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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Meditations on the Stoic Principles

-So you just got back from your trip?
-Yeah, I was in Southeast Asia for three weeks
-Wow, that sounds like a really good time.
-Yeah, it was, I mean...it was good. Yeah. No, it was fine.
-You don't sound too convinced.
-No, it was good. Really. It's just...you know how I am. I get unhappy being someplace so I pack up and leave only to find that I can't stand this new place either. It's happened to me over and over and over again, on both a large scale and a small scale. It was my reasoning for wanting to get out of Ohio for the last ten years, then when I finally do get out of Ohio, I can't stand it and I come running back. No matter where I am, I'm not happy there and I want to be somewhere else.
-Yeah, I've kinda noticed that undercurrent. So, tell me, you travel alot yes?
-You could say that. I mean, I'm not like the Secretary of State but for the kind of life I've lived, yeah, I've had a few travel experiences.
-More than average.
-Yeah, certainly.
-Okay, so tell me, what's your favorite place in the whole world?
-I'm sorry?
-Of all the places you've been, domestic, foreign, in school, outside of school, everything. What's the one place where you feel most happy? Most safe, to use your own terminology. What's the one place you would go back to over and over again without ever getting tired of it?
-Huh.
-Think about it for a second.
-It's going to sound stupid.
-Coming from you, I highly doubt that.
-Bed.
-Haha. Pardon me? Like your bed at home?
-Not necessarily. Just, like, my bed, or any bed really. Well, I mean like any bed that I can call mine, even if just for a night. Not like the bed at the showroom at Ikea or something.
-Haha, ok, I get that. You feel safe in the warmth and comfort of your own bed.
-It's not just that. I mean...I don't really even understand what I mean. This is stupid, I don't know why I said "bed". That's retarded.
-I think you know exactly why you said that. Slow down, just say whatever you're trying to say.
-It's like, I had this girlfriend a long time ago. We almost never went out and did things, we just liked to lay in bed together. Not even like make out or sex or anything. Like just take naps. Or just lay there and hold hands and not move. It was our favorite thing to do together. So yeah, I guess bed is where I feel safe or whatever but its not even that conscious. And it doesn't have anything to do with sex. It doesn't even have to do with sleeping. I mean I eat in bed, I read in bed, I watch movies in bed. Hell, I'm writing this right now laying in bed.
-Writing what?
-What? Nothing. Look, when I first became depressed I spent all my time in bed. I had been living in DC for about two months when this all really started. Any second I wasn't in class I was in bed. I went to the store and bought those heavy duty light blocking curtains. I bought all 5 seasons of The Office on dvd and I would just lay there in bed, completely ignorant of the time of day and watch dvds. I had horrible insomnia at the time and would sometimes go three days without sleeping. Just laying in bed in the dark.
-That's a very normal way of expressing your depression.
-Yeah but that was before it even got bad. I mean when things got really bad for me, like my last month in DC and my first couple months back home when I wasn't just depressed, I was distraught. I couldn't go near my bed. It had lost everything that it had meant to me. Whatever the hell that was. I slept, when I slept, on the floor. When I was upset I laid on the floor and screamed or cried or whatever. It was like some kind of self-imposed exile from my own bed. From my only refuge.
-And now?
-And now...well, now its a bit like those first couple months in DC. I'm not really feeling comfortable anymore. I thought the vacation would make a nice, well, vacation, I guess. But I didn't come back feeling any different. I'm still uncomfortable, I'm still afraid. I'm spending alot of time in bed these days because, I don't know why really, but I guess because when I lay in bed, in the dark, time stands still. All those scary parts of the future I don't want to face or deal with, just stay there in the future. And as long as I stay there in bed I don't have to deal with my responsibilities.
-You don't have to be a grown up.
-Yeah. I guess.

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