Depression

I'm writing this whilst watching the JJJ Hotest 100 songs 50 - 1. I bagged the Hottest 100 a bit in australia-day-2006 post though watching it with great joy tonight. It seems so easy for me to see the glass as half empty and I'm starting to figure that apart from my cynicism, I suffer from boughts of depression. I'm kind of bi-polar in the sense that tonight and lastnight I can feel really electric and alive but then other times I will lash out at people, see the worst in things or worse still, not be able to communicate with people at all. Sometimes I don't feel depressed but rather see visions of what I perceive to be hapening in the world around us (I get pretty down on human being's unrelenting efforts to kill all life on our planet - and human beings know its happening too, but money is too important to stop the (money producing) activities that are causing it. I defer this discussion to other blog posts). This post will talk about the extremes of my moods. I'll continue.



Last night I met my friend June at Southbank, an attractive tourist area. Also see my photos of Eliot's drumming troup parading through Southbank for the Queensland Music Festival. That's Eliot in the photo above.

I had a good night. I like June. We have much in common and get along well. We enjoy dancing, nature, coffee, wine, deep discussions and seemingly much much more. We differ in that she is Catholic and has a faith that I could never have (I am spiritual and believe in higher powers, however I see religion as "marketed spiritualism". They've taken some great information, such as in the bible and other such texts and peoples desire to belong and their selfish wish to want to have an eternal life in bliss and equal fear of living in complete 'hell', and marketed it with dogma that says "you must do this and that, and don't do that ...". (The "Thou shall"s and "Thou shall not"s are basic premises that are what I consider the good part of religions). This will be the topic of discussion in many other blogs entries. I would like to start by writing up some valid extracts from "Conversations with God" - that'll happen soon).

We met to do Latin dancing with a group that is there to attract the Tourists. It is free and alot of fun. Its sponsored by the Brisbane Council apparantly, though the dancing troup gets advertising in so it works for them (I will go along to their paying dance classes maybe next week). We started with a coffee and moved to the bar next door when June's friend "Lisa" arrived. I had a glass of my favourite wine - Merlot and it was pretty good and a reasonable price ($3.50 maybe).

I did some dancing - Latin: Meringue (mmm, not sure if that is how you spell it), Salsa and a bit of Cha Cha. I've been doing Rock and Roll and Swing dancing for 7 years now and will quite often (instinctively) combine these moves in with Latin. But that's ok, since most modern dancing styles are very similar. I danced with 6 ladies, including "Daria" who was very pretty and I hope to catch up with again someplace ... sometime.

Tonight was a positive night for me - I was feeling good and "ontop of things", almost to the point where I had some kind of control of those I was interacting with. I like this. This is in contrast to 2 Sundays ago when I went out with June to Jills Jive. I felt depressed Saturday afternoon and this continued through Sat night. I know this because I had those dreams and decided to get up early on Sunday and go for a long (1.5 hr) walk rather than lie in bed and just think about things. Come Sunday evening, I met June at Jills and the night was a "disaster" for me. I felt daggy and wore shorts there (these didn't match the dancing shoes I put on and I knew before I left home that they wouldn't. It was like I wanted to look shit. NOTE that lastnight I put on good pants and looked sensational!). That is how I felt. Trevor the owner told me off and informed me that the dress regulations are long pants. I felt pissed off with him since he knows me and could have either waited to see if it happened again or told me in better ways. Of course though, being depressed I internalised the rage. I danced like crap and I was really concious of it. June's friend "Rosie" was there and she just didn't want to dance with me (she said so!). Last time we met, last October, at a Rock N Roll dance in Mt Gravatt, I was quite "on top of things" and had a great night dancing. Jannit was there and I certainly like being with her so that could have had something to do with it. I danced with Rosie that night and had great fun - I was dancing well and so was she. It was great. So when at Jills our dancing together felt like absolute rubbish I was suprised. Now I know why.

My point to this post is that I do get depressed at times and then do feel exceptionally good at others. When I'm depresssed it can erally affect my spirituality and outlook on life. I can certainly understand how people commit suicide. I definitely wouldn't do that since I have something too big to do. In contrast, when I'm "happy" I can almost control those around me. I like this, not because I like to control but because I like to be on top of things.

The question I need to answer is how often I spend in each extreme. I'm actually thinking that the positive extreme is actually normal but that my normal is most people's "feeling a bit down". I'll have to think about that one more. How long in each - both are fairly rare (every one to two months) and last for a day or two.

I'm looking for a lot of explanations in life and over time I will present my findings here of this and much more.

Sleep well my lamb chops. I will, I've been chilling out with a couple Scotch and Waters as I watched Rage and wrote this. I don't normally drink at home - its just that I felt good!