That's All, Folks

So it's been a while since I was here last, and it shows.

There was a substantial layer of dust and a fair amount of cobwebs dangling in often hard-to-reach places, and rather than spend the time trying to breathe new life into it, I've decided to pull the plug.

I came to the decision for two reasons.

1.) I find that a lot of the things I've written about are misinterpreted or misconstrued out of the context of what I'm trying to explain or convey. Seeing as I'm the one who's dumping out what is rambling around in my head into each entry, that's on me.

and 2.) I've long held the observation that I'm standing in the middle of a very large and very crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs that things just aren't right and no one is listening. Basically, I guess I've cried "WOLF!" too many times.

I also can't help but feel like I'm stuck in a place that is populated, by and large, with hypocrites.

It's hard to deny that we have a mental health epidemic in this country. Yesterday, in fact, there was the revelation that a woman in Oregon, a stay-at-home mother of two from what appeared to be a stereotypical "normal" family structure, was found dead in the woods near her car about a week after she disappeared.

According to the reports from law enforcement officials, the cause of death is officially suicide, and as the news spread across the social media-verse, a lot of people I know were speculating about why the woman hadn't asked for, sought out, or gotten any help before turning to such a conclusion.

I'd bet good money that either she probably had multiple times and didn't think the response she got was enough to help her deal with what was ailing her, or she felt like couldn't tell anyone because to admit such distress, whether intentional or not, is still perceived as a melodramatic exaggeration.

With that kind of stigma, is there honestly any real surprise that people who are severely depressed or otherwise struggling emotionally try their best to hide it from the world around them?

Like it or not, we're a society that thrives on a status quo of happiness both natural and manufactured. Being frustrated, angry, confused, befuddled, exhausted or in any sort of physical or psychological pain is not something to be discussed even in "polite" conversations, and we're sure as hell not supposed to utilize social media to document that fact. After all, this is the land of Buzzfeed quizzes, pretentious motivational memes and Instagram collages of what makes life great, right?

We marginalize and patronize those who cannot meet that status quo to just "Suck it up and deal," or to camouflage it as to not bring the rest of the party down. They're written off as losers, drama queens and all-around killjoys.

In the last year, I've gotten the distinct impression that the baseline of my daily operating system should be that if I have nothing nice to say like, "OMG!! My life is so totally friggin' awesome that it defies description!!" or "Here's why you need to be envious of my life because it's better than yours!!" then it's best not to say anything at all.

*Editorial Note - Believe me, I really wish I had a life that gave me such reasons to be so braggadocios and superficial. I'm still looking for it, in fact, but it remains a damn elusive lil' critter.

Over the last few years, I've had a lot of people try to tell me that the things I'm dealing with cannot be handled by me alone. They weigh too heavily and I somehow lack the capacity to properly detach myself from them. Maybe, but I've been carrying them on my shoulders since I was all of 75 pounds and still learning my times-tables. I'm not going to stop figuring out how to get rid of them.

I'm just not going to vocalize them anymore as I've also come to learn that such things in "modern" society are dangerous, untactful and are more detrimental to my long-term happiness than actually openly admitting I feel like complete shit on a given day and outlining the reasons why.

Having had experience as an actor, I learned all about wearing masks and using facades to overlap what lies at the heart of a character. So if you see me out and about in the future or if I'm online sometime, don't be afraid to ask me how I'm doing. I promise, I'll tell you exactly what you want to hear.

Life is good. Nothing to worry about. Move along. Anything else, I'll keep to myself.

So with that, I shall bring this whole odyssey to a close. The sets will be struck down later tonight and the new show, whatever it is, will take the stage.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

In Earnest

I've always thought the idea of earning something was a perfectly valid way of achieving a goal. After all, from the time we're children getting our first understanding of how the world theoretically works, we're taught by our parents, teachers and other mentors that the only way to get through life is to know what it is you want, and then work to earn your way to attaining it.

I'd like to think we're taught this as a way to show the difference between being given something you're deemed worthy enough to have, rather than taking it by force. By itself, that dichotomy seems pretty basic, especially when it comes to the people in our lives, for under no circumstances can or should they be viewed as objects.

There's been a lot of discussion in the last week, and rightly so, about the position of earning love and affection and how, in reality, it's not much different a concept than just taking it. I honestly had never considered the ramifications of that before now, but as it's something which has refused to vacate the premises of my mind, I suppose no time like the present.

I doubt I could say when I reached the conclusion that the right way to attain the love of someone else was to earn it. To suggest that any person regardless of gender, can just force another to convey such an emotion for them is ludicrous. I certainly wouldn't want it under those terms and maybe still I'm naive enough to think not a whole lot of other like-minded people would either.

*Editorial Note - In my time, I have come face-to-face with those who don't see it that way and acted based on their conclusions. I sat in rooms for five long years with rapists and predators and listened to their reasons, justifications and excuses for why they did the things they did. To this day, I'm honestly baffled that such people could ever think their actions were in any way sane or rational. I certainly can't, nor would I ever try to.

Like most teenage boys, I imagine I learned the structure of how relationships supposedly work the same way my father, grandfather and all my male ancestors did as well. The man is the one who presents himself to the woman and makes his affections known. The woman then decides if such affection shall be returned. if it is, then the relationship can begin to evolve. If not, then the man must then present themselves to a new potential mate and repeat the process.

I've often wondered, truly wondered, how stressful it has to be for women to constantly deal with the men who are interested in them. I have no context by which to base it on, so all I can do is offer complete conjecture and the willingness to engage that perspective, but I'd imagine it's got to be incredibly taxing. After all, men present themselves across the full spectrum from passive to passive-aggressive, aggressive and hostile.

I never wanted to be aggressive and I certainly didn't want to be hostile. My empathy is far too powerful for me to not think of the damage such an approach would bring to both myself and the person I was feeling the affection for. And I guess that's where the idea of earning it came from along with the mindset of being a nice guy.

Being nice wasn't ever seen as a bad thing for me. In fact, it was reinforced not only by seeing guys who were absolute dicks to everyone around them, but also in no small part by women like my grandmothers, who were both among the most amazing and caring people I've ever known. As a kid, it was the basic understanding of showing kindness to everyone, being respectful, courteous, nice. My Nana used to tell me all the time when I moved to a new town and had to start building my social circle over again, "Just be nice. Kids will like you if you're nice to them."

I took it to heart, in no small part, because I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be accepted.

Only now, some twenty-five years on, I find I've been contributing to a problem which is a whole lot bigger than me, and either through my own base ignorance or the inability to just see it, is it finally starting to sink in.

I've always thought I was going about the process from the right angle. I understood the ground rules regarding how a man is "supposed" to treat a woman and understood them well. They're common damn sense and I'm not the least bit ashamed to say I learned them in no small part by watching male figures in my life being abusive to women and concluding that I had to be the antithesis of those men.

But where I went wrong was masking myself to the notion that earning  was somehow better than taking. On paper it seems that way, except relationships don't happen on paper, despite what the Screenwriters Guild of America might say to the contrary.

It's still an objectification on a more subtle scale, and as someone who's never wanted to treat people as anything other than people, the depth by which I let that shape my perspective and attitudes bothers me. It really, really bothers me. It bothers me because despite my attitude that I was never entitled to anything physical from a woman, the mindset of earning an emotional connection does establish the foundation for entitlement and I blinded myself to the manipulation that came with it.

I'm ashamed of that. I feel terrible about it. I'm angry with myself. I hate the fact that I was capable of being so disrespectful to people I genuinely cared so much about. Had I been able to recognize it sooner and do something about it, I'm willing to bet a lot of my attempts to establish relationships may have gone a lot more different than they have.

