It's been quite some time since I've put words to my thoughts, and it's been an interesting summer vacation for sure.

Lately the frequency of my depressive episodes has taken a sharp decline, so I've been thinking about a lot of things I typically have not in the past: namely, my extended future. Being that I placed so much of my thought processes into my perpetual state of depression and suicidal tendencies, I never really thought too much about my future well-being. The way I figured was that if I made it past 20 then I was doing well enough, if I made it to 30 then I'd be lucky. My natural auxiliary plan was to simply kill myself, which is what I always planned for but was ever so incapable of actually accomplishing. The way I had figured, I'd be dead before everything and everyone I had familiarized myself with. And I was alright with this, I still am quite honestly, just on different terms.

More recently though, with this lapse in what was at one time a never-ending cycle of self-destructive thoughts and action, I've placed my thoughts on other things.

For as much as I disdain my father, I can't help but wonder how much of a lonely existence he must lead. Knowing that the entirety of the lineage to which you've devoted your life to regards you in such sordid terms as I do my father, it's heart-wrenching for me and I'm not even the one being affected so much as I am the entity acting as the inflicter. My dad's screwed me over in so many ways, but when I see him sitting in his chair, all by himself, in silence, with nobody to talk to, even keep him company, I just feel like shit. And I think the reason I feel that way is because I sometimes wonder if that's what it's gonna be like for me when I get older. Am I just going to find a woman who will marry me out of pity and spawn a family destined to hate me? Am I gonna be that lonely man sitting all by his lonesome with nobody to share my existence, weighted down by the burden of hatred which I've incurred upon myself, however intentional or not? It's hard to think about, and I don't like to think about it even though I find it quite unavoidable.

There's an old man I see sitting in the Uwajimaya food court everyday, by himself, just eating and staring at the people walk by. For the longest time I've thought it was sad how he's just there everyday by himself, living out the same routine every day of the remainder of his current existence. Sometimes I'd wonder about his past. Did he outlive his wife? Did he even have one? Was he happy being alone? Or was he like my dad? One day I saw him sitting with a family, one which I could only assume was his own, and he looked content, a look I'd never seen the man wear. For once, I was happy that he seemed happy. After that day, though, it was back to his same old routine and even after seeing what I assumed was his family, I still couldn't help but feel sad every time I saw the man sitting there by himself. Sometimes I think about starting a conversation with him or maybe even joining him for lunch if he would so willingly oblige my offer, but I never do. I never do a lot of things.

I guess this is all to say that I've been thinking a lot more about life and growing older. I'm finally at a juncture in my life where a bigger picture is somehow becoming more lucid in my mind, as opposed to the fragmented one which was at once in its place. And I suppose that the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I'll become a carbon copy of my dad the older I get... and the thought of that becoming a reality is rather terrifying. But then only time will ever bring me an answer to my query, won't it? Such is the quandary of mortality.

I'll make no allusion to the fact that I've been having an identity crisis lately. The image of myself which I perceive conflicts with the me which other people seem to think I am but am not. I don't embody any of the qualities which people think I do; I'm a depressive, a sociopathic, an apathetic, a narcissist, a liar, and an overall reprehensible individual, amongst a slew of other things. I've fucked over more people for my own benefit than anyone could ever imagine and will ever truly know. I thought I'd come to terms with this... but it's always when people tell me who they think I am that my world get flipped and I'm left to fix the mess I've made of myself in the aftermath all over again. Everyone's view of who I am is so much more rose-colored than my understanding of my own character. And I just don't understand why that is.

I've often said that I just want to disappear for a while, to go away. I think I'm finally going to do it as soon as this quarter ends. I'm going to take some time off, cut myself off from the rest of my world, and just disappear for an interval. Who knows, maybe I'll find myself somewhere out there, maybe not. At the very least, maybe I can learn to appreciate what I have instead of fixating on the deficits which I feel compose my life.

P.S.
I really wonder who's bored enough to read these things... I mean, I type these out but even I find my posts highly pretentious. Meh, whatever.

Isn't it comforting knowing that somewhere, out there, is someone just like you living a better life than your own at not even half the effort you put into just surviving? They're nice, they're popular, they're successful, they're happy. You try to be nice, you try to be popular, you try to be successful, you try to be happy. Yet in the end, you always come up short with less while they always get what they want and more. Ah, the wondrous inequities which plague the human condition.

Motherfuckers.

It's funny how time has a knack for changing people, how it can take a happy little boy with not a single care in the world and turn him into a man plagued by the ills of anger, despair, and self-loathing; the product of a world which devours the meek, chewing them up and spitting them out as little more than a hollow shell of the pure soul which once was, now corrupted and broken.

If a God exists then time is his joke on mankind.

