(open) e-mail to Kate this morning:
Morning.
Afternoon.
:-)
Hangover is not as bad as yesterday, or the day before, but still decided it was a better idea to take the day off and potter around, do my washing, gorge myself on toast and peanut butter and mess around on the internet rather than go to work. I am having Saturday on Monday and will have Friday on Saturday (ah, the elasticity of academic working hours - many's the time they have saved me after a rather too heavy weekend...)
It has been raining here too, but there's a nice fresh breeze blowing through the window and I'm feeling pretty good (apart from, y'know, the hangover).
I also started reading the Voir dit. It's kinda funny, although a tad repetitive, as I am sort of now remembering I always used to find with the 'old' books I had to read as an Undergraduate (by 'old' I mean anything before the 20th century, but I'm sure they wouldn't be old at all by your standards). Anyhoozle, my favourite epithete so far is: 'celle pour l'amour de qui je veille la nuit'. Nice.
Regarding depression... I've been there myself and could talk about it at length... I'm not sure whether it qualifies as 'real' (or, I suppose, clinical) depression, but I've always thought that, if you think you're depressed, then you are and there's no need to have it ratified by a clinician (and I once talked to just such a clinician at a conference who confirmed that he felt the same way...)
Anyway, I have had two particularly tricky bouts of depression, one when I was turning 20, which involved crying down the phone to my favourite (and now deceased) aunt from a phone booth on a deserted windswept wintry street in Leamington; and one when I was turning 25, which involved panic attacks in the Paris metro...
I became afraid that these bouts of depression were being triggered by age-related milestones, so was rather nervous about turning 30 last year, but tried to pre-empt any depression by cleaning up my life (with the swimming and yoga that have really kept me going these past three years or so). In the end, turning 30 was pretty fucking great, and the first half-year of my third decade has been the best I've had for at least five years, maybe ever (and maybe I'll tell you some more stories sometime...)
But I never feel that depression is very far away, it's a sort of precipice that I'm always walking dangerously close to. This is maybe because I tend to spend a lot of time alone, which is not really a good idea since I don't particularly like myself a lot of the time...
I had been sort of hoping to change my life after the move down to Warwick and spend more time around people, but I fear the opposite may happen, and what really pisses me off is that this has a lot to do with money. It shouldn't be the case that you need money to have friends and be a social person, but I'm afraid I think that, in this country and in this century, it is.
Anyhow, I'm working on it.
Let me put it this way, in short. I have been thinking recently, after turning thirty that, you never know, I could be half way through my life. I know a lot of people live much longer than 60 these days (and my parents are a couple of very sprightly 60 year olds), but people have died young in my family (including aforementioned favourite and much missed aunt [which is another, and very long, story for another time]). So, thinking about this, I came up with the following lists:
Things that I have liked about the first thirty years of my life:
- all the *learning*
- all the travel
- the constant exposure to works of art
- the experiments with different states of consciousness
I want more of these things, then, but need to be careful about allowing them to rule my life because, at the same time:
Things I haven't liked about the first thirty years of my life:
- the constant loneliness
- the constant feelings of embarrassment and shame about my body
- the unrelenting prescriptiveness and rigour with which I organise my life, leaving little room for spontaneity, unplanned encounters, or really just any FUN.
:-(
So, my conclusion, very simply was that I need to spend less time around REPRESENTATIONS and more time around PEOPLE; that I need to devote less time and money and energy to IDEAS and more to MY BODY; that I need to go a little easier on myself and allow time to ENJOY LIFE.
And that's about it. Pretty simple, nuh? Except for the fact that your personality is pretty much formed by the time you can speak and trying to change it requires a herculean effort of will of which 99.99% of people are probably not capable.
:-(
I read a quote by Lichtenberg in Baudrillard when I was down in Exeter which said that, really, we are not 'free' at all, but most people will simply never have the intelligence, or even just the *time* to undertake the mammoth study of philosophy that would lead to such a conclusion, and so it's easier just to persist in the illusion of liberty and free will...
I'm going to end here and go and take out my washing and tidy up a little, before reading some more Machaut.
Later Kater.
PS - Re. Massage: I ain't got no schooling (though am thinking about training as a shiatsu practicioner some time in the near future, except it costs 5000 and takes a lot of time), but it ain't about schooling, it's about *feeling*...
Edited to add a PPS:
Speaking of Vivian, then [which I wasn't here, but was elsewhere: Vivian is my long-suffering automobile, so named by my brother], I am afraid I have to report that we endured another little episode today. I was going around the inside lane of a small roundabout near the university when a double-decker bus cut me off and scraped along the side of the car. The bus driver, who was Eastern European and barely spoke English, shook his head at me and said 'You... right... no good!', but I really think he should have been looking out for me - I was only trying to go around the roundabout in my lane. He looked a little alarmed by the scratches and detached bumpers on the side of my car - little did he know that these were actually from other, parking-related mishaps. Miraculously, the bus doesn't seem to have done any (further) damage.
To make matters worse, though, shaken after the accident I almost missed a red light and had to brake hard for a young mother and her child crossing a pedestrian crossing. She looked at me and quite rightly shook her head in disgust.
More than three scrapes in less than two months, I'm starting to worry that I may be a bad driver. The whole thing has upset me rather and, on top of the physical depression caused by my three-day hangover, has kind of conspired to ruin what was quite a nice day. And the mournful sounds of Sigur Ros aren't really helping either. Maybe I should have chosen happy music this evening.
I am going back to the gym for a Body Balance class this evening on the grounds that
a) if you get thrown off your horse, you're supposed to get right back on and
b) I could use some calming down and centring.
Yours, tearful and embarrassed,
Morning.
Afternoon.