I know that the pervasive thing to do right now in the internet metaverse is to really put guys through the wringer for neither understanding or changing their learned misogynistic habits sooner, and some of it is deserved.

The relentless bombardment of media which we all consume permeated into me as well, further reinforcing the idea that feelings can be earned. To prove my point, all I had to do was type "Earn love" into Google, and that was I found the picture that accompanies this blog. It's an established, entrenched part of our cultural lexicon and has been for generations, whether we want to admit that or not.

What I hope women take away from this is that as much as they have to fight off the influences that come with their gender in how they're "supposed" to look, dress, act, think, etc., men are fighting their own gender influences as well. That's not a defense of misogyny or an excuse, but it doesn't change the fact that I've spent the majority of my life believing if I was just a nice guy, someone who practiced and showed the best qualities of who I am, that would be enough. I received positive affirmation of that from the people I looked up to, respected and trusted, both men and women who allowed this point of view to go on.

I both knowingly and willingly swallowed the Kool-Aid and only now am I understanding how poisonous it was, and I'm sorry.

Now that I finally see the full depth of how dangerous being a nice guy can be, it does make me wonder just how I am supposed to evolve from here because honestly, I'm not really sure how. Everything I know has been challenged and shaken through this discourse. It was needed and I welcome it, but now comes the question of what direction I go in, not feeling entirely sure that my instincts know which way is the right one.

I don't want to be a nice guy and I don't want to be an asshole either. I'd just like to be me and hopefully that will be enough for somebody.

Communication Breakdown

Well, here we go again.

Ever since the news broke of what happened down at the UC-Santa Barbara campus, I've seen no end of people of both genders flexing their internet muscles trying to dissect and analyze Elliot Rodger, his well-documented motivations, and also use it as a microcosm for the problems facing men and women in the 21st century.

In many cases, the dissections have been done with all the subtlety of a chainsaw. Men calling out women saying, in no uncertain terms, that this is what happens when "we're not given what we want," like affection, love and sexual compatibility are mere commodities, or even worse, things that we inherently "deserve." Women, meanwhile, return fire with the standard rants about how men are nothing but neanderthal misogynist animals who are never content with the power they have over their female counterparts and this is another example of why they can never, ever be seen as the "victim" in any situation.

*Editorial Note - For the record, the almighty "Victim Card" is a gender-neutral construct in our culture. Both sides use it at the drop of a hat, over any perceived slight. I've used it way more times than I probably ever had a right to, and it's been used against me when there was no basis for it to be employed at my expense. The fact that it is the standard go-to in any discourse about the problems between men and women shows how fucked up the divide truly is.

It doesn't take more than reading a paragraph or two of Rodger's manifesto to see the guy had a very distorted view of the world around him and those who occupied it. Of that, I don't think there will be much dispute. I'm also not about to defend his views either, for they are of someone who has truly lost his grip on his reality, perception, self-image and self-control.

That said, and in no way does this fill me with a measure of joy or pride for being able to, but on a lot of levels, I can empathize with him. The degrees of separation which stand between me and someone like that are not many, and that comprehension frightens me like few things do.

The manifesto's thesis was that Rodger's actions were somehow justified because he was continually spurned and rejected by the women he was attracted to, so therefore his only remaining option was to view ALL women as the "enemy," which made the retribution he sought also justifiable. I don't empathize with him in that respect because I don't agree in any way with his position.

What I do empathize with him on, however, are the feelings of alienation, rejection and uncertainty about self-identity. Reading through the 137 pages, it was like going down a comparative checklist.

Early family breakdown: CHECK
Frequent relocations through childhood: CHECK
Emotional issues brought on by new parental dynamic: CHECK
Social detachment away from people towards technology: CHECK
Ostracized and devalued by peers: CHECK
Early attempts to form relationships with girls stifled: CHECK
Issues dealing with puberty and related development: CHECK

I make no bones at all about the fact that in hindsight, I was a bad kid. I was angry, withdrawn and incredibly socially awkward. I was also incredibly confused, depressed, wounded, lonely and desperate for both acceptance and more importantly, love, by any means necessary. When you don't get those things, you're left with two options for why you're somehow disqualified from what you see those around you, who you grow to envy immensely, have.

It's either everyone else's fault or it's your own, and I truly hate to say this, but the validity is there.

The people who decide it's themselves are the ones who ponder and commit suicide. Those who decide it's everyone else's, usually plans and then orchestrates ways to make them suffer for their indignity.

Yes, there's been times when I've thought about both. I guess what separates me from someone like Elliot Rodger is that I've always come to the conclusion that I was the problem and if I was going to take my anger out on anyone, I deserved it more than the other person. That doesn't mean, however, that the animosity completely dissipates, though. Like anything else, with repetition comes familiarity and familiarity is how we shape our perspective.

So someone who's had repeated success, adulation or moral and emotional support will have a much different view of the world than someone who, for whatever reason, never got any of that. It breeds bitterness, envy, hate, and an expanded lack of understanding.

You ask yourself the questions, "What is it about me that is so wrong that I can't have what they have?! We're both human! We're both intelligent creatures and came about the same way. Why do they have it so easy and I have it so hard?! Why can't I be like them?!"

When it comes to trying to forge a relationship with a woman, I am historically 0-9, going all the way back to when I escaped the little kid "puppy love" phase we all go through before puberty sets in and the hormones are unleashed like a supernova. Every single one of them never panned out. Sad, maybe, but also true. To be absolutely clear, I'm not holding those nine women completely accountable for that, either. In terms of responsibility for why it didn't happen, I'd honestly go no less than 80/20 on me for that.

The last time I tried to start a relationship, I remember very clearly saying to the woman I was interested in that I don't know the first thing about trying to be the "right" kind of man in the modern age. I'd like to think I have a very firm grasp on the basic foundations of respect, honesty, and trust, but everything else was still pretty sketchy, especially after a 16-year relationship with the only woman ever interested in me enough to go on a date, let alone marry me.

So I said I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn about her, what she was like, who she was and who she wanted to be, and I was hoping in some measure to learn about myself as well. What I was capable of as a man, as opposed to the wildly inaccurate machinations and ideas I had as I was developing into one.

Needless to say, as I am still single, that approach didn't seem to go over so well either, I guess.

I asked some female friends a while back what goes through their minds when the turn a guy down. Do they feel any sort of remorse about it? Does it bother them that they have to? Do the feelings and potential damage that might do to a guy matter at all? I asked not to be vindictive or snide about it. I just wanted to know if it hurt them anywhere near as much as it hurt me every time I got told to keep on looking. In their defense, they did say that it wasn't always easy and it depended both on the circumstances and the guy.

I love women. I love everything about women. But for reasons I'm still trying to figure out, I don't understand them and they don't seem to understand me much either. Elliot Rodger clearly didn't understand them. He thought he ""owned" them. That he somehow had a "right" to them just because he was a man and that's how it's "supposed to work."

He was a complete fool in that respect, but no one in his circle seemed interested in answering the questions he was asking his whole life. Along with the victims, that is the real tragedy here. Like so many other times before, this could've been prevented if ANYONE, be it a man or a woman, had ever sat down and bothered to listen.

Threshold

For the last three months, I've been spending a lot of the time not dedicated to job searching, reading, exercising and/or trying to have any modicum of sociality on finishing my novel.

I actually started it about 18 months ago, but with all the other work I was doing to that point, it was surreptitiously pushed to the omnipresent back-burner. Since then, however, I'd like to think I've gotten quite a bit done, with 16 chapters completed and only a few crucial ones remaining.