Be born. Grow up. Go to school. Get a job. Get married. Have children. Raise family. Retire. Die. Life is so arbitrary sometimes that it's sickening.

When your existence is comprised of the strive to attain the societal ideologies of what constitutes the ideal life, what's the point anymore when you're living just to die? In the grand scheme of things, people, as a species and as individuals, are insignificant creatures. People like to think they matter, but when put into perspective they're nothing short of ants inhabiting their own self-contained anthill.

I guess that what I'm trying to get at is that I just don't much see the point in pursuing this life. What we fear most is not death, but being forgotten. When life is reduced to a mere ineffectual mode, fragmented dreams of the Elysian give way to acceptance of the inevitable oblivion that befalls all at endpoint. What we hope to leave behind is a legacy, when all that is ever left behind are broken dreams of what never was. Much with everything, time invariably erases existence.

And I guess that's why I've always been able to justify suicide as a viable means of escaping this fate. The way I see it, it's just a method of breaking the cycle. I don't even intend for this to come off as the rambles of a depressed person, I'm just approaching this from a philosophical existentialist perspective. If life amounts to the pursuit of an illusion, why bother at all? Why, then, is it bad to kill yourself if you feel you have no motive behind living? Some would say that suicide is a selfish act, but aren't those very same people who say that selfish in wanting the suffered to subsist in what only ever amounts to a living purgatory? I dunno, I just don't feel like life and death is as black and white as everyone likes to think it is. There is no good or bad, only circumstance.

Know that if I ever succeed in killing myself, it will be for these reasons. And for that reason, I accept that I am a corrosive individual.

When I really stop to think about it, I find it exceedingly amusing thinking how I became the person I did today. More so, what I mean is that I'm broken. My parents simply never could figure out how to raise children properly, more so I chalk it up to my dad's severe impatience. And thus, in the aftermath, stood myself, alone, as their only success. My half-brother was a problem, as is my sister. The irony to all this, of course, is that the only reason I turned out right was I was motivated to become the total opposite of my parents. Pretty amusing really, the the only reason I am who I am today is because I hated everything my father was. It was great motivation, at the very least.

I suppose with that said, I came out of it all relatively broken as a human being. I hate my family with a passion. Not even in an angsty teenage sort of way either. I quite seriously detest my family. Furthermore, I've ended up becoming somewhat sociopathic, if not extremely apathetic towards everything and everyone. To top it off, I have problems with depression and suicidal tendencies as well. I'm actually very surprised that I can even maintain healthy relationships with friends outside of my home. That, I still find, is a mystery in and of itself. A fortunate one, but one nonetheless.

Recently, I received news that one of my friends is likely dead; the victim of a fatal traffic accident. Having received said news, I really didn't know how to react. Chilling still, I don't think I even had a real reaction. If I said I did, then it was feigned in the moment. I didn't know whether to be sad, guilty, or anything else in-between so, by default, I felt nothing. I still feel nothing. I don't know how I should feel. I can still recall hearing of my grandmother's imminent death as a child and feeling very little in the way of emotion. This happened again when my last surviving grandmother died and I literally felt nothing. In-fact, I think I went out later that day and did my usual things.

The point I'm getting at, I suppose, is that for being strangely successful in life, I've gotten through said game as a broken character. Everything I ever did has been to the benefit of others and never to myself. My existence is akin to a marionette, with society pulling at my strings. The trials and tribulations of daily life are beginning to grate on my psyche. I'm tired of mediocrity and the mundane. What happens now is my feeble attempt at repairing myself, and one way or another I'll come out of this fixed or I'll spiral down into my own self-induced oblivion. Either is fine with me. I am not afraid to die.

You know, sometimes I really do wonder what the point behind living is. I find myself thinking about that on a relatively regular basis virtually every time I spend extended periods of time by myself. Not that I mean to be down or anything, I'm not even feeling depressed right now, but I just find it to be an interesting question. As a suicidal depressive, sparse sociopath, and, undeniably, a human being, I have upheld relatively skewed views on life from time to time, though I can never find an answer to my question and likely never will.

That said, what point is there really behind life and living? We're born, we live out our mundane lives of mediocrity, and we die. Very few people will ever make any sort of lasting impression upon society; once you're dead, yours is an ineffectual existence extinguished from the face of the Earth and the history of all that was and ever will be. Your memory is carried on by the ones you love, but what is left of your life when they move on, die, or, slowly but surely, oblivion overtakes the remnants of your faded existence? Nothing. Nothing at all. We all hope to matter. We all hope to be remembered. But the truth is, we'll be forgotten. All of us. With time. It's unavoidable. So what, then, is the meaning behind living if it's all so fleeting? Why should I be born if I'm just going to die? Why should I bother living if there's no real point behind it all? I just don't know. I never will, and I accept that as much as it perplexes me.