The Cycle

For a long time I have tried unsuccessfully to contain my negativity. Today I thought that perhaps it's just human nature to occasionally feel bad. When we feel good we recharge our emotional batteries and when we feel bad we figure out what is wrong with the world(...our world). Well, that's how it is for a "normal" person. But what if one or the other gets the better of you? When you're too happy you become careless and take unnecessary risks. Happiness makes us lose control. Then again while sad we understand everything so perfectly. It's just that we can't do much while deeply sad. It's overwhelming.
But what if this kind of cycle is actually normal? What if both extremes are so thoroughly ineffective that we need to use both, just at different times? I know it's possible to get exhausted from happiness. So exhausted in fact, that I become negative.
Well, perhaps this is how it really is - we are designed to alternate between black and white moods. Perhaps mania and depression are just more extreme versions of the same things that make us function? It certainly would change my perspective a lot. It would mean that trying to avoid depression or "be happy" is futile. It would mean that whatever good and bad we have is fleeting.
But it would also mean that what's more important than our feelings is how we channel them. That mania is a desperate plea for happiness when we haven't had enough. That depression is just undirected realism in situations we have no control over.
If this is indeed the case, then both our happy and sad times are just resources waiting to be used. I remember so very clearly that I wrote most of my stories when I felt bad. That the best poem I've written is about sadness.
I feel like my problem is really just having too much energy and nothing to do with it. There is so little point in doing anything here, when it doesn't make me happy.


Me @ here:
/Depression is about being forced to work for no gain.
/Idealism only works as long as you are happy.
/Sacrificing oneself guarantees that you are unhappy, while not necessarily being helpful to anyone.

How can you reach a moving goalpost? Yell at it in confusion and cry if it doesn't stop.

I think I have figured out why I feel that nothing matter - it's because nothing does, in fact, matter. If you don't enjoy it, that is.
My typical cycle goes like this pull yourself together -> do hard work -> lose interest -> pull yourself together...
What I didn't really understand before is why I fall apart after work. Why do I suddenly lose interest in everything when in fact I should feel successful.
Well, now I understand that it's because there is no reward to it. All that my emotional side sees is do work->feel bad(tired)=> Don't do stuff that makes you feel bad. It doesn't sense any achievement in it and rightly so. Because usually the things I work for do not reach their conclusions. I value projects by what they result in in the end. By them adhering to the vision, which by the way changes by the minute. It's impossible to fulfill that vision, so of course my emotional side feels that it's useless. As long as the process itself doesn't become enjoyable, I am a slave to the previously described cycle, because nature has its methods of stopping us from doing useless things. Boredom is one of them.

Just so I would really understand the point - YOU CAN'T REACH A GOAL IF YOU KEEP CHANGING YOUR MIND ABOUT WHAT IT IS.
I wonder if knowing this will eventually give me some direction. If I'll be able to figure out how to solve the problem or just stash this information away as a tip to give to others. Either way, I have won by thinking of this.

A path to oblivion? To light? To something.

I don't show my pain, because I'm afraid of the toll it would put on others. It's still there.
One of the things I fear the most is being a burden. I don't want expressing my pain to be a plead for attention, like it is for so many. I still want attention. I'm trying to not be selfish, but it doesn't change that I still need something for myself too. Something that I'm not sure if anyone can provide. Even if there are people capable of helping me, am I worth the help to them? Am I someone that can be pulled up from this hole or will I just pull the other person down to my level? I don't want to pull them down. It's bad enough to pity oneself, it would be even worse if the weight on my conscience were heavier.
It's disgusting how I look at new love as a chance. As if it could fill the emptiness in me. Sure, I could blame many, but I still mostly blame myself. I am not powerful enough to change the world, so I can't blame it either. Blame is useless in things that you can't change. If you're not going to help, then why make the burden worse for others by whining? Hence why I don't show this blog to anyone except those I feel I really trust. Those that hopefully won't use my thoughts against me and break me down.

Well, writing things out like this is helpful. It does make things easier to understand, because when we write, we structure our thoughts. Perhaps that's my path? Perhaps I should give form to what I and others care so deeply about, but fail to express?

In any case, I have several paths that I've considered, but failed to truly decide on:
1. Programming.
2. Helping people(somehow?)
3. Something with languages, like a translator, interpreter or linguist.
4. Business.
5. Creating worlds(somewhat pairs with programming, but can also be through writing).
y. Others

Whatever it is I eventually do, it must be something that fulfills me.

