More subliminal programming

I went to sleep with Adyashanti lecturing me about the ego, enlightenment, the nature of reality and various topics. I'd left my Itunes on shuffle, and apparently it had landed on a couple of long spiritual teachings. The result was that I had a dream in which Sharon and I were having a discussion that was infused with these themes.

At one point, Sharon and I were in a classroom together. It was a rather large room, like a gymnasium, with many rows of folding tables and office chairs with wheels and adjustable seat backs. I was enjoying the mobility the chairs provided and amusing myself by scooting around the room on the smooth polished gym floor. The teacher had to rein me in a little when my chair scooted right out the door and into a dirt lot, upending and sending me and the chair into the dirt in a cloud of dust.

Back inside the classroom, the teacher was letting the students engage in free discussion. I found it interesting that Sharon, for once, agreed with some of my less than conventional beliefs. We were all basically parroting whatever it was Adya was going on about in the recording that was playing. 

One of the other students was Philip Giustino, an elementary school classmate of mine. He was wearing bandanas associated with several rival street gangs. His logic was that by representing all of the local gangs, he was actually disavowing affiliation with any particular one. The teacher took exception to his philosophy and asked him to remove them. He made an effort to feign compliance, but he actually only removed one of them and left the others on, tucked beneath his shirt.

Sharon and I had been engaging in a brief conversation about relationships. She said a few things that seemed to align perfectly with the types of things I might claim as, for lack of a better word, beliefs. I can't recall any exact quotes, but I found it fascinating to hear her using phrases which had previously been foreign to her. We found ourselves agreeing on so many things that we decided to engage Hannelore in the discussion. Ever the old-world German mother-in-law, even she didn't offer any contradictory viewpoints. 

Since the player was on shuffle, the song "Love of My Life" by Queen worked its way into the soundtrack and is now stuck in my head.

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I've been on the Bupropion for about 4 days. Today will be day 5. I haven't experienced any big bursts of energy, nor any mood elevation of any kind. I have experienced quite a bit of self-loathing, however. Anhedonia is at a high-water mark. Nothing appeals to me. I still have my same old sense of futility and angst about the entropic nature of life. 

I feel myself growing old, and I am acutely aware of things that are falling apart, both in my physical body and in my environment. I have dry eye in my right eye. Highly annoying. A cracked tooth has become more painful, and my eroded enamel makes smiling a thing of the past. Good thing I took pictures when I still had white shiny teeth. My house's AC vents are blowing cold air, but very weakly, suggesting that there is a major leak in the ducting under the house.

I've had insomnia a couple of nights, but not too much more than normal. One night recently I took the opportunity to brush and trim my fat kitty's clumpy rump hair. It was getting painfully matted from her lack of self-grooming. At least that was one benefit from all of this. I became dissatisfied enough to actually do something about something. But that compassion doesn't seem to extend past my concern for my furry friend. 

I still feel that I'm just an old, unsalvageable piece of human garbage, a flower whose bloom has faded and its petals all but completely withered and fallen away. My beard and hair are a shocking mop of gray and white, unkempt and untrimmed. I'm not growing old gracefully, but rather startlingly, all at once, like a time lapse played in fast forward. When, oh when, will it end?

I keep to my routines out of habit, for some sense of stability. If I keep on doing the same things every day, perhaps I can continue living on at this level indefinitely. Every so often I'll receive a shot across the bow, in the form of a health crisis, which forces me to face the reality that things are not permanent, no matter how much I'd like them to be. I should find this comforting, in that the mental anguish I suffer from should also pass. But since consciousness may survive death, I'm not even sure I will be released from it even then.

I feel nostalgia for all the stupid things in my life, the dumb routines that I detest. Who will say hi to the animals if I miss a day of walking? Will the pitbull with the stuffed up sinuses miss me when I'm not there to greet his sniffling, snuffy barks when I pass by? The llamas and the goats all seem to have enough social interaction among themselves, I doubt I'll be missed much by them. The cows, lizards, turkeys, horses and birds all have lives of their own.

I can't bear the thought of my kitties having to live on without me. They have each other, but both rely on me for affirmation and validation of their good kitty status. Eddie seems particularly needy. They both do, actually. Patsy positions herself at the top of the stairs so that I will have to pass by her and pay her tribute any time I go into the kitchen or back downstairs to my little room.

Yeah, this anti-depressant ain't doin' shit, doc. I still wake up in my own skin, a miserable wretch, painfully aware of his own misery. Sure it's all a mental construct. I tell myself any number of triggering stories, most of which I can easily fall prey to, since I can be pretty convincing when I decide to construct a narrative. I'm not claiming to be objective. It is just my perspective. The way I see the world.

For instance, I go to pick out a shirt to wear and think, "Who the fuck cares what shirt I wear?" But really, who does? Who cares whether or not my teeth are cracking or falling out or whether I shave my beard or not? I suppose I do, but only insomuch as it causes me physical pain. I'm not looking pretty for anyone. I just don't want to hurt. And hurting is what I seem to do a lot of these days. Hurting and feeling sorry for myself.

There I've made myself cry a little. Good for my dry eye. The sobbing, buckling and heaving and knotted forehead seem a bit uncalled for, though. Just dramatics. Perhaps I needed to purge, I don't know. So many things I need to still cry about, I guess. My brain is like a fly catcher, capturing and retaining each and every negative stray thought until its surface is completely covered with them. Maybe a good cry is supposed to cleanse them away, I dunno.

I should eat some breakfast and take pill number 5.