so i guess i'm depressed.

you've probably known all along, what with my obsession with radiohead (you're supposed to laugh). but lately, i've been having inexplicable and sudden drops in energy, like all the time. and all the things that i used to love doing have been soured by this feeling of guilt. it's not so much that i am disinterested in the things i used to love. it's that they no longer protect me from this feeling of hate and recrimination that has pursued me since god knows when.

i am able to establish a facade (as with all things) for the people that i love, primarily my wife and children, and secondarily my students, but deep down, it's becoming an intractable, even impossible, situation. when something in you loses the capacity to appreciate life, then everything is relentlessly gnawed away by this huge beetle... it isn't as though the world is left alone to "hang out," without life, without love, it is actively destroyed, from within or from without, it hardly matters.

all of my machinations, to organize or to let go, they hardly matter. i feel i can no longer control the power switch. and, at some level, i feel that i no longer care about my own life. i only care about it to the extent that it touches upon the lives of others, most notably the lives of my children. i am staying up above for their sake, trying to address their deficiencies, trying to keep them happy. they are wonderful, beautiful beings, and i want them to feel happy and strong and capable- unlike myself.

i have prayed and spoken (a one-sided conversation) to god to help me. i have asked for counsel with my grandmother. i have reprieves sometimes. this morning felt good, when i was called early to come teach a tai chi class. the movements seemed to flow and carry me, even if i didn't feel buoyant or particularly joyful. and, after returning home, i was able to do a bit of weeding in the dew-ridden grass, musing about the work of bodhisattvas, to maintain equanimity and care in each moment, even though the task set about is impossible and endless. it is the peace that one holds that, possibly, changes the world, not what one actually accomplishes. it was a nice insight/feeling...

at home after dropping my wife off to work at the crazy mall, and unable to take the kids to capoeira because their uniform pants were dirty, i felt my energy drop off suddenly and sharply. i kept resurfacing briefly to give the kids instructions on the next task, oh so briefly... the rest of the day didn't go so well...

***

i am so very tired.

i see pictures of faces twisted into disgust and anger (their true forms?). yes, the world is always teetering towards a fundamental impatience. they want people to be a certain way, they are impatient when you don't adopt the right shape immediately. they are always looking for something wrong, and once they find it, they will pick at it and pick at it endlessly.

i could care less about the regard of most of the world. my interest lies primarily in those i serve directly. they are, literally, my salvation. they keep me awake. the rest of the world, with its shifting alliances and uncertainty, they are akin to the dream: immaterial, insubstantial, inconsequential.

***

it is raining right now. i woke after yet another unexpected nap, to find myself on the shore of midnight. i feel sad/guilty to have not taken advantage of the night, but then again, i would have felt paralyzed by my recriminations to have done anything much anyway. i woke to feel this dull fear and insight, that i had perhaps finally crossed over into the domain of depression... with the understanding that, in depression, it is not so much a dull disinterest, but a quiet desperation, a feeling that life is slipping away... no one wants to feel this way.

i wish the rain would last forever. i wish it would erode this conundrum from me.

when the rain falls, it unites the world. and it unites all those moments when we were huddled indoors, alone and high and dry from the storm. all those moments of promise and rest. all those moments i loved and hated. they are the same moment as now, mulling over the same undigested problems.

please, god, liberate me. if rain is your blessing, let it fall upon me tonight. let me feel alive, let me feel that is okay to be alive, that i have a right and a purpose to be alive, that i have a place in this world. i am tired of feeling like i haven't got a way to be, a way to go...

as shodo said, "michi ga mayottara, sagashite kure."

if you lose your way, find it.

i've lost my way tonight. please, help me find the ground beneath my feet.