If nobody wants to have sex with me, I want to be completely invisible and blind, so that I see no one and no one sees me. I either can't stop eating or I don't eat at all.

Why am I talking about this? Why haven't I just swallowed a bottle of bleach or slit my wrists?

Because that's also who I am - I'm scared. I'm not scared of what's on the Other Side, because I no longer believe there is one. Death is just a blessed release, the end, the light going out. But I'm scared of getting it wrong, of failing and ending up crippled or incarcerated. I'm scared of the pain. I wish someone would do this with me, or for me.

I await oblivion.

Did It Again...

Ok so there's this guy, let's call him E.He has a partner, T, they've been together seven years, they seem really stable, and they obviously love each other a lot.I can't stop flirting with E, he's really sweet and smart, and I think he's pretty handsome. I'm not trying to break them up, I don't think I could compete with T, and I don't want to. E seems to like me a bit though, or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.I have to stop doing this. I just want to be asexual... so why can't I be?

Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!

Off to Wellington now to stay for a few days with Cookie in Petone... should be fun. I have a lot of reading and studying to do, but I hope to catch up with James, Tom, Gavin, Kris E, Antz, Russ, Andrew and Iain.

I've had a really stressful week so I wasn't going to go... but maybe the time out will do me good. In any case, I have to be down there for Tuesday because I have a contact course for my sociology paper about family and domestic life, the first essay's due next week and I need all the help I can get :D

I gave that guy D**** my number last weekend and haven't heard anything, so I guess he's not interested, and that depressed me. I think he's gorgeous... why is it that any guy I'm interested in doesn't spare me a second glance, it's only the ones I'm just friends with who like me that way??

My old boss from Honey Hive, Sandra, rang me last night and I had deleted her number, so that was embarrassing - I didn't recognise her voice!! She was nice, but I often felt she was only being nice because she wants me to open her new store here in Palmerston North next year. I don't want to be involved, but I don't know how to say no.

That's my big problem... I just can't say no. Guys I'm not into ask me out, and I just go along with it because I don't think I'm going to get what I want anyway. People ask me to take on extra responsibilities in the queer community, and I say yes. Someone can't be bothered doing their bit, and they ask me to take it on, and I do, however reluctantly.

I wish I could just tell people no!

Nihilism -- CHAFF 2008

I found a quote on the net somewhere that said nihilism is where you go when you can’t find anything to believe in.

According to Wikipedia it’s “the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.” It’s often defined as belief in nothing, but from what I’ve read that’s not entirely true... we should say faith in nothing to be more accurate. Faith is a firm belief in something where there isn’t or can’t be any supporting evidence. Nihilists see faith as dangerous because when we’re relying on faith we aren’t using our faculties of common sense, reason and critical analysis. According to Nietzsche (you know him – the “God is dead” guy – life of the party), faith is simply “not wanting to know.”

Not wanting to know? Crazy, right? Well, yeah. But understandable maybe. Who wants to know anyway?? It’s a big scary world out there, it’s hard to understand sometimes, so of course most of us would rather just accept on faith whatever sounds like a fair explanation. It gets exhausting asking questions all the time and never having any certainty, and realistically, nobody’s going to be able to think through absolutely EVERY issue and read EVERY book. Especially in the modern Western nations. I’m not really surprised that in the most technologically advanced and modernized societies, like the USA, Australia and New Zealand, so many people believe in a cosmic zombie who communicates with them each individually by means of telepathy... our lives are a lot more sped up and full of stress and hassle in comparison to the rest of the world. We just don’t have the time to think things through.