I've often wondered the same for writers as it is for actors in terms of bringing characters out of your creative being. Obviously, there is such a thing a "Method Acting," which allows for elements of an actors actual persona to permeate into the character they're portraying, be they heroic or evil. For every technique there seems to be for acting, there also seems to be twice as many for the writer.

The most cliched and overused trope is write what you know, as if any writer will sit down to craft a story based upon things for which they have no proper context or understanding. This novel of mine, while it dabbles heavily into the realms of speculative and science-fiction is still, at its core, a very personal story. I've poured a lot of myself into it, both through the characters I've created and the situations I've put them in. But I've had a serious problem over the last week.

The chapter I'm working on now, the twenty-eighth for those keeping score, is probably going to be the hardest one I have to write because to do so requires me to go to the parts of my own persona that I really don't like to go to. Those base, primal, angry parts of me that I know are there, but I just keep on either on an incredibly short leash or in a very tightly-sealed box and out of sight altogether.

To be clear, I always knew this was coming when I sat down and created the opening scene of the first chapter back in 2013. It was no small reason for why I came up with the whole idea in the first place, because as my protagonist will have to face his Yang, so was I going to have to as his creator, and hopefully, we'd both come out better on the other side.

But now that I'm here, I'm scared. Properly, genuinely, petrifyingly scared. I know what's on the other end of the leash and I know what's in the boxes. I put them there for good reason. They're dangerous and highly destructive and as much as I don't like to remember the fact that they're there, I try all the harder to keep them invisible to the people around me.

So what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of both how and what I'm going to feel between now and the end. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to control it enough to get what I need out of the experience. And as weird as this is going to sound, I'm honestly afraid I'm really going to like it.

I have to take the plunge far enough to come back out with at least 4,000 words, and in the last three days alone, I've tried and bailed out three times. My fear is beginning to battle my growing frustration because I want it done. I want to get through this because I know I have to. Nobody else can do it for me. I have to do it for me.

I guess what I'm saying in all this is that for the next little while, things are going to get pretty rough over here. How much so, I really don't know. When it's over, though, don't be surprised if I start looking for people to talk to just to get me back to some semblance of reassuring normality and familiarity.

...and I'm probably going to need a good hug or two as well, if that's okay.

Happy Birthday

Dear Devin,

Long time, no see.

To say it's been a while would be both an understatement and profound recognition of the obvious. I'm sorry I've been gone as long as I have, but as we both know, things haven't exactly panned out as we drew it up all those years ago. It's because of that that I figured it was the right time to get back into the fold and also because, despite your continued apprehension to acknowledge it, it's your birthday tomorrow.

Thirty-seven isn't really a landmark occasion, I know, but considering the last five were both figuratively and literally ignored, I think we can and should make an exception for this one. Now I know what you're already thinking, (just a little habit I've picked up along the way, so sue me if you don't like it. Line forms to the right) but just hear me out.

Seriously.

I know it seems like things haven't gotten a whole lot better for you the older you've gotten and the evidence to support the argument is pretty compelling, except for the fact that you're ignoring everything you've managed to do in spite of all the crap you've had to wade through to get there.

I haven't forgotten any of it, either. All the moving around we did as a kid, jumping from one town, to the next, to the next, and so on. Having to make friends and say good-bye in the same year. The endless dysfunctional family routine. The first divorce, the second one, and then your own. Losing Erik. Losing your freedom, your identity and then when you thought you finally had it all put back together, your mind.

Do you remember those months we had to spend bouncing from place to place because we didn't have a home, spending the occasional night in that abandoned Hyundai in the church parking lot, thankful we at least had a coat to keep us warm enough to sleep and not shiver all night? The times we had to steal food or money to eat because no one would give us a job? Or all the days we spent behind those razor-wire fences and in those cells, trying to stay awake because sleep meant being left vulnerable to anyone who wanted to bash your head in or stick a shiv in your neck?

I do. I remember it all along with something you seem to have forgotten.

We got through it. Somehow, some way, we got through it, even when you were so completely certain that we couldn't.

Yes, there was no way either of us could have anticipated the toll it was going to take down the road. I don't think anyone else could've either, so blame yourself if you want to, but it's not entirely your fault, nor does it make you the person you've grown to believe you are. With all that's happened, it makes sense as to why you'd be so confused about that, and I admit, my not being around must not have made it any easier.

But consider this. You've still managed to hang in there, which means you're stronger than you realize. People have doubted and disregarded you and you've still accomplished things you never thought you could do. You went to college, earned degrees, gone to new places, done new things, met some amazing people.

Can you really tell me that was all a fluke? Of course it's not. You busted your hump and worked harder than anyone, including you, has ever really given you credit for. You knew it was never going to be easy, and at times, quitting seemed like the only logical option you had. Except you didn't. Not many people I know could look at things you've had to overcome and found a way to do precisely that. Sure, you didn't always take the best route and yes, you made it a lot harder than it needed to be, but the fact remains you still got to the other side.

To be fair, that's not something to boast or brag about to people to diminish them, but you have the right to own it and be proud of yourself for it. So do it, if for nothing else so you can stop being so afraid of it all coming back to haunt you. The ghosts of the past are just that, Dev. They'll dissipate if you let them.

I know things aren't exactly all sunshine and rainbows right now and that is also a frightening prospect. We've been in tougher scrapes than this though, you and I. This isn't anything really new. It may just seem that way because it feels like you have to get through it on your own. Only you don't. You've got people behind you. Friends. Family. They've been with you this far and a lot of them are still here. Why do you think that is?

Okay, sure, you got your heart handed to you. It happens to everyone at least once, like it or not, and yes, it sucks. It hurts like few things you can imagine. Does that mean you were wrong for caring about those people like you did, or still do? No. You can't make anyone love you if they don't want to, because you can't change them or their minds anymore than you they can change yours. It doesn't mean you have to forget about those feelings or to even stop loving them, but you do need to forgive.

Forgive them. Forgive yourself.

Falling love isn't always a choice and it's only a mistake if it ends up hurting you or someone else, and I know there were times when you said or did something that hurt someone you loved. Does that make you a monster or a "bad guy"? No, because I know you. No matter how angry you get, there is a line you've never crossed. I know why you haven't and I know why you never, ever, will.

You don't want to hurt anyone. You understand and recognize why there's no value in it. If you didn't have that strong of a moral compass, I would be a lot more worried about what you're capable of. The fact that you care so much and how much it bothers you when you even think you may have said or done something wrong confirms how good a soul you have.

Most people don't understand the dangers of their own strength. You do. You've known it since you were 10 years-old, having to stand up for yourself and your family to the man who abused all of you in one way or another. Standing there with a baseball bat in your hand, telling him if you ever saw him again, you'd use it. How you didn't then in that moment, even I don't really know. What matters is that you didn't.

It may not seem like much, but it does matter. It matters a lot.

But you are human, Dev. You're not always going to get it right and more often than not, it's going to go horribly and completely wrong. Welcome to life. It's not designed to be either simple or easy. If it were, you'd take it for granted and the path you've traveled is an object lesson in why you can't do that.

So why don't we start here. At this moment, on this birthday. No, you don't have to do something momentous to mark the occasion, but at least mark it anyway. You've made it to 37, when the over/under was maybe 25 and a whole lot of people were betting the under because it seemed like perhaps the surest thing in the world.

There's always going to be people who doubt you and what you're about. People who don't understand why you are who you are and why you see the world as you do. They come with the territory, but they're not worth stopping to visit. Take the people who care, the ones who love you even with all the mistakes and the awkwardness. The ghosts and the anger and the endless number of regrets, and spend however many days you have left with them. Let them make you laugh, think, wonder, smile, explore and yes, even cry.

