it doesn't seem to matter what i do, that crushing feeling of emptiness is periodically inevitable. it's tied into realizing that the meaning i've temporarily tricked myself into creating is entirely constructed. and, getting out of it for another few days is a process that requires fooling myself once again. sometimes, i look back and actually cry about how trivial my motivations are. but they're the only motivations i have...

i don't need drugs. i'm not malfunctioning. i've come to a series of careful, reasoned conclusions and if you allow me the space to lay my arguments out i could very well convince the cheeriest people alive of these empty feelings that they seem to be oblivious to. to me, that's the head-scratching part of it. i really don't understand how so many people can be so happy - or bother pretending they're so happy - in the face of so much pointlessness. i don't want to understand this, either, as i feel it would necessarily require destroying a substantial number of brain cells.

i should have killed myself a long time ago, but i can't even really work up the nerve of even that. what's the point of suicide? i mean, these fleeting moments of contrived happiness, as well as these constant trials with myself, are surely more valuable than nothing at all? i'm most content when i ignore purpose and just exist. but i just can't come to terms with that in more than isolated stretches. i'm just constantly overwhelmed.

right now i'm mad at myself for it. i'm usually not. but right now i know i have to take advantage of this small period of freedom before it disappears. i can't be depressed or wasting my time thinking about what comes next (as though it matters, right? but these kinds of delusions are fundamental to building up any kind of motivation). i can't be losing myself in plans. the uncertainty, though, is gnawing.

what would i even do with this time period if i were using it to focus on the future like i'm supposed to be doing? i'm privileged enough to be able to re-educate myself largely as i see fit, but i've basically systematically ruled out any possible professional designation as a process of intellectually enslaving myself. the reason intellectual work is supposed to be more rewarding is that it provides for some freedom of thought, but that doesn't work when you can't get beyond any existing system of axioms without an objection that is so strong as to require mutiny. i'd actually have to suppress my views less as a wage slave than as a lawyer or a professor. there's no intellectual freedom there, there's no garden to frolic in - there's just the repetition of lies, the observance of conformity and the problem of cognitive dissonance.

i can't do tradeswork. i lack things like physical strength and motor skills. and i couldn't market a steak to a starving person.

so it's a process of looking forward to the reestablishment of my own enslavement, or getting lucky in extending my existing conditions. and why bother preparing for that? why not just hope you get lucky, and deal with the consequences if you don't?

there's no possible happy ending, it's just different levels of enslavement.

i realize they're going to throw it at me. "we gave you two years on disability to recover from a mental breakdown, and you wasted it in a scorched earth policy at carleton, followed by moving to the worst job market in the country and sitting around listening to music?"

well, yeah. it might be the last opportunity i get.