Sometimes I think that if any of us could see how complicated the world really is it would be enough to drive us mad. But what the nihilists are getting at is that though it’s comforting to just think we know the answers without having to ask the questions, we’re fooling ourselves, and making things worse for ourselves and others in doing so. How? Well, let’s just pull a random example out of our collective arse, shall we? AIDS is killing thousands of people every day, and causes immeasurable human suffering, all around the world but especially in poorest nations. People get AIDS by becoming infected with HIV, most often through transmission of sexual fluids, and this can be prevented by using condoms during sex. There’s more to it than that, but that’s good enough for our purposes. We could fix the problem and alleviate a lot of the suffering if people wore the damn condoms, but faith has stuck its beak in and convinced a whole lot of those people that the father of the aforementioned cosmic zombie, who lives up in the sky and watches everything they do (the dirty perve) will throw them in a lake of fire to burn forever if they wear condoms when they fuck. And other well-meaning faithful people, mindful of the imperilled souls of those people in the populations where HIV is rampant, are kindly puncturing the condom packets before the poor sods even get them, just to be sure that no latex stands between souls and salvation. Faith makes us do dumb things, so nihilism begins to look like an attractive alternative. It’s the rejection of any belief that relies on faith, whether religious or secular.

Another defining characteristic of nihilism is the rejection of the idea that things have a final purpose. Nihilists believe everything is random, that there is no preordained final destination or revelation. In other words, you’re not going to heaven. It doesn’t exist and what’s more, it’s pointless to live your life in some sort of preparation for it. So go on, masturbate, get drunk, call your mother a herpes-riddled crack-whore... it doesn’t matter. You won’t get punished for it in the hereafter (though your mum might burn all your stuff and kick you out on the street). In a nutshell, nihilists reject the teleological arguments offered by most religions. Teleology is the idea that the universe functions a bit like a machine according to some sort of god-given plan or design, and it’s not restricted to the world of religion either. A common, almost sacred belief among people in the secular West is that you and your significant other were ‘made for each other,’ or if you haven’t got one at the moment, that she or he is out there somewhere waiting for you, that it’s ‘meant to be.’ Well the nihilists have got news for you... there was nothing inevitable about you finding that one particular person, there was no plan, no destiny, it was all just chance, and you only think it’s something magical and special because it feels nice, but you fail to see that you probably would have felt the same about almost anyone else. They might remind you ever so politely (or more likely, somewhat sharply) that everyone else is feeling something pretty similar for their own special-someone, you’re just too blind to see it, so shut the fuck up. Nihilists also reject Marxism, Buddhism, and any other set of beliefs that rely on teleology. There is no destiny, there can be no progress.

Nihilism is virtually synonymous with scepticism. There are two main branches: social or existential nihilism, and political nihilism. Let’s start with the existential variety. It’s passive, influenced by eastern philosophy and mysticism, and concerns itself primarily with isolation, human suffering and the futility and hopelessness of existence. It’s bloody depressing. Most people, when you mention nihilism, will think this is what you mean. In the face of all the meaninglessness and randomness, the only coping mechanism is detachment – just stop giving a shit. Don’t do anything for anyone, don’t bother with worthy causes, just don’t care, because ultimately it’s a waste of time.

Now, don’t confuse existential nihilism with depression, though that certainly follows on from it a lot of the time. Personally I’m inclined toward depression when I’m feeling worthless. When I ask someone out or let them know I’m interested and they say “Fuck no, I need space, I’m not ready for a relationship just now, you’re sweet and everything, let’s just be friends, STOP STALKING ME!!!”, I usually take it to me mean that I’m not tall enough, attractive enough, smart enough etc, and I inevitably begin saying to myself: “What’s the point in trying anyway, I may as well stay in my room, give up my hopes and get used to being by myself.” But kids, that’s not quite full blown existential nihilism, because I’m not saying that there’s no point in anyone trying to get laid, only that there’s no point in me trying. Important difference. Even at my most whiny and self-loathing, I would still agree that most people can and should try to find happiness in the whole love and romance thingy.

Political nihilism, the other main branch of nihilism, is active, revolutionary and at once destructive and creative. It’s about social structures and authority. Political nihilism states that things are in such a bad state that the only real option left to us is to smash them up, and whether or not we can rebuild we will at least have done some good. Being a political nihilist is about being in the here and now... rejecting all religious and philosophical debate and all the metaphysical circular reasoning that it ultimately leads to. It’s about challenging all the assumptions we base our values on, even equality and justice. There’s no future goal that we’re aiming for, no reformed society that’s more tolerant or diverse or equitable or prosperous, or at least no goal that’s more important than the present. It’s about realising there’s no life but this one, and making the most of it. It’s about taking responsibility..... if there’s no higher power then your success or failure is up to you, and you alone. Another nihilism quote I found sums it up nicely... “Each human life has the potential, but unless one strives to be a god, they are only a worm.” We can do anything... it’s up to us whether we repeat the patterns of our forbears, killing and subjugating each other for material gain and dominance and letting our masters profit at our expense, or whether we control our lives and reap the benefits for ourselves.