They need you and you absolutely need them. Don't shut them out and don't keep telling yourself you don't deserve them, because you're wrong.

Now I've rambled on here long enough and there is a lot of work to be done. I'm not going to lie to you and say it's going to be easy, but if you can get through it, then maybe things will start getting easier from there. But for right now, let's not worry about that.

It's your birthday, after all. Let's make it a happy one, shall we?

You're going to be okay. You're smart enough and you're more than strong enough. I'll help you get through it and I'm not going anywhere. I promise.

Most Sincerely and Respectfully,

-Devin

P.S. - Don't forget to make a wish...and may it be granted.

Game of Questions

I've never considered myself to be much of a logician. That's not to suggest or imply that I don't use logic at all, but rather my brain tends to work on a more empathetic level, which often trumps logic in manners of thought, recognition and understanding.

Of course, it also works the other way, so in that aspect, I suppose it falls into the category of being one or the other, or among the rare few who can land astride the line.

I will concede that it is hard to find solid answers when viewing things through an emotional prism. They are, after all, tumultuous and unpredictable things, whereas logic is considered cold and analytical. It's why, as a culture, we're so fascinated by a fictional character like Mr. Spock or Sherlock Holmes, who can manage to take emotions out of the equation and just see things without that bias which can cloud judgment and alter decisions.

Myself, I've never been much of a Trekkie. Not to say I think Star Trek sucks, but I just never embraced it as my particular show of choice to geek out about.

*Editorial Note - Doctor Who and Farscape, however...now we're talking serious geek-fu fanboy.

My first foray into Trek wasn't actually even the show, but the movies which started coming out after I was born. Over the last week, while I was taking a brief sabbatical from writing, I started watching them again just to have some good escapist fare from the hornet's nest I inadvertently kicked open in my head. Most people are fans of the films by comparison to the many series and to each their own. I happen to like most of them.

*Editorial Note II - I suppose I'm among the few who like the first four movies. Most people hate The Motion Picture, but I happen to enjoy it. Final Frontier still sucks ass, though. There's no kind way in the world to put it.

In going back and rewatching them for the umpteenth time, I realized there's a consistent, underlying aspect of each story which Roddenberry and the screenwriters revisited often, but of course is rooted in a logical paradigm.

"One cannot give an answer when one does not understand the question."

Anyone who ever knew me growing up also had to share in my unabashed geekdom for Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which, of course, takes Shakespeare's legendary Hamlet and completely turns it on its ear. My favorite part is when the two men square off on a tennis court, but rather than trading volleys with a ball, they trade questions.

I've come to understand that one of my biggest impediments to getting any better, and also why I keep seeming to chase my own tail, is because I am trying to get answers out of myself, without stopping to recognize the questions. It's choosing to just go on instinct and emotion, rather than getting to the root of the problem and determining the most simple solution.

So, with that in mind, time to start asking:

1.) Why are you not happy?

At the moment, I'm unemployed and looking for stability in a career I've wanted for most of my life. I have friends and people who care about me, but I feel detached from them for one reason or another, in no small part because of how the last few years have impacted me, my attitude and my perspective. I have ambitions that have not been achieved and I feel I'm at a loss on how I can get to where I know I'm capable of being physically, mentally and emotionally.

2.) Why are you so afraid of change?

It doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? After all, change from where I'm at would hardly be considered a terrible thing. What it comes down to, in a completely non-sexual way, is that the trajectory on which my life's gone has made me into a masochist. I've grown so used to be being down on myself and not branching out into new things that I'm only really content when I'm miserable and self-deprecating.

It's completely counter-intuitive, I know, but it's also the product of about 35 years of observation, interaction, feedback and most of all reinforcement, most of which was rather negative. The psychological myth is that love is something we're born with, whereas hate is an acquired trait. Over the span of my life, my identity is rooted in that acquisition, and to lose it means I lose how I identify myself, which is a very frightening thing to consider.

3.) Why be that way when hating yourself accomplishes nothing?

I get how the idea of self-confidence is an attractive quality to see in other people. What is overlooked is that it's also a finite resource and those who possess deep reservoirs of it are taught as children in how to find, cultivate, preserve and replenish that. I wasn't one of those lucky kids and have always had a deeper reservoir of self-doubt and self-rejection than I ever did the belief that I was someone special or even someone worthy of praise when I did something well.

Does that mean I don't have any faith in myself or what I can do? No, but it's like trying to find water in a desert. It's there, but if you don't know where or how to find it, you'll drive yourself mad in trying, if the heat doesn't kill you first.

4.) What do you want? Seriously, what would make you feel better right now and don't just say "I don't know," because that shit won't fly anymore.

A steady paycheck again wouldn't be a bad start, but there a lot of things I want. Get out of debt, finish my book and have it published, find a new home, have more time with my son, get my friends back in my life, settle the past, travel, explore, learn. I don't think any of those things are unreasonable or selfish and they're all attainable.

5.) You didn't mention anything about a significant other, though. Sooner or later, you need to try again, right?

Maybe, but not right now. First things first. Get my life back on track and get myself into being someone who is wanted, rather than someone who just wants what he can't have. I spent sixteen years in the only relationship I've ever had and while I learned a lot from it, there's a lot I didn't pay attention to as well. If I can get the other things done, I have confidence that this will come along with it as I evolve.

6.) So what's stopping you from falling back into the same old cycle this time? This is stuff we've heard before, and here we are again.

Fair point. The simple answer is I'm sure there will be times when the self-doubt threatens to overload any self-confidence I've accrued. It's part of the deal, unfortunately. You look at an athlete who's recovering from a physical injury and even if they're in great shape, there are times when they can aggravate it. This is no different, except I have to learn how to stop pulling short when that crippling fear and doubt kick in and just fucking jump.

I don't expect that to be easy at all, and no one should think it's a simple thing either because they may see it from a different vantage point. This is my battle, inside my head, and as much as I wish I could trade places when things are at their worst, I can't. So it's on me to figure a way past it, and I'd rather go through the pitfalls of trial and error than just give up.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Really Bad Day

I always liked this book when I was a kid, and it was kind of odd realizing this morning I hadn't read it in about thirty years.

Perhaps I should, because after how yesterday went, it might lend me some good perspective...

...or get me looking into how to immigrate to Australia, whichever comes first.

Because I live in a world where being completely open about such things is still considered an absolute no-no as it might alarm people into some form of action and/or reaction, I'll put this as succinctly as I can.

Yesterday sucked. A lot. So much so that the fact I'm even sitting here typing this out is not something that was guaranteed by this time yesterday.

It sucked because it was one of those really, really bad days where my mind goes to the places I try to keep it from going to, and it decides it's the perfect place to set up camp.

When I got up yesterday morning, I didn't feel quite right to begin with. I'd gotten some decent sleep, but as is my custom, didn't feel like I got any actual rest. Aware but undeterred, I ate breakfast, took a long hot shower and just tried to take care of myself. No real pushing. No forcing the issue. Just do what I've always done. Ride it out with the understanding that it's just temporary and I'll be okay.

Except by mid-afternoon, I wasn't okay. I was anything but okay.

I knew this wasn't just going to be an "ordinary" sort of bad day when I was trying to get more work done on my novel. Considering I don't have many more chapters to go, there is a definite feeling of excitement and accomplishment that is attached to each new page I finish. However, as is often the case in creating a story, I discovered I had a loose thread in an earlier chapter I needed to tend to first, so I can continue with the direction I was heading in later on.

