Metablog

Life is meaningless.

What’s interesting about this sentiment is that it doesn’t explain at all the condition which gives life to it. It’s a fundamental psychological fallacy. A projection of one’s state of mind onto the world. And it’s ironic too—the underlying neurological phenomenon, and thus the sentiment itself, is every bit as meaningless as the antagonistic world, the “life” against which the mind rails ineffectually.

Sadness is coercive lack of meaning, or failure of meaning to explain the world. Take away the coercion, and all you have left is apathy. For some, anthropomorphizing can lead to agents on which to project coercive potency, and thus they can rationalize continued sadness. Others have legitimate grievances against society. (Though their sadness or anger is no less a result of their personality.) I guess it takes a pretty good life to realize that depression isn’t a result of it.

On the other hand, I just need to get laid.

As you can see, I’ve not been really adding much content here recently. I feel bad about it, because I like writing, when I’m up to it. And I do want to have more readers and commenters. Part of the problem is that I’m divided on whether to make this blog a personal blog. I’m not sure that I want that kind of community. And then part is I’ve done diaries, and I’m sort of sick of them. But I think that, maybe, I could give these personal posts some wider appeal. So I’m going to give it a try. And anyway, there’s no point in not doing it when I’m not in a state to write about anything else.

So, I’ve been feeling lackluster. Not up to thinking hard about much of anything, let alone commenting on other blogs or writing. Pretty depressed. About two months ago I got a DVR and started watching TV again (because I can’t stand to watch live TV) and starting watching probably three or four hours a day. I think that might have caused some of this. I unhooked the thing a week ago, and haven’t really been feeling any better. My sleep in the last two weeks has been abominable, starting with going downtown one saturday night (getting in at 3 AM). I hadn’t ever done that before, and don’t plan to again. My sleep hasn’t recovered its precariously balanced state since then.

I’m feeling very dissatisfied with my emotional state. Going home to see my dysfunctional family for Thanksgiving started me thinking about the issues they gave me. I decided that it’s far past time for me to start dating—I’ve never dated anyone seriously, and I’m almost a virgin—so I started trying to work through OKCupid again to find someone. I’ve been one one date through there, but haven’t managed yet to get another. I’ve been able to strike up several conversations, but I botched one of them, and the others haven’t lead anywhere, and aren’t looking promising. Three of the people whose profiles that I liked the most (one of which was amazingly similar to mine) didn’t respond at all.

Through this process, I’ve discovered what my main emotional shortcoming is: the thing that’s been bothering me for years about myself, and which I think I’ve just been able to put into words in the past several days. That shortcoming is that I don’t feel affection for other people. In fact, I don’t really feel anything for other people. I don’t feel compassion or empathy either. I’m interested in other people, sure, and sexually I’m pretty normal, if kinky. But I’m afraid to show that interest. Afraid ask people to talk about themselves. Not afraid to talk to them, even about myself (witness this blog), but afraid to start conversations, and to ask questions. I’m afraid of doing anything that presumes that the other person has a reciprocal interest in me, personally. (That includes calling them on the phone and IMing them.) Now that I write that out, I can see that it looks like a manifestation of low self-esteem. And who would have ever guessed that was my problem? I should do a post on how the Lake Wobegon bias is the foundation of human well-being, and how realism is cynicism, and what that implies about happiness in someone who doesn’t want to be self-delusional. How do you improve your self esteem without being unrealistic?

And how did people evolve the ability to have poor self-esteem in the first place? Does it have something to do with a pack mentality?

So, I have issues.

I don’t feel affection easily. It’s a trust thing. Not surprisingly, I’m afraid to change it. If I can avoid it, I’d rather not change it by forcing myself into social situations until I start to become more comfortable in them. That’s putting myself in very difficult situations. Setting myself up for having my trust broken, repeatedly. The trust will usually have been misplaced. I think I know enough about trustworthiness to find someone who is very trustworthy, but right now I don’t know enough about people to really do intermediate degrees very well, so putting myself in situations where I’m not sure how close to get, how quickly, and in what ways, is going to be really hard.

Now, sure, I’m going to have to do this eventually. But I think I need something first. I need a person I can trust. Once I have a person I can trust, a person I can feel safe around, I can learn to calibrate my trust in my less intimate relationships without having to worry about even more heartbreak, because when I make mistakes my safe person will help me to heal and rebound in ways that I could never do on my own. I’m just not emotionally able to do that sort of thing.

To do it this way would be so much more comfortable for me. But it sounds like a bad idea, somehow. Unrealistic, maybe? But then, is it unrealistic to hope to find someone who is much the same as me? Someone not interested in a casual friendship, but only a very close one?

I wonder what sort of relationships would fill this sort of role. Would a therapist perform a similar role? I doubt it. One shouldn’t feel affection for a therapist, and I think I need to feel affection toward a person if I’m to be able to feel safe with them. (On the other hand, a therapist might be able to help with some of these issues. How do you pick a good therapist, anyway?)

Would a mentor? Well, it’s conceivable, but usually you imagine mentors being more focused on helping you with one particular (usually professional) aspect of your life.

A platonic friend? Well, physical intimacy, for me, would be absolutely necessary, but I imagine sexual intimacy would be irrelevant, so maybe. But they would, practically, have to be female. I can’t imagine asking a guy friend for a hug.

Commitment? I think I could come to really trust a person that I wouldn’t want to actually marry. There are people who are reliable and loving but who don’t have the interests or intelligence to really captivate me. And I think I would be able to have real relationships with those people. But can there be complete trust between two people outside of a committed, long-term relationshp? I don’t think so. On the other hand, “long-term” doesn’t have to mean “lifetime”. I would really considering doing a 5-year commitment to someone. Possibly expanding that commitment at the end of the first year, and possibly letting it stand at four years.

Damn. That sounds like a really good idea. Much more realistic than marriage.

Now that I think about it, there are plenty of kinds of committed relationships that have nothing to do with marriage. The kind of trust you put in the other members of your squad in the Army or the Marines or something, for instance. Or the kind of trust a child gives a parent.

Huh.