It’s true that nihilism, like anarchism, is usually equated with violence and terrorism, and there’s certainly historical justification. Nihilists generally reckon that violence is not inherent in their philosophies, but I’m inclined to think that if nihilism is your philosophy you’re more likely to be aggressive. Nihilists say there is nothing above man, there is no objective moral, ethical reality, but is that really the case? The argument can be made that we carry our moral absolutes with us, encoded into our brains. I think it’s genetic, we’ve survived as a species because we know instinctively how to interact with each other. We’re a social species, we have survived because we can cooperate, and we know, each of us, how to do this, how to avoid conflict. Something in our brains, other than fear of repercussions, tells us a behaviour is wrong. Why else, for instance, would all these religions around the world have come up with such basic moral tenets as don’t kill each other? Don’t torture people for fun?? And remember to put the trash out???

Just because there’s no ultimate point to anything, and even though nothing I actually accomplish is going to last forever, that doesn’t mean there’s no sense in doing it anyway, does it? In fact, doesn’t that make human endeavour a more precious and amazing thing? Think about it, out of all the randomness, out of all the meaninglessness, we are able to create something that has meaning for ourselves and others. That meaning might be quite arbitrary, we each might see the same thing quite differently, but isn’t that kind of beautiful in itself? There might not be any reason, in the big scheme of things, for me to get out there and make a noise about discrimination, pollution or the suffering of others, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it. It will mean something to me, I’ll be taking control, making something out of the nothingness, making the world what I want it to be. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will see the world the way I do.

And that’s meaning enough for me.

Danny Rudd

I want to PAY someone to bash my skull in with a crowbar... any takers??

I want to kill myself.

My flatmate has a new boyfriend, who's a head nurse at Welly hospital, and drives up here to see him every week. It's pretty rotten of me to be unhappy that my flatmate's happy, but, well, I am. Also, Hunky, one of the guys I've loved this many years now, has graduated and has a motorbike, so all's looking rosy for him, and his ex, who I also loved, is heading this way for a visit, and he hates me, even though I miss him. Lezzer #1 is torn between the ex-girlfriend and a new girl who's interested, my most recent ex seems to be reconnecting with his family and is happy enough, my other recent ex is engaged to that trollop faux-lesbian of his. The straight guy I have a crush on, and have done for ages, Mister P, ignores me, my own family is getting all close etc, and I can't because I'm just so angry with them, and I'm falling behind majorly at Massey and don't think I can make it up in two weeks... TWO WEEKS!!! That's all that's left of Semester One. I don't think I can handle another semester. I don't think I can handle being alive.

I want to die.

Possibly

Possibly.
We'll have to see.
But you don't know
What's best for me,
You don't know
What's in my head
The dreams that haunt
Me in my bed.
I get scared,
You don't see why
There are feelings
That I hide.
Medicate me,
Numb the pain,
Turn off the lights
Within my brain
Leaving me
In darkness, here
Alone to face
My silent fears.
Leave me to
This 'misery'
Is it wise?
Well,
Possibly.

- DannyR 23/05/08

Remembrance

There is no going back
It's a thing you come to learn,
As much as you might wish it
You know there is no return.
People change, affections fade,
We all move on with our lives,
That once held dear's forgotten -
Feelings swept out with the tide.
We find ourselves bent double
By the burden of the years,
We drag our feet in weariness
But still there come no tears.
For we know to just keep going
Never pausing to reflect,
Grievances we cherish look
Different in retrospect.
No, there is no going back,
All we have is what we feel,
And the bitter recollection that
Some wounds go too deep to heal.

DannyR

TAGGED!!

First, post the rules:

- Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.

- Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.

- At the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.

- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


1) The first girl I ever fell head over heels for was the biggest bitch I have ever known. She was stunning, her hair was straight and snow-white blonde (not from a bottle, either), it fell to her waist (she never wore it up) and it bounced and swayed as she walked. She was a dancer, so she moved gracefully and was incredibly slim. She was taller than me, and she had freckles across her nose. Her name was Charity, which was kind of ironic, really, because she was unrelenting in her cruelty. Not that she ever swore at me or anything like that, no she was always smiling, and her voice was like honey. Her evil power was in her unerring ability to detect what people were most insecure about and draw attention to it in front of everyone, again and again, smiling sweetly as she did so. She humiliated me all through my teenage years, by saying things like "What on earth possessed you to wear that, sweetie?" and laughing gently at my stature and... other physical attributes... in front of her friends. And I was so smitten that I stumbled over myself trying not to look silly, and making more of a laughing stock of myself in the process.

2) The last time my dad came to visit me in Wellington (a few years back now) I heard him knock at the door and immediately hid under my bed where he wouldn't see me if he looked through the window. I stayed there for nearly three hours, listening to him banging on the door and swearing, hearing him walk around the house and look in through all the windows. Why didn't I just let him in? Because he annoys the hell out of me, showing up unannounced, talking about me to my flatmates as if I wasn't there, saying what he thinks is 'wrong with' me, insulting his hosts and saying every racist, homophobic, chauvanist thing that comes into his Christ-polluted head. Don't get me wrong, he's not saying these things like an ordinary Christian would... he's ANGRY when he says them, and when he gets angry he scares me half-to-death. Ordinary Christians would be horrified, I think, to hear him talking. And he's a minister. Go figure.

3) I cannot save money for the life of me. It's not even that I spend it on stuff, when I look at my bank statement it all seems to have gone on food, rent, power etc. But there's never any left over, and it doesn't matter how much I'm getting on a weekly basis. I think I eat too much.

4) I often fall asleep fantasizing about not waking up, wondering who would find me, what they would find, how they would go about packing up my stuff and distributing it among my family and friends or disposing of it. I wonder if anyone knows me well enough to work out what sort of commemmoration or service I'd want, and who would show up.

5) I had a secret world as a kid, more in my head than anywhere in my real life exactly. It was modelled on a quiet inner-city park I'd found one time when my mum had taken my little brother and me to visit my aunt Thelma and her husband Roy. It was over their back fence, and screened off on all sides by tall trees (I think they were poplars). In the middle of it was a fallen tree trunk, it was thick, hollow, and crawling with spiders and bugs, but I sat there on it enjoying the sunshine until I heard my mum calling for me an hour or so later. Aunt Thelma moved when Roy died, and I never found the place again, but it's still there in my head, I can picture it perfectly, and I escape there whenever I just want 'me' time.

6) I always wanted to be a writer... I still do. I have, under my bed, a good 300 pages of a couple of stories I've partly written. One of the main ways I waste time instead of doing my study is by typing what I've got so far. I think I'm very good at coming up with ideas, but quite poor at taking them to their conclusion, and so I guess I'll never write a book. I think it's because on some level I feel like it's not 'real work' and it would be selfish of me to pursue it.

7) I'm really ashamed of the fact that I did dance classes as a kid... ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz... and I got high marks in the exams. I absolutely hated it, but I loved being on stage, and I knew it made my mum proud so I kept up with it until I was fourteen and was just getting hassled too much by other kids my age. I got bullied a lot for it in primary school, so all through intermediate and high school I tried to hide the fact that I had done it, but it wasn't much good. I was getting called 'faggot' 'poof' and 'queer' before I even knew what the words meant. Retrospectively, I can't help but wonder if that has something to do with who I actually turned into.

8) I once pretended to have lost my wallet and driver's license at a party at someone's house, just so I could ask the guy who lived there to look for it and get back to me. He was one of the most attractive guys I've ever met, and of course I knew he was WAAAYY out of my league but it didn't stop me from obsessing over him for months.

9) I feel like I've lived enough, in that many different places, as that many different versions of me, that the one thing I want in all the world is rest, to not have to be anyone or anything, to not have to think or care or feel anything anymore. I'm feel exhausted, worn out, "thin, like butter spread over too much bread," to use Bilbo Baggins' expression.