I'd bet if you asked any reputable writer how many times they'd had to deal with this, virtually all of them would admit it's happened more than they can count. It's part of the deal, especially in a first draft when you're just throwing mental spitballs at a wall and hoping they stick well enough to make a relatively coherent picture.

But as I sat down and got to work, rereading the section of scene I needed to polish up, I came to a rather bothersome conclusion that I wasn't entirely sure of the motivations of my antagonist. And because this is a rather pivotal moment in the story, that is fairly alarming discovery to make. I racked my brain for about an hour trying to see if I could figure it out, but nothing seemed to fit right, and the big yellow snowball which had started rolling downhill when I woke up kept right on going and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Now this is the point where I should probably inform those of weak constitutions or who possess the opinions that anyone dealing with a "mental illness" or such "imaginary flim-flam" is trying to garner sympathy to probably go back to watching reality TV or whatever it is you do to escape from actual reality.

The rest of my afternoon and evening consisted of me finding things to do that kept my mind focused on something, ANYTHING, other than seeking confirmations and justifications for why this world and everyone in it sucks so much that it doesn't warrant my being here any more.

Six continuous hours of trying to not engage in an argument with myself about how much I hate people, how they take for granted lives I would gladly detonate a sun to possess, why everything they do is right and everything I do is wrong and how pointless it is to try to convince them to care at all when the evidence is clear that they both can't and shouldn't, so why even bother putting up any more of a fight?

Sure I could've called someone, but what am I really going to say? "Hey, sorry to take you away from whatever life-affirming thing you're in the middle of at the moment, but I'm in the midst off a stage three mental nuclear meltdown. Can you spare a few minutes until I can isolate the problem and get the reactor back on-line?"

When I was younger and was in that boat, I did what most people do and called my family. The usual answer I got was, "Suck it up and deal and quit being so melodramatic about it."

If you've ever found yourself in that sort of a spot, I'm truly sorry. If you haven't, well...let's just say it's anything but a picnic.

At that point, I decided it was best to just unplug and take the rest of the day off. I shut off Facebook, stepped away from my novel, went out and treated myself to some sushi and played Skyrim until I was yawning so badly that I could barely stay awake. Figuring I'd be able to just collapse into bed and pass out thanks to the extra shot of Prozac I took at the height of my lowest, I actually was ready to fall asleep about three hours earlier than I usually do.

And I still didn't finally get there until after midnight.

Even though I didn't touch a drop of alcohol, which I would've probably been in the right to do under the circumstances, I woke up this morning feeling like I had a hell of a hangover. My head was pounding and I had a hard time seeing straight, but I know for a fact that one cannot get drunk on almond milk.

Today I'm feeling a little better, and given the nice weather outside, I'm going to utilize it later on for a workout before hopefully getting back into my book and finishing up what I need to get done.

And yes, I am looking into getting into see someone about this. As I am on the Washington State plan under the ACA, I can do so and talked to them about it at the end of last week, in fact. At which time, they told me I should expect a call back soon for available people to go talk to.

I'd like to say it's been a while since I've had a day like this, but it's not. They may not be as completely bad as this, but I do have them. A lot. For the record, I don't wake up every morning in the hopes that I'll have one on the docket for that day either. I'd much rather just have a "normal day" everyone else I know has of getting up, going to work, coming home or spending time with friends and family and knowing that the next day will be a repeat of that, instead.

 I don't think anyone should have to withstand with days like this...even in Australia.

Another Year Older

So I realized this morning that April is quickly on it's way out the door for another year, which means May is fast approaching, and with it...my birthday.

I honestly don't know when I stopped really enjoying the idea of turning a year older, but as my 37th approaches, I realize that it's probably been about ten years at least since I really felt like "celebrating" my coming into this world.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not the result of the stereotypical "Midlife Crisis" or fear of getting old either. I understood a long time ago that there's no way to stop the progression of life we all go through, and I made up my mind that I was not going to be like people I knew who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting they're not 21 anymore.

*Editorial Note - In fact, I remember waking up on my 30th birthday, rolling out of bed and feeling the same cracks and pops in my bones that I had the day before, so it was far from an Earth-shattering revelation that my 20's were now over.

This is where I was when I turned 36, choosing to run away and get lost for the whole week in a city I'd never seen before rather than stay home and try to find some arbitrary way to commemorate the occasion. But when it came time to actually acknowledge it, I didn't really do all that much other than treat myself to lunch in San Francisco's famous Chinatown (which ended up not being all that great, truth be told) and then going to a sleepy little dive not too far from where I was staying in San Jose called Singlebarrel and having a drink in a comfortable chair in a corner of the very dark space, drowning out the surrounding chatter and conversation with my iPod and scribbling down everything I was running from in my notebook.

Had I a job and the means to do so now, I probably would do the same thing and run away to somewhere else I haven't been to before, of which there are a great many places. Before I left last year, I posted a rather morose note to my friends telling them that I was, in a sense, doing them a favor by taking off and not having to go through the arbitrary paces of wishing me a "Happy Birthday," and for a while now, I've tried convincing them to treat it, (and I've told them this with absolute sincerity) as just another day and to really ignore it.

So why would I do that? Why marginalize, trivialize and disregard the fact that I made it through another year? As I sit here and rack my brain for an honest answer, this is what I've been able to come up with.

My continued existence isn't worth celebrating and even if it was, I honestly, truly, don't remember how.

Now I can already hear the comeback to that, "How could you possibly think such a thing?!" which is a perfectly valid question and also worth answering.

The answer is that looking at my life and what it is now from standing in the middle of it reinforces that opinion a little more everyday. I'm unemployed and frantically looking for a job wherever I can find one with next to no success. I'm single with absolutely no interest in dating or finding a girlfriend because my divorce and everything that came after eradicated my instincts and ability to trust either what I feel or the intentions whoever I might be interested in. I'm an absentee father to a brilliant little boy who is everything that I was at his age and I'm desperate not to corrupt him in the same way I was by my parents and the life of growing up in a broken family.

My days are spent grappling with extreme self-doubt and a total lack of both self-confidence and self-worth and even on the one when I go to sleep feeling good about myself, there's those inevitable swings back the other way and I consider my entire life to this point to have been completely and utterly wasted.

Now if I had a surging career, a nice house, less stress and all the things I've wanted, I'm sure I wouldn't feel this way. Those weren't the cards I was dealt so I'm trying to make good with what I have.

From my view, which is all I have to really go on here, there's only one legitimately positive reason why I should celebrate my birthday this or any other year.

Because despite all that shit and everything I've had to fight off, everything I want so badly to forget, and everything I want more than anything in the world to change...I'm still here.

Try as it all has to put me in the ground, and there have been many, MANY times where it was all but assured, it hasn't.

That has to count for something, I hope.

Love Thyself

The world seems to be full of epiphanic musings like this. I know because I've heard a great many of them in my life from people who've tried to convince me of what it is I'm lacking in order to get through this lingering state I've been in.

To be clear, I'm not the sort of person who believes that such advice is a terrible thing. On the contrary, being able to see yourself for who you are and accepting that reality isn't a bad thing at all, I'd like to think.

The issue comes when your self-image is predicated upon a foundation that was designed for one thing.

Maximizing self-loathing and self-hatred.

From an early age, I learned that being accepted by those around me would probably be the hardest thing I could accomplish. After all, going to school was a daily routine of degradation, abuse and rejection for a myriad of reasons.

If it wasn't the clothes I was wearing, it was the way I talked. If not that, then it was that I was smaller for my age. If not that, it was because I was smarter than most of the kids I was in class with and actually interested in learning. If not that, it was because I was descendant of a low-income family and not an upper middle-class one.

