See, I wouldn't mind being taxed for this.

It occurred to me that even if a Catholic church actually followed the example of Christ and spent all its revenue making the world a better place and blah blah blah, I would *still* have a problem with it being tax exempt on the grounds that their core message is still one of batshit-insane buffoonery. It doesn't matter to me how well meaning you are if you're operating under the assumption that worldly wrongs can be forgiven by being fed a cracker over which a man in a stupid dress waved his hand. That shit does not parse with reality, and I fear those who think it does.

However, let it never be said I am inflexible. I have hit upon a brilliant idea in which they'll be able to peddle their brain-rotting bilge on my dime, and I'll be able to sleep soundly at night.

My compromise? Catholic churches can continue to blight the scenery at the taxpayer's expense if they're willing to install gigantic, blinking signs with "X days since we fucked your children". And it'd be updated every time a new scandal came to light in which an anointed pederast spread his seed betwixt the nethers of his pint-sized parishioners. There could even be a betting pool - guess the day when a bishop chafes his charges and win a year's supply of crackers! - with the proceeds going towards, say, building a new abortion clinic, or a rape counseling center.

A reasonable request, methinks.

On hope.

Today I have taken what I hope to be the last first step towards mental health. I am committed to staying with this therapy for as long as it takes, and I am willing to put in every effort necessary to ensure that I won't relapse into despair and self-mutilation.

I am tired of feeling like a bystander in my own life. I am tired of feeling anger towards that which I can't control, and dealing with it in self-destructive ways. I am tired of feeling mistrustful of those who want to help. I'm tired of living inside my head, away from the real world. I'm tired of being a failure. I'm tired of letting my family down. I'm tired of letting myself down.

Most of all, however, I am tired trying to drag everyone down instead of trying to raise myself up. Clownshoes cliche, I know, but I'm sick of the easy way out. I need help, and I'm getting it, regardless of what it takes.

On anger.

This is an ugly post, and I make no apologies for it. I am trying to keep a log of how I'm feeling day-to-day, and it does me no favors to lie.

I'm finding increasingly less joy in my life. That which used to buoy my spirits - my dogs, my family, video games, movies, etc. - are now little more than diversions from anger and frustration; hell, I'll call it what it is: rage.

Today I feel utterly worthless. I literally cannot stop shaking, and my insides feel clenched, like I'm bracing for a hit. I feel contemptuous and malicious, but have no target through which I can claim some sort of catharsis.

This isn't me talking; it's an illness. I *know* this, but on the worst days - like today - I would be lying to say that I find myself all that convincing. Were it not for the continued love and support of my family and friends, I would be a monster, of that I have no doubt.

On depression, again

It's not that I don't "feel" like a normal person; I do. I feel what I can now identify as happiness, sadness, joy, love, hate, anger, etc.. For most of my life I couldn't, but thanks to a concerted effort over the past few years I've opened up somewhat and acknowledged that which makes us human, or at least not lungfish.

But even now, knowing what those emotions are and knowing when they're appropriate, I still have trouble connecting them with my demeanor; I don't express them with any ease. They feel distant, abstract. They're like objects in a fog; I know there's something there, but I can't tell what it is.

One of the major signs of depression is a feeling of joylessness; everything becomes rote, done out of necessity instead of pleasure. Life feels bland and gray. This has been my existence for much of my life. I don't mean to paint a bleak portrait; I've had a good life, with an incredibly loving, supportive family. But I view the highs of love and success as abnormal; breaks from the tedium, I suppose.

I have felt, and still at times do feel, suicidal. I know it's been called the coward's way out, but those who speak of it without knowing the relentless drudgery of worthlessness and shame can, frankly, go fuck themselves. It's but one of many answers to an open-ended question; "What's the point?"

I'm still looking for that point. I don't know if I'll ever find it, but I'm willing to hang in there for awhile yet. Maybe I can help people who, like me, feel out of place in a world that does not and cannot give a damn.

The uninteresting truth behind my complete lack of success with women

I'm an attractive, reasonably intelligent, well-spoken, honest, and, most obviously, tall man. I've been told these are desirable traits. Oddly enough, I don't date much. I'd go so far as to say I don't date at all. This puzzles some people. Well, ye shall puzzle no more!