10) If I could crawl inside a story, it would have to be 'The Last Continent' by Terry Pratchett, or in fact any of his Rincewind stories. I'd love to be just swept away in the insanity, it would be something new, vibrant and interesting. Rincewind's world conforms to no rules, nothing has to make sense, the only certainty being that you don't piss off The Luggage, or you get eaten. 'The Last Continent' is, I think, Pratchett's most ridiculous story, and it always makes me laugh my socks off.

Gentle Punishment, Administered daily

I myself am quite surprised
How masochism took me,
I never would have dreamed that I'd
Debase myself so freely.
And yet it's not in bruises
That I count the wounds received,
My punishment and prize is in
The words you speak to me.
For when you look my way
And call me by my name,
I want to run, I want to die -
Beside you I'm ashamed.
You are so very beautiful,
So poised and clear and calm
You, the candle, I, the moth,
The flame will do me harm.
Yet I cannot break away, for
By you I'm hypnotised.
I find my sweet destruction
In the blackness of your eyes.
To you I'm but a passer-by,
Not worth a second glance -
To me you are salvation,
Just beyond my grasp.
When you speak to me,
The painful thought, unbidden
Springs to mind that I
Must slink away, alone, guilt-ridden.
For if you knew the way I melt
At each and every word
You'd shy from me,
Your smile, you see
Is more than I deserve.
Wanting that I cannot have-
The touch I am denied -
I dream of being whole again
Instead of one defiled.
My self respect in tatters,
Crying in the bathroom stall
I wish that I was someone else
-Anyone at all.

DannyR

Autumn Vigil

Lustrous and cold
The clouds of the Dawn
Let fall shards of silver
This bitter March morn
And I, thinking of you,
Must shudder and sigh -
In the gloom of my room
Life passes me by.

- DannyR

Funny

It's funny
Once the chance is gone, and
There's nothing you can do,
When you've gone beyond redemption
And you're lost out in the blue,
You move beyond depression
And a numbness settles in,
And you wonder how you ever felt
Anything for him.

You can't quite fathom how
You came to give your heart away,
You feel a loss, you count the cost in
An academic way.
Somehow you just can't seem to care
If you should live or die,
All future plans just disappear
You banish all desire.

You're living by default,
Merely an automaton
Feeling somewhat disconnected,
All your former spark is gone.
It's funny,
When you lose all hope
Of ever being loved,
The nothingness just takes the pain
Leaving you unplugged.

-D Rudd

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

This song describes quite well how I'm feeling just now, having today resigned from UniQ and resolved to leave Palmerston North and go back to work. It's about turning my back on being cosmopolitan and fake, and returning to the familiar, the isolated and the genuine. A lot of the bitterness, reflected in references to 'Society Dogs' and being set on your feet again by just another couple of drinks, is directed toward Seth, who I feel at this point cares about nobody but himself and his own interests, least of all my feelings.

The Yellow Brick Road, I feel, is quite apt, too.... too long have I chased after dreams, thinking that happiness lay 'out there' somewhere. There is also, implicit in this song for me at least, a rejection of the Gay Community. I have found it to be shallow, superficial and judgemental - serving only it's own interests, readily abandoning those who cannot so easily conform to 'normalness'.

So then, here, in all their bitter splendour, are the lyrics to Elton John's 'Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road':



When are you gonna come down,
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm -
I should have listened to my old man!

You know you can't hold me forever -
I didn't sign up with you.
I'm not a present for your friends to open,
This boy's too young to be singing
The blues.

So goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,
Where the dogs of society howl -
You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough!
Back to the howling old owl
Hunting the horny back toad...
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road!

What do you think you'll do then?
I bet that'll shoot down your plane.
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again!

Maybe you'll get a replacement,
There's plenty like me to be found -
Mongrels who ain't got a penny,
Sniffing for tidbits like you on
The ground.

So goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,
Where the dogs of society howl -
You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough!
Back to the howling old owl
Hunting the horny back toad...
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road!

by Bernie Taupin, Elton John



Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, assholes!!