The one thing I never really understood is why it was that I became the constant target for such ridicule. I wasn't asking for it and I certainly wasn't encouraging it. I just wanted to be left alone, to have friends and to fit in, but it didn't happen because I was so different than "the norm."

As I went through all the calamitous crap I had to deal with in my late teens and early 20's, the level of self-abnegation I felt truly skyrocketed to where it's been ever since. No one ever walks out of a prison cell with a high opinion of themselves. They just don't. Why? Because that's not what it's designed for. Nor is the system which operates it.

The lie of this country is that we have a rehabilitative system for dealing with those who run afoul of the law for whatever reason. The truth is it's actually built around retribution. At no point did any of the shrinks I had to see ever work on building positive self-reinforcement. Not once. All it was, every week for five years was pointing out the worst parts of who I was perceived to be and hammering home how I could never have a "normal" life because there was something so wrong with me that I was no longer permitted to just be a regular person.

The severity of my self-loathing is not a sporadic occurrence. It has grown and been cultivated over a long period of time dating back nearly 30 years now and in that time, I have tried to figure out ways to circumvent that runaway train of thought and try seeing myself in a better light. Some days, I can, but it never lasts very long because there's always a trigger that sets my self-perspective back on what it deems to be the proper course.

Going through divorce and all that came after certainly didn't help either. If anything, it just reinforced the position I've always had.

Nobody loves you, Dev, and they're never going to no matter how badly you want them to. If they can't or don't, then there's really no point in you trying to either.

It's a vicious, self-sustaining cycle. You can only be accepted if you accept yourself, but it becomes harder to accept one's self if no one else wants them around either.

At this point, my self-awareness is so hypersensitive that I know both who and what I am probably better than I ever have before. I know what I've been through, the things I've achieved and overcome and every mistake I've made, be they trivial or otherwise. I live with memories, feelings and actions that I will always regret and wish I could change. I still have dreams for things I want to do before this life ends.

Love is an instinctual feeling we acquire from the moment we're born. Hate is something that is taught to us through outside influences. I know this because I only have to look at my son to realize that even at his age of three, he still sees the world in a totally different spectrum than I do, and I remember how at that age, I felt the same way. I didn't hate anyone and I certainly didn't hate myself by any measure.

But I still do now. I have for nearly the entirety of my life since. For me, it's much easier to exhibit love in an external capacity than an internal one and to me, it's no less real or valid. If someone ever hears me say the words "I love you,"to them, I honestly can't be any more sincere.

I can't because they're three words I've never, ever, been comfortable with saying to myself.

Comic Relief

So I know over the course of the next 24 hours, the internets is going to be awash in reactions, criticism and appreciation for How I Met Your Mother, and I assume rightly so either way.

I make the assumption, of course, because I've never sat down and watched a single one of the 208 episodes it's cranked out in its run.

*Editorial Note: Yes, I had to look that number up.

I can also say the same thing about virtually all the big TV sitcoms that have come out in the last ten years. Big Bang Theory hurts my brain with how over the top it is regarding geek culture. Two-and-a-Half Men was funny for about ten minutes and I lost interest in it, and I don't know half the other shows that my friends are seemingly invested in anymore.

With how little television I watch these days, I also realized something over the past weekend after watching one show I've grown rather enamored with. I seem to get more enjoyment out of watching macabre and potentially horrifying things like Hannibal, Luther and the other heavy psychological thrillers out there than I do watching something with a laugh track, and I'm not entirely sure why.

I mean I get having the need for being able to stand back and just laugh at the absurdities of life and when I was out with my brothers celebrating one of their birthdays two weeks ago, I probably laughed more in those four hours than I had in the previous four months.

Were I to try and pin it down, I guess the simplest reason I can throw out there is I seem to have lost the ability to see the funny side of life most of the time. Over the last few years, my perspective has shifted to see the world in a much darker and distorted light dominated by the more malevolent parts of the human psyche. It's not all awkward situations, easy resolutions and guarantees that the guy ends up with the girl in quasi-happy endings.

There be monsters out there. Real ones. And they are nothing to laugh at.

But it's in the midst of having such a cynical forced perspective that having any sense of humor to push those shadows back a bit is all the more important. I know I have sense of humor and I do genuinely like to laugh as much as anyone else does. I know because I make people laugh all the time, whether intentionally or otherwise.

It's just more than a little scary to think of all the things I may have lost in the last few years, my funny bone might have been one of the biggest casualties, because maybe more than I ever have, I need it.

Anime Madness

In the fall of 1993, two of my brothers, Erik Weswig, Matthew Johnston and I were riding home from the anime group we belonged to when Erik came upon a grandiose idea which was so very typical of him. With anime and collectible card games exploding in popularity in the U.S. at the time, we would combine the two into what we thought would be a fun and entertaining combination.

After some further brainstorming, we had a base idea of how the game would work and better still, we had a name.

We called it Anime Madness.

Being all of 16, and having a hard enough time getting through adolescence intact, we were incredibly green but undaunted and rather than go to classes and do the usual high school grind, Matt and Erik spent many an hour in the computer lab at Sunset High School designing the cards on truly draconian programs installed on a Mac SE/30 and I helped come up with rules, ideas and the occasional quote which actually ended up on one of the finished cards.

Erik's first idea for a card that started the whole thing was one called The Ugliness Compensator, which allowed the player, if they thought their opponent was rough on the eyes, as it were, the player didn't have to look at said opponent for the rest of the game.

We were 16. Maturity was still a ways off.

We had planned this to just be a fun thing we could use for the anime group  as a substitute for Magic: The Gathering, which had totally taken over our weekly meetings. And despite the occasional setback, we were having a ball putting it together when Erik died on March 5, 1995.

With the man who'd created the concept gone, Matt and I weren't sure what we planned to do with everything the three of us had put together. We wanted to finish it, and after some long talks, decided not only would we see it through but we were going to go all the way and turn this into a full-fledged, marketed game sold around the country and maybe...even the world.

So, we kept going. After graduation, Matt and I continued to get the rules codified. We even brought in his mom to help play-test it after we figured if she can learn to play it, ANYONE could.

*Editorial Note: To her credit, she did learn how to play it and in the first game she ever played, she beat me. I regret nothing.

Even when he went off to college, Matt continued to also refine the card design, thanks to the semi-improved technology available at the University of Oregon when we realized we needed one more thing.

We had a card game based on anime, but we had no anime to put on the cards.

So enlisting the help of some of our friends at Northern Oregon Vancouver Animation (NOVA for short), and after contacting the major U.S. anime distributors of the day, Pioneer, Viz, Streamline, U.S. Manga Corp  and AnimEigo, we supplied the gang with a couple of sample decks and instructions and let them go down to Los Angeles to meet with them at one of the many conventions going on at the time.

As I recall, Viz looked at it, but balked then walked out and Streamline wasn't even there. AnimEigo's head Robert Woodhead, though, was intrigued enough at the potential of what we'd done to let us have the licenses to three titles, Bubblegum Crisis, Riding Bean and Genesis Survivor Gaiarth. We were both stunned and enthralled and with laserdiscs in hand, YES, LASERDISCS I SAID, we went back to work finishing the game, spending many an hour with Matt's dad's laserdisc player plugged into a computer and running even more draconian video capture software over every millimeter of them to get the images we ended up using.

*Editorial Note #2: Keep in mind this was 1995-96. AOL was still around version 2.0 and Netscape still existed. Otherwise, there was no Google Search and therefore, no proper internet.

