Depression: Let me paint you a picture...

It's kinda like this: I'm standing in a huge warehouse, all concrete and steel. The room is cold, and there's no light save for a small lamp that only burns brightly enough to illuminate a couple yards in each direction. I can walk around the whole interior, running my fingertips over the walls again and again, but I can't find a door. I can hear people outside, going about their daily lives; happy, sad, angry, excited, just interacting and being people. The hollow echoes of their lives ring hollow in the air, and nearly disappear entirely when I stand in the center of the room, surrounded by the inky black and the cold. Sometimes, I'm in here for a few days. Sometimes a few weeks. I know that the sun is out there waiting for me. It's just a matter of time before I find my way out again. But until then, it's cold and dark and quiet and I wish the noise from outside wasn't so hollow, or that I could just see the people outside and have them see me. Some days are better than others, but they all start and end in the same place. I either make it through standing tall, or I lose myself completely in the darkness and just pray for sleep to take me to a day when I can be outside again. It never gets any easier, either.  Never has, never will.

Corruption vs Discipline; A Personal Aim

Hello again, ever-listening audience. I'm actually going to talk about things this blog! Doesn't that make you excited? It probably shouldn't, though. Because then if it's not that awesome, you'll be let down. I think it was a wise bird with an old soul who once told me that she was a cynic "because, if you expect everything to suck, you won't be disappointed when it does, and it'll be a pleasant surprise when it doesn't." I'd like you all to adapt that attitude about my blogs, at least to just humor me. That way, if I'm terrible, you can say you saw it coming, and if i'm not, you can be surprised and pleased that I exceeded expectations. Win-win.

Anyhow, I've been doing some thinking about myself and where I am in life and I realize that I have become mind numbingly lazy. I graduated from high school in May of 2010 and have done a whole lot of nothing since. I've been half-attempting to get a job, but not putting in near as much effort as I probably should, because let's be honest. As much as people say they want a job, no one really does. Everyone wants to live for free. I'm one of a very strange breed who needs to be busy to feel important. But even in that, it sucks that  my ability to eat and have a roof over my head depends on my continuing to be subservient to a capitalist society. So I've been doing the bare minimum so I can say that I've been trying without feeling guilty, all the while blaming the bad economy and job market for my inability to get a job.

So here I am, at the start of the second school year since my graduation, still living in my parent's basement and applying for jobs on the occasions where my parents and friends pester me to the point that I want them to leave me alone and stop making me feel guilty about not trying harder. It's hard to ignore the fact that i'm mad at myself for being lazy when everyone keeps bringing it up ALL THE TIME. And lately, I have been really angry at myself because i'm letting people down by not doing what I know I should be doing and acting like a grown-up.

It comes down to something I decided a few years ago, an axiom that held at the center of my life for a while, but that I kind of let go once I graduated. It's the relation between corruption and discipline. Now, that may seem like an arbitrary pair of words to throw together, and it kind of is, but they portray the meaning I want AND have the exact same number of letters at the same time. I was trying to create an ambigram, that thing where a picture says one word when you look at it right side up and something different when viewed upside down. And I'm not very skilled in art, so I needed a pair of words with the same number of letters to make it easy on me. I also wanted this ambigram to be something meaningful so I would be able to have it as a tattoo someday. So I picked Corruption and Discipline. Now let me explain what I mean.

Dictionary.com defines discipline as:


noun

1.

training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline.

2.

activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer.

3.

punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.

4.

the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty.

5.

behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and ordermaintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discipline)

I'm looking at the first, second, and fifth definitions here. Those definitions lend themselves to the idea of acting in a structured manner and sticking to rules to govern one's lifestyle, as in the military. The military has a reputation of having a very strict set of rules in order to teach the troops to live to a higher standard and to maintain a specific lifestyle. Now, corruption:

noun

1.

the act of corrupting  or state of being corrupt.

2.

moral perversion; depravity.

3.

perversion of integrity.

4.

corrupt  or dishonest proceedings.

5.

bribery.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/corruption)

There's only one definition here that applies, and that's the third one, "perversion of integrity". Integrity is defined by the very same website as:

 "adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty."

So corruption refers to warping or compromising one's integrity, or their soundness of character and their moral principles.

The point i'm aiming for here is that discipline is a force that builds you up, that strengthens your character and makes you stronger, and that corruption is a force that tears down that character and strength that discipline builds. How does this apply to me?

I've gotten lazy. I've been being stupid and ignoring my feelings of guilt about not taking action, and pretty much shirking the responsibility that belongs to me. I've allowed myself to become corrupted, and it has made me lazy and angry, and I've been lashing out at people that matter to me. I've become the kind of person I was becoming when I first came up with the idea of corruption vs discipline. I'm a hypocrite, and, much like Alice, I give myself and others good advice, but rarely ever follow it.

So I have decided to add some discipline back into my life. I'm going to start going to sleep and waking on a regular schedule. I'm going to start eating regularly and with some sort of healthy diet. I'm going to start working out and get back in shape. I'm going to start living a structured life again, so I can get a handle on the ridiculous and emotional person I have become. When you get lazy and stop taking charge, you become wild and out of control and do ridiculous things. But if you stay disciplined, you can control yourself and your emotions and focus your energy. And when you are a focused person, you can do incredible things.

That's all from the Peanut Gallery for now, but I'll be sure to post something less dense and weighty soon. Thanks again for listening, audience, and I hope that you find some discipline and order to help purge the corruption out of your life.