Return to Sadness

It sure has been a while since I was last here.
There are so many things I don't understand. The more I know, the more I feel insufficient. Was all that potential given to me as an ironic joke? Surely there must be some point to it.
With great potential comes great responsibility to use it, but I don't feel like I've been doing nearly well enough. Sure, I have done a lot, but the mood swings and lack of persistence are always taking a toll. Why am I still not able to do any real programming? What happened with my interest in psychology and helping people? It's there, but I don't feel like I'm really doing enough... people bore and disappoint me more than ever too. But then again what I do isn't all that interesting either.
I wield great force and ability in things that don't matter much in the bigger scheme of things. Or if  they do, then in what way? I have no idea. I can't really cry either, I've mostly lost that ability again.
If I could cry it would be a sign that my sadness is at least sincere, but I can't. It feels like both my happiness and sadness are halfway. There's so much mediocrity that I can't bear and most of it is me. What's with my motivation?

Yet at other times I am perfectly fine. I do fine for a while and  then I just break down. Are my wounds that deep? When did I really get those wounds? Looking back at notes from 4 years ago I can see that I was sad even then. I was at times happy, at times sad, but overall it was already apparent that I have a lot of negativity in me. Well, now that I look at those times I can at least see this, back then I didn't.

Any pattern that repeats too much is painful for me. Always has been. Well, this time the pattern is my own mind, my own emotions. I wish to break the cycle, but I just don't know how.

What is it that I even want anymore? Am I still depressed or is this just a temporary phase? I'm doing fine objectively, but whenever I am away from people for too long I realize just how broken I am. Yet, I can't be with people the way I used to be either. It's driving me insane how I am now unable to trust, unwilling to make myself vulnerable, unwilling to accept pain so much that the fear itself is painful.
I don't trust myself around people that I love. The times I've abused power and brought people down to my own level of pain have made me cautious. I don't want to hurt them, but how can I approach them then? How can I take care of my own needs without taking something important away from someone else? At times it's crippling me to understand just how much I'd be able to do to a person. It's such a strong negative emotion that I have stopped talking at all to some people simply out of fear of hurting them. They didn't ever understand this, since I rarely talk about it.

In the past I was much more aggressive socially. I got myself a couple girlfriends over the years(usually not at the same time) and lost them painfully some time later. I have now understood that the only reason I got so many chances to approach people is because I instinctively seduced them. It's considered perfectly normal for most people, actually. Yet, they don't even understand. It's not possible to talk with the vast majority of people about what it is that makes them tick. About what really works on them. Because they don't know and/or are afraid of admitting it. It makes me sad.
I hurt a few such people mostly because I was too insecure about myself. I hadn't really learned nearly enough to avoid some mistakes. To anyone else many of those mistakes would have been obvious, but not to me who had had very little social interaction.

I think of the one that I've become and I'm not happy. I'm not fine with losing so much for so weak reasons. How am I supposed to pretend it? How am I supposed to put up with a pressure that I don't even understand fully? It's hard to say whether it's the perfection or lack of it that's killing me.
Even as I pour my heart out here I still remain calm. I'm not doing this very emotionally by my own standards, because if I allowed myself to feel more, I'd be utterly unable to put up with the pain. I'd cry endlessly until I could cry no more. But maybe that's what I really should do?

Writing my worries out like this has always been helpful. My first short stories were actually written in times of great despair. There was always something heavy on me that I needed to get off of my shoulders and that made me create. Now I don't have any immediate concerns like this anymore, so I am having trouble writing almost anything. But I am slowly coming back to the me that I used to be. Well, partially...

I've seen things repeat so much, but it's all worthless. The only thing that really mattered to me in the past few years was my loved ones being happy. Especially this one Lov.
When I failed her I was more broken than I had been in my life. Nothing had been able to mess me up so bad. And yet that was only one of the 2 things that blew me down. I had been falling for a while, but only then did I realize just how broken I am. It disgusted me, it made me cry,  it made me lament my stupidity, it made me laugh over how weak I have been. Only once was I able to laugh off my weakness and even that was when the damage had already been done to me and others. I had already taken the greatest 2 hits of my life when I found just how hilariously stupid my situation is. Well, whether it's a joke or not, it's still here. I'm not so obsessively broken as I was in those weeks of deep depression, but I am still not fine either. What do I have to do to lift this curse? What is it that I even want? Everything seems so pointless when I'm down.

If  a person doesn't want anything, nothing can be done to make them happy. As I poetically bleed ink, I'm still worthless. More worthless than I have ever been, as if that was possible. As if there were multiple degrees of worthlessness. Well, before this I had more hope. I had a vague knowledge of better things to come. Come they did, but so did things that hurt me, most of it my own stupidity - that same stupidity which helped me remain standing in this storm of negativity.
What can I do that would make me worthwhile again? Is there a heaven for one such as me? I'm not religious, but I still hope for some kind of salvation. Some kind of fulfillment of purpose.
I know it's only me that can truly change my life, but I still don't know how. If someone can lift me up... please...