Gnurple dot Net

From the ill-wind-blows-no-good department:

Well. When I posted those photos earlier today I had planned to come back on here to write about the fun things that have happened in my life recently. Or at least, that was the plan. You see, in order to be able to write about the happiness and enjoyment I’ve experienced since (and including) my weekend cottage trip, I need to be able to recall those events from my memory with fondness, to replay them in my head and then express the feelings they generate.

Except I’m not very happy right now.

Throughout the day I haven’t really been feeling good. Physically, I’m fine. I had a shawarma for lunch — and I always feel good after lunch on Shawarma Thursday — and a salad and some cut fruit for dinner (how healthy is that?!). Physically, I’m in as good a shape as I’ve been any time in the last few weeks.

Something in my mind is bugging me. I guess I’m a little depressed.

Sometimes I just get depressed for no good reason. You know, when you start to examine your life and things that have happened recently, and you start to focus on the negative things instead of the positive things you normally focus on? It usually lasts a day or so for me. I think this is some kind of cycle that happens to everybody once in awhile, a way for the mind to balance itself. After all, how can you experience joy without sadness? I’ve even learned to feel… well, not happy, but perhaps *right*, about it because some part of me knows that when it’s over I’ll feel just as great as normal.

Except today isn’t one of those “this is right” kind of depressions.

Earlier today I didn’t really know what it was. It came to me on the drive home as news reports on the radio described conditions for the tens of thousands of people stuck in the Superdome in New Orleans, surrounded by waste and dead bodies; as they described how the desperately needed relief efforts were suspended because of the looters, the riots, the garbage fires, the people with guns shooting at rescue helicopters. The people capsizing rescue boats. That’s when I found the source of my depression.

I guess my faith in humanity is shaken.

I know, or at least I believe, that the truth of the matter is that most people *are* basically good, with a few rotten apples in the mix. When stuff like this happens, though, when your attention is drawn to the rotten apples and you see just how bad bad can be, can you help but be a little shaken? I was talking with a friend online who mentioned that the authorities were preparing for the looting and lawlessness before the hurricane even struck. That makes a little sense, I suppose, but damn, that’s scary. It’s like the line from the movie “Broken Arrow”: “I don’t know what’s scarier, losing a nuclear weapon or that it happens so often ther’s actually a term for it.” When I watched that movie, that line made me think a little.

Except this isn’t a movie. This is life.

Anyways, it feels good to examine my feelings as I write about them. I’m sure all zero of the people who read this lame blog are glad this entry is finally over, but at least it’s given me a chance to think about what I’m thinking about (does that make any sense at all?). Chalk that up as another reason for blogging. Anyways, I still feel depressed, but at least I’ve had a chance to figure out why. It’s like when I sprained my shoulder playing squash a few years ago. Even though it still hurt like hell, I felt much better after I left the hospital ’cause at least I knew what the damage was. Knowing really is half the battle.

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