So you know how sometimes you feel so dirty and like your entire life is a fucked up, grimy mirror that you will never be able to get clean? And you stare at your distorted image and want to break it to smithereens and buy a new one that will shine, gleam, and give you that beautiful fresh start that you’ve always dreamed of?

Prepare yourself for some really unsettling news: there’s no such thing as a fresh start. It’s a fucking myth. Your life is the sum of all the actions you have taken until now, and nothing you do will ever erase the past, leaving behind a brand new life for you to redraw.

And every time you face a reset, and you think “Ah a brand new start,” you’re setting yourself up for failure. Because inevitably your depression will kick into gear and start tearing up all the beautiful progress you’ve made on that blank slate. Then you’ll turn around and see all the blood-stained slates that you’ve already fucked up, and you’ll be overcome with the realization that you cannot escape what you’ve done.  So you’ll sink back down into that sickening pool of misery that you’ve become so used to, and are so desperate to escape.

Yeah… You will never get to start over. And really, you know that. You may hold on to that hope every single time you purge and the misery cycle restarts, but you know, you really know that it’s not going to work out. Still, that’s actually okay. Because while you can never get a fresh easel and paint yourself the perfect life, you can take the fucked up picture you have, and draw in a different direction.

You will probably need to address the stains, marks, and spatters from your past artistic pursuits. You will need to account for the mistakes you’ve made and see how you want to handle them as you attempt to paint a different picture, overlaying it on top of parts of the old one. And your canvas may be so covered in colors, that it seems impossible for you to create anything beautiful. It may seem like your life will be a mess no matter what you do. Still, it’s not about fulfilling some random ideal of what it means to have a beautiful life. It’s about taking a shitty awful life that was born from a shitty awful world, and getting it to look a little less fucked up. And honestly, if you can even just get yourself to stop painting everything the bleak black of your depression, that’s a win right there.

So you can never get a fresh start. And even if you make your life portrait look slightly less fucked up, you may never even get an attractive end product. Still, you have nothing better to do with your time than seek out ways to clean off your dirty mirror. Make the most of your misery while you can, and just keep painting. Because colors are the fucking best.

So you know how everything and everyone dies?

The end.

Jokes. Though that really is kind of the gist of existence isn’t it? No matter how awesome you are, or whether you’re the best tree of all the trees, or even if you’re a wonderous star burning bright in the sky, you will die.

And that fucking sucks.

But it’s okay. Because in the meantime you are not dead. You’re just in an incredible amount of pain! And sometimes that will make you wish you were dead. But wait, even if you died there’s no guarantee there wouldn’t be even more pain! So you’re fucked.

You’re just so fucking fucked.

You can build an empire. You can build a universe even. Yet everything you make will someday be destroyed. And so what gives anything meaning? Purpose?

If you’re a star or a universe, you’re out of luck because this blog is written largely for people. The aliens are listening in no doubt. As well as a couple of viruses, bacteria, and fungi, but really humanity or at leasts human hosts are the target audience.

And to humanity the answer is often humanity. Because connections with people may appear to weaken or darken, but they never disappear. And somewhere out there in the world there is always someone who can understand part of you if not all of you. And just knowing that is a comfort. Just knowing that is a saving grace.

And to humanity the answer is often not humanity. Because sometimes people are so disgusting and awful that you need to shut them out completely. And then you can really only listen to the rest of existence. And remember that even when humans are gone, there are still trees, stars, universes. Existence is a warm embrace. It is the constant knowledge that there is more than void.

So give up on life. Don’t give up on life. That’s all bullshit anyway. Right now you exist. And everything else exists too. And taking a moment to remember that… is very powerful indeed.

Oh right. And love. That’s kind of important too. But much more controversial.

So you know how there’s kind of a global perspective on depression? And sometimes it’s full of shitty simplifications like depressives are lazy, dumb, and exceptionally good looking? That last one might be wishful thinking.

Fuck the world. What does it fucking know anyway? All the science? Some tai chi? How to make a ceramic bowl? Yeah well, none of that matters as much when you’re depressed since the top priority is typically figuring out your depression which, happily, you are the expert on. Or gloomily as the case may be.

