This should be a fairly simple (if perhaps long-winded) post just to describe how I’m feeling at this precise moment in time.

A couple of people keep prompting me to share, share, shaaaaaare -- but I’ve been ignoring these prompts up until now, mainly because I haven’t felt like sharing anything of any substance with anyone.

Now I’m figuring… what can a bit more waffling really hurt? I’m guessing that the answer nobody, unless I suddenly reveal I’ve got a fully functioning nuclear warhead ticking down to detonation in the loft of the current place I’m in.

Ok then. To put my current state of mind in very simple terms, I’m feeling bored and lonely.

Bored… maybe jaded and generally fed-up would be better terms. I feel trapped in an endless cycle of just doing the same old shit everyday, but I can’t think of any better alternatives that are realistic enough to even consider.

A new challenge is not what I need. I find it challenging enough just to keep going half the time, and I’m really not just saying that for effect or to evoke some kind of response. If we met, you’d probably understand after about half an hour of being in my company.

Also, in my own way, I’m in the process of waging ideological warfare at the moment… against all kinds of groups who influence our lives for the worst. So I do feel challenged intellectually, but this also comes with a stain of pessimism and general negativity when I realise the enormity of the crap that I want to erode and break down. You could say I often feel like a Marxist in Germany 1940 or a Tibetan monk when the Communist Chinese invaded a while ago.

The other part of this seemingly eternal malaise is loneliness. This one is harder really to define. I’m not trapped in a darkened room all day and night. I’m not locked and tied up in someone’s house in the space under the stairs. I encounter people; we sometimes talk about stuff and even share one or two laughs -- but somehow I still feel lonely as hell.

Maybe all of this stuff means I’m on the verge of some crisis or breakdown again. It could be, but it doesn’t often seem as serious as that. It’s more a chronic than acute condition, I should say.

Gosh knows, maybe one time I will follow a trail of little white capsules to oblivion - but most of the time I tell myself there are things I want to do before any act so drastic.

Believe it or not, I think it would be cool (at the same time as terrifying) to be lowered into the sea in one of those cages to see Great White sharks swimming past. It is supposed to be a truly awesome sight to glimpse one of these creatures up close with nothing but a few bars in between. That’s just one example off the top of my head. There are many other fantasy-that-could-be-reality type scenarios I dream up to use on myself if/when I get into one of those/these fucking horrible depressions.

Anyway, I can usually dull this by keeping my mind going through mazes all day, and trying to focus on future “what-if” scenes.

Still, it’s always there to some extent. I want rid of it. I don’t know how to be rid of it, though.

I have the metaphorical equivalent of a little white angelic Matt on my left shoulder and a little red demonic Matt on my right.

The left Matt goes on about how exquisite and awe-inspiringly wonderful this world is. I’ve got to stick around just to bask in the wonder of it all. Then the other Matt, the red one, starts pointing out all the negatives, the speck of rot in everything good, and the fact that I’ll never be rid of my inner demons. “You might as well just fade out peacefully,” it reasons and advises in its own way. “No more of this shit. You’re really nothing to anybody anyway. Just merge into the void, at peace. Come on, all you’ve got to lose is a lot of pain and hopelessness. Why even bother with it all?” - “Not hopeless,” the angelic one argues back again. “There’s always hope. And just look at the beauty all around you.” Back and forth it goes, ad nauseum.

See? I told you this was all going to be fairly long-winded and possibly boring. So, you can blame those who’ve been requesting this type of stuff for a while. I have to wonder how much it helps to lay myself open like this or talk about this kind of stuff at all. But the mood was on me, so I thought what the hell. One more good old rant about nothing in particular, just for old time’s sake.

Basically, I’m feeling bored and lonely, contemplating a final end for the umpteenth time - and rejecting it in favour of life for the umpteenth time, in favour of this strange and beautiful/ugly thing we call life.

Live to laugh another day.

Because there’s always hope.