I love the way this album sounds. Incredible, heavy piano tone. Great songs.

THIS SONG FUCKING STOMPS

LISTEN TO THAT BASS

FUCK! THE JULIANA THEORY WERE SO GOOD!!!!!

I always could count on futures.
That things will look up — and they look up!
Why is it so hard to find a balance
between living decent and the cold and real?

Today, things are looking up! Lots of pieces moving into better places. I don't think you can count on futures, James, but you can still keep working to find that balance.

This is to report that my emotions are very weird right now. No strong desires in any direction. Functional progress on multiple fronts, against the tide of feeling vaguely useless. But it's all I have energy for. I keep engaging with various activities and then feeling somewhere between hollow and bad. I would like to be able to relax and have a good time, but a high number of things have gone wrong or simply changed in the last couple of months, while my available resources have remained tightly-constrained. I appreciate the friends who have helped take care of me. I apologize to anyone who hasn't heard from me, or who I've let down recently. Believe me: I don't want me to be like this, either.

i just want to do my thing

I have a counseling appointment on Monday, and then a psychiatrist visit in a few weeks. Things are """fine""", but I'm thinking I need recalibrating again.

It's hard for me to be broke, working 10+ hour days, have personal relationships failing, and to regard my life as anything but a series of smoking craters where dreams briefly took flight on volatile fuel. LOL

At least it doesn't feel so bad anymore!! 🧠 💊

but even a muscle
needs a beat to know its pace
without a pulse, oh!
it isn't easily replaced

Alice, the world is full of ugly things that you can't change. Pretend it's not that way, is my idea of faith. You can blow it off and say there's good in nearly everyone; just give them all a chance! Now let's give them all a chance...

No, it didn't work out the way we thought it would.

Try not to think about it, Alice Childress. Try not to think about it anymore.

I didn't listen to Fall Out Boy until a few years ago, and let me tell you: this is one of the great rock albums. SORRY

I asked Carl Jung whether he had anything to say about meaning in life, and flipped open my new copy of Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Here's what I read, on page 324 (I've re-translated all of the "default male" language into broader inclusive terms):

Unconscious wholeness therefore seems to me the true spiritus rector [guiding spirit] of all biological and psychic events. Here is a principle which strives for total realization — which in our case signifies the attainment of total consciousness. Attainment of consciousness is culture in the broadest sense, and self-knowledge is therefore the heart and essence of this process. The East attributes unquestionably divine significance to the self, and according to the ancient Christian view self-knowledge is the road to knowledge of god.

The decisive question for us is: are we related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of our lives. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a person lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity they have for what is essential, the less satisfying is their life. They feel limited because they have limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted. In our relationships to other people, too, the crucial expression is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship.

I don't feel much of a link with the infinite, but it sure sounds nice.