If you are trying to figure out how to cope with your life, and manage your mind, that’s really quite enough without letting in the world’s bullshit. Other people’s perspectives on what’s wrong can certainly be useful. Or they can certainly be incredibly, annoyingly not useful. Still, the perspective that matters is yours.

And depression can be convenient in that facilitates personal growth. When you are miserable and can only see the things about you that suck, that means you have an excellent opportunity to work on that shit and make it suck slightly less. Then you can become more awesome which will be better for you, and convince those judgmental assholes that depression makes you way cool. And good looking.

It really shouldn’t be about other people though. Because your life is about you. And your growth and your happiness or lack thereof should also be about you. And when people insert themselves into your head with their criticism and their unsought advice, they do you no favors and you can call them out on that.

So go ahead and block out the world. Take the time you need to examine yourself and your issues without everybody else getting up in your shit. And someday when you’ve got your head figured out, maybe you can choose to let some people back in. It’s your space. Figure out how you want to rent it out.

So you know how people spend all this time getting things and stuff? And yet at the end of the day they can’t enjoy any of it because they spend all their time getting more of it? And if you’re one of those people, it’s even worse because your depression makes it so that all those things don’t really mean that much to you anyway?

And that’s not all! Because having more things and such is a great way to grow fear, and fear is the tastiest fodder for depression. Om nom nom.

Accumulation is funny like that. The more things you get, the more you have to take care of, and the more you have to worry about what would happen if it was taken from you. You get addicted to your things, and afraid of losing them. Which isn’t to say you should go all Fight Club and start a nihilist revolution, as fun as it might be. Rather, finding a way to recognize what you need versus what you want will help ease that anxiety.

You need: food, water, shelter. You also kind of need: other people, sex, some modern conveniences, sex, mementos, sex, and information about stuff. Jokes. Sex is cool and all, but that amount probably goes on the “want” list. Also on that list: all the other bullshit you have.

Now, this is not to say that you should give up all your things and go live in the wilderness, though that sounds pretty interesting. The point is more that knowing what you need means that you can limit your fear of loss. If you lose the things you want, but don’t need, or if someone takes them from you, that’ll really suck. Still, you’ll be alive and can work to get it back. And reducing that fear is important to keeping your depression in check.

So go on and keep your shit. Just recognize that having more comes with with a weight that you may or may not want to carry. It comes with responsibility, and beyond that, it comes with anxiety. Find ways to mitigate that fear and you decrease the downside to the capitalist consumer culture that we all know, love, and live.

So you know how sometimes non-depressed people make you want to purchase a big foam bat and smack people lightly on the head in anger? No? Too non-violent? Well, regardless, whether you want to pinch someone or crush them, just ask yourself how you can best spread that hatred around.

Non-depressed people are really annoying when it comes to figuring out depression. They want to cheer you up. Or write you off. Or convince you that you don’t make sense. And none of these things are helpful. And often they only serve to make you feel more misunderstood and isolated.

Oh god. And the worst is when they come at you with that “you’re being over-sensitive” bullshit. Fuck. That. That’s just code for “I don’t understand why you’re upset, but I don’t really want to, and I don’t really care, so I’m just going to blame you for your own problems since that way I don’t have to make any effort to help.”

And maybe if someone took a few minutes to actually sit down, listen, and make an effort to understand your perspective, they’d find that you make a decent amount of sense. Maybe then they’d realize how overwhelming your depression is and that you’re doing your best to cope, but really need some space to fuck up, and some support when you do. Often people don’t make the effort. And so they don’t get it. Then again, that just makes the few that do all the more respectable.

Still, interacting with people who are not depressed is generally pretty useful. Because at the end of the day, they are less miserable and that’s rather curious. How do they do that? How do they not see all the fucked up shit in the world? Or if they do, how do they just go about their lives anyway? Do they need to block other people out? Can you be non-depressed without being a narcissistic, self-absorbed little fuck? These are the questions that you can try to answer through observing the non-depressed people.

So go ahead and hate on the world. It sure hates you. Most people make no effort to figure out what’s going on and help you out even though they do take the time to judge you and make you feel like shit. Still, there may be something to learn from all those happy jerks out there. And you might not want to waste too much effort beating them with foam bats. It is satisfying to be sure, but makes for tired arms.