You know how they say that until you love yourself you can't love another? Well, it's true. I don't love myself. I don't even *like* myself. I'm 25, unemployed, shy as hell, and I live in my parents' basement on what amounts to their charity. These are not the qualities required to ride the bullet train into the Love Canal.

As well, I am quite introverted; for the most part, I prefer being on my own. I find it physically and mentally draining to spend more than a day with someone in my "space," so to speak. It's never personal, I just grow weary of being vulnerable.

Vulnerable, you say? Oh yes. I have trust issues. Who doesn't, I know. I've spent much of my life fearing intimacy and convincing myself that I'm better off alone. I don't like being touched, still -- although I have gotten somewhat better about that in recent years.

To top it off, I have some serious problems with anger; I tend to bottle my emotions because I don't know how to properly deal with and express them. I've spoken before of the seeming disconnect between my "gut" and my "intellect," and I have yet to figure out how to reconcile the two. On the one hand I wish to lash out make others as miserable as I am, but I *know* that's not acceptable. As I've said before, I'll turn the dagger unto myself... somewhat literally. I figure it's better to take it out on myself than another.

So, what's all this add up to? Someone who's built walls to keep himself safe. I'm afraid of giving straight answers to honest questions; again, so as to not make myself vulnerable. And no, it's not an act, I really can't tell when someone's attempting to flirt with me.

Oh, and I have a lackluster penis, so I'm fucked even if I do find someone willing to put up with my bullshit.

American politics

I'm a Canadian, yet am all too familiar with the state of American politics today. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I listen to more American news than Canadian, but I'll be honest, our neighbours are just way more fuckin' entertaining. I mean, Stephen Harper is a multi-faceted fuck-up, don't get me wrong, but his hair-helmet and robotic delivery are positively charming in the face of, say, Sarah Palin, a woman because of whom the discourse has been lowered into the earth's magma core. To hear that addle-minded twit prattle on about the lamestream media - a phrase the use of which should be punishable by death, as its proponent(s) are dangerously retarded - at a Tea Bagger rally, her butchery of the English language notwithstanding (those immigants don't even speak pretty!), is akin to having your firstborn child slowly crushed in an industrial press, its screams echoing across eternity like a feedback loop in the Grand Canyon.

... That was probably the worst and longest metaphor I've ever attempted. You have my apologies for having had to suffer through it.

It's amusing to me, too, to hear President Obama referred to as a socialist (and/or fascist, ignoring that they're mutually exclusive) when he's to the right of our whacko conservative PM. Seriously, you get a politician in Canada who bends over and says, "Hey, fuck your subsidzed medicare! We're privatizing healthcare!" and see how far it gets you come election season. (Sidenote: Who the fuck thinks it's a good idea to make healthcare for-profit? When it's in a company's best interests to let you suffer and die, you know your system is fucked.)

And then there's Fox News. Oh, Fox News. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, being the thinnest kid in fat camp is hardly an accomplishment over which you can gloat. When Bill O'Reilly is the voice of reason within your organization, it's perhaps time to kill yourselves. Publicly. I'd say it's like the crazies running the asylum, but I'm not that optimistic. Crazy people at least have internally consistent logic; people like Glenn Beck are to logic what Hitler was to race relations.

I love the United States. I really do. I'm not stupid enough to believe that its worst and most vocal representatives are somehow indicative of the majority; I know how the world works, more or less. The stupidest people tend to be the loudest 'cause it's all they have going for them. I get it. But sometimes, I wish that the "elite" would come out of their "ivory towers" and just say, in no uncertain terms, "SHUT THE FUCK UP." There's no shame in being impolite to those who are too inept to be reasoned with.

"Success."

I'm not sure what it says about me that I can't think of what a successful life means to me. For context, I've been asked several times lately if I have any goals, or some metric by which I can measure "success." I've not had an answer beyond the flippant; "Survive 'til 2012 when we're all fucked anyway" was one of the more recent responses.

This is the damnable part of depression. I can know that I've got certain standards which I long to live up to, and there are things I'd like to do with my life - travel, get involved with worthy charities, get involved with politics, and generally leave the world a better place than when I entered it - and yet on the emotional, "gut" level, I don't give a damn. I want everyone else to feel as empty as I do, cliche as that may sound. I feel anger, bordering on rage; I feel the need to hurt myself lest I take it out on others.