:-)
Hangover is not as bad as yesterday, or the day before, but still decided it was a better idea to take the day off and potter around, do my washing, gorge myself on toast and peanut butter and mess around on the internet rather than go to work. I am having Saturday on Monday and will have Friday on Saturday (ah, the elasticity of academic working hours - many's the time they have saved me after a rather too heavy weekend...)
It has been raining here too, but there's a nice fresh breeze blowing through the window and I'm feeling pretty good (apart from, y'know, the hangover).
I also started reading the Voir dit. It's kinda funny, although a tad repetitive, as I am sort of now remembering I always used to find with the 'old' books I had to read as an Undergraduate (by 'old' I mean anything before the 20th century, but I'm sure they wouldn't be old at all by your standards). Anyhoozle, my favourite epithete so far is: 'celle pour l'amour de qui je veille la nuit'. Nice.
Regarding depression... I've been there myself and could talk about it at length... I'm not sure whether it qualifies as 'real' (or, I suppose, clinical) depression, but I've always thought that, if you think you're depressed, then you are and there's no need to have it ratified by a clinician (and I once talked to just such a clinician at a conference who confirmed that he felt the same way...)
Anyway, I have had two particularly tricky bouts of depression, one when I was turning 20, which involved crying down the phone to my favourite (and now deceased) aunt from a phone booth on a deserted windswept wintry street in Leamington; and one when I was turning 25, which involved panic attacks in the Paris metro...
I became afraid that these bouts of depression were being triggered by age-related milestones, so was rather nervous about turning 30 last year, but tried to pre-empt any depression by cleaning up my life (with the swimming and yoga that have really kept me going these past three years or so). In the end, turning 30 was pretty fucking great, and the first half-year of my third decade has been the best I've had for at least five years, maybe ever (and maybe I'll tell you some more stories sometime...)
But I never feel that depression is very far away, it's a sort of precipice that I'm always walking dangerously close to. This is maybe because I tend to spend a lot of time alone, which is not really a good idea since I don't particularly like myself a lot of the time...
I had been sort of hoping to change my life after the move down to Warwick and spend more time around people, but I fear the opposite may happen, and what really pisses me off is that this has a lot to do with money. It shouldn't be the case that you need money to have friends and be a social person, but I'm afraid I think that, in this country and in this century, it is.
Anyhow, I'm working on it.
Let me put it this way, in short. I have been thinking recently, after turning thirty that, you never know, I could be half way through my life. I know a lot of people live much longer than 60 these days (and my parents are a couple of very sprightly 60 year olds), but people have died young in my family (including aforementioned favourite and much missed aunt [which is another, and very long, story for another time]). So, thinking about this, I came up with the following lists:
Things that I have liked about the first thirty years of my life:
- all the *learning*
- all the travel
- the constant exposure to works of art
- the experiments with different states of consciousness
I want more of these things, then, but need to be careful about allowing them to rule my life because, at the same time:
Things I haven't liked about the first thirty years of my life:
- the constant loneliness
- the constant feelings of embarrassment and shame about my body
- the unrelenting prescriptiveness and rigour with which I organise my life, leaving little room for spontaneity, unplanned encounters, or really just any FUN.
:-(
So, my conclusion, very simply was that I need to spend less time around REPRESENTATIONS and more time around PEOPLE; that I need to devote less time and money and energy to IDEAS and more to MY BODY; that I need to go a little easier on myself and allow time to ENJOY LIFE.
And that's about it. Pretty simple, nuh? Except for the fact that your personality is pretty much formed by the time you can speak and trying to change it requires a herculean effort of will of which 99.99% of people are probably not capable.
:-(
I read a quote by Lichtenberg in Baudrillard when I was down in Exeter which said that, really, we are not 'free' at all, but most people will simply never have the intelligence, or even just the *time* to undertake the mammoth study of philosophy that would lead to such a conclusion, and so it's easier just to persist in the illusion of liberty and free will...
I'm going to end here and go and take out my washing and tidy up a little, before reading some more Machaut.
Later Kater.
PS - Re. Massage: I ain't got no schooling (though am thinking about training as a shiatsu practicioner some time in the near future, except it costs 5000 and takes a lot of time), but it ain't about schooling, it's about *feeling*...
Edited to add a PPS:
Speaking of Vivian, then [which I wasn't here, but was elsewhere: Vivian is my long-suffering automobile, so named by my brother], I am afraid I have to report that we endured another little episode today. I was going around the inside lane of a small roundabout near the university when a double-decker bus cut me off and scraped along the side of the car. The bus driver, who was Eastern European and barely spoke English, shook his head at me and said 'You... right... no good!', but I really think he should have been looking out for me - I was only trying to go around the roundabout in my lane. He looked a little alarmed by the scratches and detached bumpers on the side of my car - little did he know that these were actually from other, parking-related mishaps. Miraculously, the bus doesn't seem to have done any (further) damage.
To make matters worse, though, shaken after the accident I almost missed a red light and had to brake hard for a young mother and her child crossing a pedestrian crossing. She looked at me and quite rightly shook her head in disgust.
More than three scrapes in less than two months, I'm starting to worry that I may be a bad driver. The whole thing has upset me rather and, on top of the physical depression caused by my three-day hangover, has kind of conspired to ruin what was quite a nice day. And the mournful sounds of Sigur Ros aren't really helping either. Maybe I should have chosen happy music this evening.
I am going back to the gym for a Body Balance class this evening on the grounds that
a) if you get thrown off your horse, you're supposed to get right back on and
b) I could use some calming down and centring.
Yours, tearful and embarrassed,
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Since I have majorly slacked with you, I have personalized the item!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHA!!!
Figure this is worth the lateness. I am retardy!