Thursday, December 04, 2008

Haze

So over the past few months or year, or two years because every time I look back I seem to have written less and less of substance than I thought I had I've sunk into a doughy lump of unfocused laziness. I haven't sat down to write. I've thought of some reasonably entertaining posts, but like the old Doug Stone song I was too busy enjoying the feeling of of creative juices filling my head to pour them onto the page. The time passed, and I didn't write, no matter how energized I was.

When I wasn't thinking of something analytical or enjoyable or humorous I was sinking into an ever-deepening pit of depression. I say depression rather than misery because I haven't been miserable. I've been unmotivated. I've been uninspired. I've lost interest in the hobby I used to spend hours perfecting. I'd lost the will to write. It's a down feeling, a form of depression where everything seem gray and uninteresting. Whenever I sat down to put my thoughts into words a haze to rival the thick fog outside my morning window settled in and I'd look for other things to distract me. I've walked around the village, I've obsessed over American politics, I've watched the entire series of Futurama, Arrested Development, Maude, and Scrubs, I've viewed movies I hadn't seen in years, I've surfed the internet randomly, I've been lost in several German cities and villages, I've sampled the wide array of dirty movies available in cyberspace purely scientific purposes for that one, I assure you, I've gotten to know new people, I've annoyed the living shit out of Kalinara over instant messenger, I've attacked the ever-growing pile of unread books in my living, I've dumped my heart and soul into the neglected paperwork of my new workcenter, I've eaten European food, I've baked, I've cooked, I've taken so many baths that I legitimately fear I'll grow gills, I've learnt about the gods of my ancestors, I've raged at coworkers for parking in places people aren't fucking allowed to park would it kill them to fucking walk a few extra feet?!, I've taken pictures of Germany, I've driven around the countryside... I haven't made it up to Uppsala to visit the temple yet but I've managed to do a lot to distract myself.

All meaningless frivolities. Not an ounce of substance in the whole pile. Because whenever one of these activities--the large or the small made me feel the slightest bit of real emotion I started to write about that emotion in my head. And I fully intended to act on that, and actually write down these thoughts once I reached my computer. Then when I turned on the damned thing I lost the motivation. It drained from me, leaving me as a lump of formless, functionless--my god someone's gotten into the vocabulary shed and set loose my prized collection of adjectives!--goo sitting in a bathtub trying to will myself to pick up that half-read book of Robert E. Howard stories on the windowsill.

Or heaven help me I've written it and it's turned from something witty and clever to a muddled mass of bleakness, so I don't publish it.

I'm not the sort of person who labors under the misconception that only she feels this way. This is not the first time that this dear god I do not want to use ennui to describe it that is so fucking pretentious I could crawl under my kitchen table and die ennui has set in. It certainly won't be the last.

In the past when I've felt this intense lack intensity I've pounded out a rambling stream of consciousness post and put it up on my blog. Thereafter this gelatinous apathy clears up and there's once again room for the rage that blends with my venomous blood in the darkened chamber of my heart to produce that thick, vicious hatred that I gleefully spread upon the internet. And that leftover goth melodrama from my wasted teenaged years still soothes my soul whenever I fling it onto the page.

There's a problem, though. See, I live for your comments. I crave your attention, your adulation, your animosity. I don't like your pity, though. It rubs me the wrong way. It's uncomfortable. Give me a pack of snarling misogynistic wolves beating down the front door, a thousand trolls at my back gate--I'll face each and every one enthusiastically and come out of the fray laughing with their blood on my teeth but send a candy-striper and I'll be hiding in the basement with the lights off until she goes away. It's awkward and I shouldn't have to deal with it. But whenever I do one of these depressed stream-of-consciousness posts it never fails-- I get sympathy comments from those of you more readily suited to living in human society than I am.

I don't like those so I stopped writing the depressed posts. That was wrong of me, because now that I've taken such a long break I'm not sure I'll be able to shake it properly and get my anger-fueled writing energy back.


Usually about now the post peters off, because even I fear I sound too unhinged when I let my uncensored thoughts free to roam cyberspace and I get too nervous to continue. Though I'd lay money down that not a single one of you sound saner inside your own heads, and if you do think you sound sane in there you need to get yourself checked out because that's not normal. Sadly, I'm never sure how to stem the tide of stream of consciousness writing so I just turn off the faucet.

14 comments:

  1. Maude rocks, Chris, despite having ten times the acceptable level of Conrad Bain exposure.

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  2. That just makes it Extreme Conrad Bain, Andrew.

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  3. Lady, I've got an idea: You need to see other corners of germany than just the boring, depressing Eifel. Places that may inspire you, that are not just about the boring landscape, plus: There are actually Comic Book Shops over here, which are importing the current original american comic book issues every week, so they got the same stuff in store at the same time it comes out in the US. Yeah, really.
    So, you need some piece of home in form of some comic books or just some distraction and entertainment - just drop me a line. ;)

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  4. I am going through a very similar phase right now ... something I documented here: http://pjperez.livejournal.com/305495.html

    And I'm still feeling it. Crippling writing laziness. Consuming other media to stave off creating my own. Popping up with ideas but never bringing them to fruition. In my case, I work under a freelancer mindset: Without a deadline, I cannot produce. It kills me. But I feel ya.

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  5. Don't worry, given enough time some writer at DC will have one of the new Red Lantern's rape and leave Tora for dead to drive Guy and Bea into some kind of insane rage where they not only have to revenge themselves all over the universe, but they'll also have to have sex because they get all hot over the fighting and then keep it from Tora because they think she's weak, or something.

    I'm sure that'll get the venom pumping again.

    If not, keep up the "scientific" research, I hear it's good for something, if not the soul.

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  6. I think it's easy to underestimate the effect of moving to a foreign country, or even another city - both times I lived in Japan I wound up with clinical depression, which was not fun. Good luck.

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  7. Wait you want insults not sympathy?

    Um..You're ugly and you smell and your cat is plotting to steal your organs and sell them because you deserve it?

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  8. Does it help that your stream-of-consciousness still reads really, really nifty? Because it does.

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  9. You're foul, Ragnel. Just when I think it's safe to delete your blog from my bookmarks, you go and post something.

    -- Jack of Spades

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  10. I could comment on how much of this post I identify with and how much I have enjoyed what you've written previously . . . but I imagine that'd come dangerously close to sympathy.

    Instead, I will insult and troll you as per your request. Ahem. Here goes nothing!

    Ragnell - yo mama's so fat that her first appearance was Giant-Sized Mama-Thing Annual #1!

    And- and your blog smells like monkey butt! Yeah, I JUST SAID THAT.

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  11. DUDE!

    Don't talk that way about my Mama!

    She isn't.

    - Kim, Comic Book Goddess
    & Ragnell's Troll Sister.

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  12. Kim, you're absolutely right and I apologize to you both. I should have remembered Mr. T's sacred advice on the subject.

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  13. Now that's just enough of THAT, young lady! Don't make me come over there and slap you around! I just got my computer back from the shop, and it's all fixed, and I'm back in fighting trim and feeling ornery.

    Let's go pick on James Meeley!

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