compost

When I feel down on myself, I exhibit a strange behavior. I mean, it's not strange as seen in the context of someone who is truly depressed. Someone who is approaching the ledge (so to speak) of suicide. For that person it might make sense. In fact, it's one of the warning signs.

I am not suicidal. I have a big problem with suicide. Except in cases of an otherwise horrible, or prolonged agonizing death, I feel it is a coward's choice. So rest assured that I am not thinking suicide. But back to the behavior.

When I'm feeling like I feel right now, that is to say, when I feel despair, I want to get rid of things. I want to delete things online, I want to sell things I own, and I want to trash things that hold only sentimental value. There's been more than a few times in my life when I've thrown out like a dirty tissue something that held a precious memory. Then I'll be fine again in a day or two and immediately regret what I had done. I don't know where this comes from. I suppose that part of me still clings to the ideal of an attachment free life, the buddhist dream of knowing and living true impermanence. Perhaps when I get like this is when I most need to feel that things don't last, that "this too, shall pass." That makes the most sense.

Another possibility is to get rid of the evidence. Evidence of why I feel this way in the first place. To distance myself from past mistakes, and to clear my record. A fresh start without for a fresh start within. If the girl hurt me, why wouldn't I throw out all the reminders of her? If the job (or leaving it) was a mistake, why hold on to the proof that I was ever there? If I've done a wrong, why not just clear the hard drive, or the cache, or the remote server, and move on like it never happened?

I'll walk through my life as a big magnet, erasing every shred of tape, distorting every signal, until there's nothing left in the past to link me to all of this, this shit.

Of course, like a magnet, I will somehow manage to attract other things along the way. I like that part too. Too much, in fact, to really delete, or dispose of what matters most. 

The scraps will find the pole that pulls them in, and I'll start to save once more, only to cycle around and delete again.