Despite that, by the time Matt was finally done after many, many hours of slaving over the damn things, we had our final designs and were ready to unleash it upon the world.

We had investors backing us and after setting up a deal with a card printer and the largest distributor of cards and comics in the country at the time, off it went into the great beyond. Matt and I were 19 years-old and still had the belief that we would indeed conquer the world with our game. And of course, we got nowhere close. 

In the end, we barely broke even on it, but our investors got their money back. While we were called as a massive Magic clone, and rightly so, we still managed to get recognition in major publications of the day and even won an award. Inquest Magazine named one of our cards one of their picks for 1996. Sadly, I don't remember what exactly it was, but it was something.

We were actually in the planning stages for a new set of cards, which I was much more involved in, when Matt and I made the decision to finally shut it down. To have done it once, at our age and with everything we would've had to do in order to make it work again, was just not possible anymore.

By that time, Pioneer, who had scoffed at our design, had gone with a competing design that was also at the same con, and eventually became Ani-Mayhem. They ultimately proved more successful than us, but really only just. By 1997, the CCG bubble had become so saturated that all it could do was burst.

I was disappointed, to be sure, but I got over it. 

To this day, I still have three packs of the game I helped create more than half my life ago now, and I'll never get rid of them. I haven't played an actual game of it since we first brought it out, and while it was an interesting novelty I'd show at job interviews for a while after that, in the hopes it would help show what I could do, that eventually stopped as well.

Honestly, I felt like we'd failed somehow and that while it was a nice ride, I couldn't really call it mine because I wasn't the one behind it. I felt like I was more along for the ride than anything and what we'd create next was truly going to have been my proverbial baby.

For the last three years, they'd been tucked away in one of my many boxes in my storage room, buried under other things I'd decided I didn't need to see or think about anymore.

But as I was going through my yearly Spring Cleaning, I remembered I had them so I went digging until I found them again. And as I've been sitting here flipping through them, the embarrassment and sense of shame I'd somehow latched onto these cards are gone. 

This is my game. I helped create it and I can say so because my name is on it. 

Matt and I could've quit, but we didn't. While our classmates were freaking out over geometry homework, SAT's, college applications and who they were going to prom with that Spring, we were doing the same thing and starting our own business, before we'd even gotten our diplomas.

That's not something to be ashamed of. Rather, I should be damn proud of it. And I am. Regardless of what anyone else can say about me, I helped create something both tangible and lasting, and not many people get to say that in their lives. If I can do it once, I can do it again with the novel I'm writing or anything else I choose to create.

We also never forgot Erik, either. It was his idea that started this whole crazy ball rolling and as his friends and brothers, we were crazy enough to see it through to the highly improbable conclusion. And we let everyone who ever put their $15 down on a deck know that when they opened it up for the first time.

I miss those days. I miss them a lot. For all the craziness of it, we also had a lot of fun putting it all together and then seeing the result of that be shared by other people. Apparently, we were a big hit in the Midwest. How many people can say that?

My Valentine

I have to admit my disillusionment with this day started at an early age and as I've gotten older, not much has altered my rather bitter and cynical view of it.

I get how we like to give ourselves a day to really celebrate something. After all, we have Christmas, New Year's, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Presidents Day and even Flag Day.

Hell, St. Patrick's Day has gone from an Irish priest getting the snakes out of the country to people who have no hint of Irishness in them getting downright piss drunk before having to try and show restraint the other 364 days of the year.

Valentine's Day is supposed to be the day we set aside to both show and tell the significant other in our lives how much we really love them. And I guess therein lies my problem with it.

For me, one day just isn't enough for that. That's something to spend the rest of your life doing because if you really love someone that much, it should be fairly easy to do.

I've been single for three years now and despite that, I find myself not wanting to be bitter or angry today, because I remember how good it felt on the days when I could tell the someone I hold dearest to me that I still loved them that much and always will. And even though right now, it hurts a whole hell of a lot to know that I can't anymore, the fragile little optimist of my Yin is always telling me that maybe someday...if I'm lucky, I might.

Pink Slip

So yeah...this happened.

I had just gotten off the phone with a local city council member, after spending the better pat of two days running around talking to people, tracking down information and taking photos for the group of stories I was working on for the week, when I was summoned into my boss's office.

Ten minutes later, with my few possessions in tow, I was escorted out of the office I'd worked in for the last two years.

I didn't get an official answer to why I was being let go, but based on the previous two weeks and the sudden about-face which had taken place, it doesn't take much to figure it out.

I'd been notified at the end of the month that my productivity had fallen off and I needed to pick it up again quickly. Not an unrealistic demand to make by an employer and I knew that. And since we were having a change in management, the overall tenor of the office had changed somewhat and the word was given that we were all going to be held more accountable for our impact on the company, both good and bad.

So the following week, I did so. I got off my butt and out from behind my desk, of which I admit I'd grown a little too comfortable with, and tracked some good stories down. I didn't complain, didn't fuss or fight them on it. In fact, I didn't say much of anything to anyone.

I figured the best way to show my productivity was to actually BE more productive. Turned out that didn't work, either, as I was both written up and lectured again. This time, however, the lecturing took on a very different tone, because I was notified that I had, in effect, been spied on through social media for a good chunk of time.

Now, in this day and age of the NSA, Edward Snowden, semi-secret super-huge data collection sites in the Utah desert and everyone clamoring to be a part of the great social media engine that is Facebook, Twitter and the lot, I get why employers frown upon their people getting too immersed in it all. I do. Hell, I even wrote about my growing sense of dependency (for lack of a better term) on Facebook to have any sense of social identity at all.

I also understand that in a time where even the simplest choice of words on a tweet or a post can be so drastically blown out of proportion by those who might not understand the full context of what's being said, we have to choose our words VERY carefully. I'd like to think I did so, as I never spoke ill about my employers or anyone I worked with on Facebook or this blog and I made a concerted effort to not let either interfere with my ability to do my job.

Unfortunately, that was not the consensus agreement, and the fact that I was even using this platform to deal with everything I'm working through became an issue, which in all honesty, it shouldn't have.

I made no illusions about the fact that I am still working through my depression and other unresolved issues, and because my employer felt the need to raise the rates on our healthcare coverage to more than I could afford every month, I had to cancel it in favor of things like rent, food, electricity, gas and car payments. That said, with the passage of the ACA, I was in the process of getting my benefits back at a rate I could actually afford. Problem is, such things take time and for as impatient as I can be a lot of the time, turned out I wasn't the only one.

Then I got asked the most uninformed question I've ever heard from someone claiming to be a qualified journalist.

"Don't you want to feel better?"

Let me be as straight about this as I can be. Would you ask a person who is fighting cancer, or diabetes, or fibromyalgia, or drug/alcohol addiction that question and expect them to respond "No?"

Then why, in the name of common sense, is that considered something to ask a person struggling with mental illness?

Of course I want to feel better.

For years, the single hardest parts of my day have always been going to sleep and getting out of bed. My brain doesn't want to shut off at night, and when it finally does and I then have to get my butt up and do stuff, it doesn't want to do that either. I can't tell you when it started, but it's been a persistent battle I've had to fight for a long time.

I also don't like walking around feeling like everyone I know can't stand the sight of me, or doesn't want to talk to me, or doesn't care what happens to me. Even though I know that is completely opposite of how my closest friends and family actually feel, and I know this because they've had to remind me more times than I'm sure they'd like to tolerate.

And no, I don't like feeling so wholly inadequate as a human being that I have nothing to contribute to the world outside my door and would rather keep said door shut, locked, and dead-bolted than to let any modicum of sunshine in.

