frustration.

i started this blog with one major goal in mind: to force myself to find something worth saying every day.

there were roughly two major, though intertwined, purposes behind this. the first was a desire to form a habit of critical and/or creative thinking. since i've graduated from university, i have felt, to some extent, mentally stagnant. with no outside pressure forcing me to think and read and research, i left those habits behind. so instead of "form a habit of," i should probably say, "get back into the habit of."

it was, if i am being perfectly honest with myself, slightly motivated by jealousy. as may be fairly obvious by now, i read a lot of webcomics. and i found myself thinking, well, if they can force themselves to do something creative every day (or every other day), surely i could too. i didn't even insist to myself that it be creative, just that it would be something worth saying. some thoughtful, critical commentary, maybe, on some news event. interspersed with the occasional neat image or wordplay that i tend to come up with on a regular basis. and possibly the occasional dream (i suppose i can at least be proud that that helped to spawn the dreamdump). but the main goal was to make this a daily thing. to exercise my mind at least once a day. just something maybe small and superficial, but something. the long view looked towards eventually being able to serialize a creative work. it would be, i thought, theraputic.

which brings up the second purpose: to stave off depression. although diagnosed while in university, i was lucky enough to come across a therapist who would allow me to insist that i not take drugs for it. i'm doing much better now than i was back then, but it's always there, as if i'm walked along a slippery riverbank, always a step or two away from sliding into a flood of hopelessness, lonliness, apathy, self-destruction. i've found that if i can keep myself busy, if i can keep my mind active and not let it chew itself up in idleness, my path takes me a little further away, maybe, from the slippery rocks (it's my blog, i can extend a metaphor if i want to). hence my voracious reading. i'm always looking for new books. also, why i walk to work, in everything from a sleetstorm to the oppressive heat. and why i started this blog.

and now, as is the way of things, it appears i've pretty much failed. not only am i forced to deal with the frustration of losing my office, but also i have to face the fact that i can't, apparently, get myself into the habit of finding something worth saying once a day. that which was supposed to alleviate my hopelessness is instead feeding it. it's very frustrating.