Early morning. Word of the day is: "dysteleology"

Well, it's part of our social conditioning. In our eastern culture, we see mental illness and depression as terrible, karma-induced misfortunes that being shame and dishonour to the family lineage. *sardonic smile* We don't have a culture of glorifying insanity and adolescent worship of misery the way modern Western society does; although, much to my conservative distaste, it's starting to leak over into this generation en masse. *insert hypocrisy tags*

In any event, there are genuinely happy people out there; and they're terribly disturbing in their own right too. I mean; I think it's safe to say that even to an objective observer, this world is, for 99.9% of the population, a vale of tears. I suppose the key is not to get obsessed to either extreme.

I was reading this article on Time; and it occurred to me that it would be .. pleasing .. if my current mental and social condition was the result of a neurological disorder beyond my control. A sadly misdiagnosed one - for a long time in high school I operated under the assumption it was classic manic depression - and it appears that some of the rather disorder-specfic pharmaceuticals I've been guzzling all these years aren't really the best thing for bipolars.

Was looking up old acquaintances' icq numbers through icq search. Again, am disturbed at the number of people who have passed through my life, left, or been deliberately shut out of. Went through a rather naive moment when I looked up some of my ex-'es numbers on icq; stared at the details for some moments, then hastily switching off the PC before I did anything (more) stupid like messaging some of the past's emotional detritus.

"I find these long-lost boyfriend calls rather unnerving... I think men go through this, you know, some kind of "what-does-it-all-mean" thing after a while."

In any event, what DOES it all mean? I wish there was some clarity as to what's going to happen; and sometimes as I think about my life, there's a spark I want to cherish; a sputter of life in the flat battery; but just at the wrong moment (ie. everyday) I catch a glimpse of the night sky behind my future, and I can see that there's nothing out there at all.

On that thing that gives life meaning:

"It is something else; something that is clearly not important enough to me, in both senses; it should be more important to me than it is, because I miss it, and yet life is clearly not impossible without it, because I have been managing to survive despite its absence."

And on coping:

"It is the act of reading itself I miss; the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale. My room seemed enormous when I moved into it, enormous and quiet, but this book is so much bigger than that. And when I've finsihed it, I will start another one, and that might be even bigger, and then another, and I will be able to keep extending my mental house until it becomes a mansion, full of rooms where they can't find me. And it's not just reading either, but listening, hearing something other than the chatter chatter chatter in my head...

I don't want anyone else to hear what I am hearing, and I want to be able to block out every last trace of the world I inhabit, even if it is just for a half-an-hour a day. Maybe I can't live a rich and beautiful life, but there are rich and beautiful things for sale all around me, and they are not an extravagance because if I buy some of them then I think I might be able to get by, and if I don't, then I think I might go under. I need a Discman and some CDs and half-a-dozen novels urgently, total cost maybe three hundred dollars. Just thnk how long it would take a twelve-year-old Asian girl to earn this amount in a sweatshop.

Can I be a good person and spend that much money on overpriced consumer goods? I don't know. But I do know this; I'd be no good without them."

[Ed: The above is extracted from Nick Hornby's "How to Be Good". Thank you to RWC for pointing this out.]