Nobody enjoys feeling this way, least of all me. Yet I do. All the time. So the question I so desperately wanted to ask in return was, "Do you honestly think taking my job away is somehow going to make me a healthier person?"

Sadly, I didn't ask it because I've been around long enough to know that in such situations, the perspective of management is always the right one and to question said perspective is akin to spitting on the Pope's shoes.

I also got the uber-patronizing consolation of, "Now don't go beating yourself up over this." Right. Like the fact that I am now out of work, in a country that's systematically taking apart its domestic support systems with the subtlety of Leatherface because it views its unemployed as "lazy and uninspired to work harder," and now have to worry about how I'm going to pay my rent, or my child support, or find another job in a still stagnant and atrophied economy, that makes it all okay. If we're still all about banging the drum of "personal responsibility," then why wouldn't I spend a great deal of time kicking the crap out of myself for losing my livelihood?

In the dictionary, under the word Hypocrite, it should say, "See: Management."

In the week since, I've already sent out about twenty portfolios across the country. I have my preferences on where I'd like to work, but on the whole, I really don't care any more. I just want out of here.

I would like to go somewhere fresh and totally start over from scratch. Leave all the bad memories and reminders at the border, plant my flag in fresh earth and chart a new direction. But to do that I need a job first.

Tally Ho.

Checkmate

I have never been much of a player when it comes to chess.

In fact, I rather suck at it.

I don't say that to cast aspersions on myself. It's just what it is. When I was a kid, I learned how to play. Learned how each piece moved and how the ultimate goal is to simultaneously claim your opponent's king while protecting your own.

Chess is also similar to poker in that the best players learn not to play the pieces on the board, but the person sitting across from them. You have to be strategic and learn to anticipate where they will move so you can counter with the right defense.

While I was tucked away out of circulation, many moons ago, I remember watching some of my compatriots play chess and wanted to really learn. I played a couple of games, but ultimately never cultivated an education in it. What I also failed to really understand until just recently is that even though I haven't sat at a board in nearly 20 years, I've actually been playing a different version of it in my head against everyone I know for at least that long.

What I developed was a means by which I could anticipate actions that would lead to potentially negative consequences for me, without forcing myself into a gambit and sacrificing any piece of mine. This means always trying to keep two or three moves ahead at all times, even if that meant dictating what those closest to me did.

Because my goal's always been the same. How do I make sure I can never get hurt?

That requires not only a rather manic need to maintain control over my sphere of influence at all times, but also a willingness to be manipulative in achieving the anticipated outcome and a rather ridiculous amount of mental energy and stamina.

Trying to figure people out by thinking two or three moves ahead at all times is damn exhausting, which makes me wonder both how and why I've done it this long.

I know the why. It is purely a defense mechanism and a means by which for me to feel clever by thinking I know someone so well that I can react to whatever they do even before they think about doing it. Only it's all complete guesswork generated by the very large clump of fear and insecurity which has influenced a great many things I've both done and not done.

It's the how that honestly boggles my mind, because it totally bucks any concept of common sense. How I ever thought that this was the best way to shield myself from the risk of relationships and being a social animal, I have no idea.

It also makes stepping away from such a practice hard to do, though, because of how familiar with it that I am. To me, it feels so natural at this point that turning it off is going to take a lot of work.

But as the philosopher Joshua once observed, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Onto the Carpet

Nobody ever likes to be called out for anything.

Earlier today, I got asked three questions that are all valid and worth answering. I said at the time I was asked they were worth giving some thought to and I didn't want to respond with simple explanations because they are not simple questions.

Question One: When you ask for help, what is it that you actually want?

This might be the hardest one to answer because asking anyone for help is not something I really know how to do. I'm so used to the shoe being on the other foot and having both people ask me and me offering my help to the people that matter.

Because of that, trying to condense it down to a singular thing seems a lot harder than it probably is, but I'll give it a shot.

My friend Amber pointed out the other day that I'm always the person to come in and rescue someone if they need it, but when they try to repay in kind, I won't accept it out of a warped sense of self-worth. I'm more content to be the martyr as it seems more fitting of someone with a life like mine.

I would like to think that those I care about know if they needed me to, there is no limit that I wouldn't go to help them. I do that for two reasons. One, is because I love them and two is because I know how much it hurts when all you want is to be rescued and are ignored.

So what do I want?

I want to know in my mind, truly know that the people who offer that help aren't going to turn around and bolt when things inevitably get real messy during this process. I want to know that I won't be ignored or marginalized and that what's going on isn't a figment of my imagination as it's been in the past.

It's not up to them either. It's up to me convincing myself that I don't have to question anyone's motives anymore. The only way I'm going to be able to do that is by letting my guard down enough to accept their help, whatever that may be.

Question Two: How many times do I have to be told I'm cared about before I will actually believe it?

The answer for this obviously ties into my first one. I've had people tell me my whole life how much I'm cared about and I've believed it. Then those people left and I've felt like a complete imbecile for doing so.

As a result, I accept affection like I accept compliments. Tentatively, at best. I brush it aside and minimize it as much as I can, but never let myself just take it for what it was.

Example: Four hours ago, I had someone say they still wanted to help me, even though I had hurt her once quite badly.

"Because you matter," she said.

And all I wanted was to argue back and demand to know how she can possibly look at me that way after what we've gone through together, even though it would be pointless to do so.

Being loved or cared for by someone else brings an element of very real fear that I didn't always have. As a result, my baseline has been that I care about someone more then they could possibly begin to about me. I also simply feel like I don't deserve the adoration as my self-worth has continued to wallow. Part of that comes from being rejected early and often and part of it is the sheer intensity of what I actually feel.

That's not to say I don't want someone to love me, nor do I not want people to care. It's when they stop loving me or I have to stop feeling the same way that it becomes very painful and I become even more reluctant to try repeating the process.

Question Three: Can I act like I care about other people instead of just brushing off the hate I feel?

I make no bones about the fact that the dominant aspect of my personality is based in all the anger I've hung onto for the majority of my life. And while I've tried very hard to not let it bleed off into the friendships and impact the people I know who never did anything to warrant being treated as such, it's gotten easier for me to lash out when it wasn't warranted.

As I've said before, I come from a family where having addictive and volatile personalities isn't uncommon. I'm not using that as an excuse, but where my father was also a really angry guy who'd just get drunk or stoned every chance he got, I get angry and then live on the emotional and psychological high I get from it. Like it or not, there are genetic and hereditary correlations when it comes to mental illness issues like depression that can be further exacerbated as we develop. Such things are decided by people with a lot more degrees and work in a higher pay-grade than I'm likely to hit in this life.

It will probably sound relatively insane, but I prefer being angry to being calm, because the anger provides the boost I need to actually get shit done or say the things I otherwise would be too timid to say. In that aspect, I am complete junkie and wholly dependent on getting really pissed off during the day to motivate me in doing anything. And if that means I have to bite back at someone in the process, then I could always justify it by saying at least I'm not sitting on my butt feeling sorry for myself.

It's also because of that dependency that I have such an incredibly hard time letting it go. It's not that I like conflict or being so wound up that I could knock someone through a wall. To be honest, coming down from that every day sucks. It's being so uncomfortable with being calm or at any measure of peace and/or relaxation that is the struggle.

Being able to care about someone is a calming action. It's soothing, and I do like it a lot. But when you're essentially pre-programmed to react to something with hostility, even if it's someone offering the love or affection you so desperately want or need, overcoming that can be truly very hard. That doesn't mean it can't be done, though.

It's just another thing I'm going to have to deal with the further down this road I go.