Another procrastination from the Nishma

Argh, so I've had to succumb to teaching myself Wordpress CMS after purposely avoiding it for years. But then again, I did turn to Blogger (out of desperation, I'll have you know), so it's not like that's any better.

On another note, Sven Lindqvist is a God. Almost.

Edit: I am not going to work out Wordpress as it costs money to customise even the CSS! It's ridiculous and I don't care is that means I'm living in the past.

Can a sufferer speak true?

I really shouldn't only update this blog when things aren't going particularly well, but I need advice and help. I have been put on venlafaxine, and in spirits, I feel better. I don't seem so self-deprecating and I certainly feel I have more energy. However, things haven't been going so well, and I am scared that I'll never be able to cope by myself.

I need help in finding out what I should do to get better.

1) I've read that I should start doing things I enjoy, but I don't even know what they are. How can I tell the difference from what I enjoy and what I think I should enjoy?

2) What reason is there to wake up in the morning? I don't work because there's a recession and there are no jobs. How do I pass time alone?

3) How do I face the self-deprecating demons that have crushed me into nothingness? I have no self-esteem left and that is causing severe inferiority situations, which I feel incapable of tackling.

4) How do I stop myself from breaking down? How can I not curl up into a ball every time something small and trivial turns up and I spiral into the negative thoughts that dominated my depression?

5) How do I get over the past? Every time I collapse into another breakdown, it starts off with not understanding why I was bullied at school, with family and with Indian society people from the age of about 6 to 16. What did I do wrong? And why can't I get over that?

Sorry for all these questions. I feel very lost, and I don't really know what else to do about it. The internet has been useless in this aspect.

Ripping apart the flesh of air

Everyday feels like I'm walking through Mercury: waiting for the madness to sink deeper into my flesh. I felt like a blind person regaining their sight: everything confusing, everything wrong. My life was mere spectre, unaware of the world.

And I keep tripping up and crashing against the tide. I'm never successful; I can never rest. No matter how hard I try, he always does it better. Everything I do, he achieves as well (and does it better). What have I always done wrong to end on the opposite side of the coin?

I grow tired of this. I grow tired of the emptiness. I grow tired of the struggle.

I just wish there was someone I could talk to.

The official diagnosis

They say I have depression and anxiety. I spend most of my time staring at the ceiling wondering why I keep carrying. It becomes impossible to communicate. Words are harder to form - written across a page they sound foolish and pathetic. Every conversation seems tedious and utterly pointless. What words can be formulated, constructed and discussed to mean anything or express anything at all? The world reflects my mood: it's barren demeanour echoes my hollow mind. In amongst chaos, I feel nothing but the tedium of order. I ache with exhaustion - tears a mere side-effect of a society-induced fear.

My life withers away; interests, hobbies and passions fall like dry petals cascading down towards an empty floor. How can I pick myself up again when my roots have rotted and died?

There seems nothing left. In myself there is only the void; outside, people have drifted away, managing their own lives in exuberance. I stand at window panes, wanting to walk in and join their celebrations, but there is no door and I am invisible.

How do I begin to exist again? How can I pick up the sherds and make the pot whole?

Time's Arrow: has it hit you?

Time, in Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, is reversed. Individuals live backwards: giving is stealing, and killing is bringing to life. However, his concept of time as linearly progressive and yet somehow backwards is neither convincing nor possible. What Amis's intention is, is unclear: he seems to be questioning the grounds of morality and causality, but removes humanity from such possibilities. What he presents instead is inevitability- the idea that the Final Solution was emotionally straining, but ultimately a product of its time. Human motivation and action is negligible and any behaviour to 'right' those 'wrongs' is doomed. However, it can be argued that the whole reversal of time through the Holocaust was a ironic statement relevant to the idea of 'ethnic cleansing' (i.e. killing through healing).

Even so, Amis's descriptions lack a humane response. I am utterly unconvinced by his characterisation, his 'gritty realism' and his fatalistic discourse. Time cannot work forwards in a backwards world- motivation fails to exist and fatalism overrules any possible political or ethical point.

As such, I believe, that the whole book wins on its concept, but fails in its practise.