Again, though, that's the emotional level, if you will. Intellectually, I know it's wrong to hurt myself; I'm not an idiot. I know it's wrong to hurt others. I don't generally lash out in anger or frustration; for the most part, I'm as healthy and happy as the next guy.

It's weird to have seemingly two minds, each vying for supremacy and influence. I don't know enough about others to know whether this is how everyone feels, if perhaps this is why seemingly normal people can just "snap" and go postal.

So what does this have to do with success? Well, differing goals, really. I know what I want to do with my life, but I'm struggling to make myself care enough to go about *doing* it. I hate feeling like I have to trick myself into being productive instead of stewing in self-loathing.

And good god, "stewing in self-loathing." Who the fuck writes that? Assholes, that's who.

Things that make me angry.

Racism, sexism, willful ignorance, an unwillingness to admit wrongdoing, decaf coffee in the morning, long lines at Starbucks, Ethernet cables, short people, intellectual laziness masquerading as "open-mindedness," child abuse, animal abuse, haughty vegetarians who don't realize that they only exist because of billions upon billions upon billions of deaths, pop music, Justin Bieber, tweens, rubberneckers, soy milk, the south, finicky bra straps, custom ringtones, cell phones, romantic comedies lacking in either romance or comedy, romantic comedies *with* romance/comedy, Jersey Shore, tweens again, "fashion," skinny pants, stupid haircuts, guys who aren't drag queens who wear makeup, girls who wear perfume, designer dogs that serve no purpose beyond annoying the fuck out of me, stupid people, people more concerned with being politically correct than actually getting shit done, politicians, Fox News, people who watch Fox News and don't realize it's a propaganda tool, soccer, cricket, tennis, golf, idiots who think what's done in the bedroom between consenting adults is any of their fucking business, people who think that they've any say in what's done with private property, slow drivers, bad drivers, tweens, backwards baseball hats, sideways baseball hats, cheap sunglasses, the French, Sarah Palin, musicals, diet Pepsi, pretension, massages, public nudity restrictions, PDAs, old people, young people, middle-aged people, babies, gun control, lack of gun control, Finding Nemo, Michael Buble, Michael Bolton, MySpace, Life is Beautiful, RTS games, sexual longing, sex in general, typos, dating, not dating, ricer cars, teen drivers, offensively inoffensive entertainment, Dane Cook, people who comment on Youtube videos, Youtube "celebrities," txting, sxting, teens, people who don't realize that fascism and communism are opposite ends of the political spectrum, hippies, people who use drugs, people who don't use drugs, Scientologists, religionists of all sorts, indie music, ska, country music, the country in general, hicks, rednecks, proud rednecks, goths, emo fuckhats, wankers, and everything else I forgot to mention.

On respectful disagreement

I respectfully disagree when my position is as valid as the contrary; ie. Australian Shepherds are the greatest dogs ever. This is not a matter for which I will fight; it's opinion, and you are free to your own.

However, as has been said by far smarter persons, you are not free to your own facts. Interpretation is open to the layman, of course, but when it runs perpendicular to experts in the field, you have to be prepared to accept the possibility that your position is based on a lack of understanding. When you are vehement and mendacious in your opposition, the respectful disagreement rapidly turns into character assassination and sniping as it's clear you are not one for reason.

I am, of course, only speaking for myself; I'd rather be honest about my disinclination to engage in calm, reasoned debate with frothing assholes for whom opinion and fact are interchangeable. I've no problem playing at that level; to be sure, it's vastly more entertaining, if not necessarily elucidating.

Random thoughts

When I see a video of someone getting hit by a train, my first reaction isn't one of sympathy or empathy, but of wonderment. Setting aside my contempt for the destructive idiocy of the masses, I am struck with genuine curiosity; "What kind of fucked up sperm-and-egg combo contributed to the stupid bastard who couldn't see coming a 100-tonne, loud-as-banshees-fucking monstrosity? Or worse, saw it coming and thought, hey, I can take that."

What kind of three-tailed, circle-swimming motherfucker of a baby-gravy tadpole could *possibly* have won out against its competitors? What set of circumstances, what kind of cosmic joke could allow someone to survive infinitely more dangerous situations - ie. eating, discovering electrical currents in the wall sockets, etc. - yet succumb to the man-made equivalent of a man-eating giant sloth? Seriously, fuck people who outrun trains, and then don't.