A mild psychosis brewing

Depression, noun    

1. The act of depressing.   
2. The state of being depressed.   
3. A depressed or sunken place or part below the surrounding surface.   
4. Sadness; gloom; dejection.   
5. Psychiatry. a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason.   
6. Dullness or inactivity, as of trade.   

A sunken place below the surrounding surface    

I went to the pub with some old friends the other night. I call them old friends but really they're just people I know. I sat in virtual silence for over an hour and listened to their endless chatter about mortgages, and work, and holidays in Dubai, and financial investment. It was most odd. Not once, did one person ask another person how they were.

Eventually I decided to ask the question - to Steve, my old friend from the discotheque years. 'How are you?' I said.   

'Fine,'  Steve nervously replied, returning almost at once to financial investments and holidays in Dubai.    

I spent the rest of the evening drawing pictures in my head - Polar bears. Bipolar bears.

They said we should do it again sometime.   

I nodded.   

Comments

[Annie]

Here, here.

[F B]

Ick. The horror of being surrounded by people talking too much and saying too little.

[Rachel]

that's just how some people behave these days. You can change the subject. or you could bring up the fact that none of them seem to care about the other! i'm sure that will stop them in their tracks.

[andre]

Annie: I should have worn my bowler hat.

Rachel: From my experience, it is best to say nothing, smile, smoke, and draw pictures in your head.

F B: Yes, a thousand words revealing nothing at all.

[Annie]

you could always do a Bob Dylan and draw doodles of what you are thinking/want to say and hold them up on bits of card and drop them one by one (next time you're in the pub)

[Annie]

ps. It doesn't sound like they were a bunch of folk who would have 'got' the bowler hat look.

[andre]

I do not think there will be a next time.

And I could not trust myself with regards to holding bits of card up. Though I do like the idea. Maybe I should write my feelings down on bits of card and then wander down the Strand in my bowler hat and finest vintage suit and wave them at random people in the street?

Performance Art!

[andre]

Annie, they were muppets!

[the domestic minx]

How can people like that begin to understand your Dickensian charm?
And we all know twats like that...

[Annie]

Yes.

Unfortunately there is a fine line between Performance Art and getting arrested in London tarn these days.

[Damian]

Was having a great conversation with someone the other day. Then Mrs Albion asked, "What do you do for a living?" And I found myself butting with, "Don't ask that, you'll spoil everything!"

[andre]

oh I quite like knowing what people do for a living. But every time I ask the question my heart is in my mouth: If they say they're a poet, or a writer or a singer or a designer or a guerilla artiste I smile and want to know all about it... but if they say they're a financial adviser I haven't a fookin clue what to say next.

[Annie]

Andre: How would you express "what do you do for a living" in a doodle? Its a tricky one?

ps. Muppets are wonderful colourful, fluffy beings, not to be confused with financial advisers etc.

[Jane]

I really hate evenings like that.

Also, I feel I must point out that "Bipolar Bears" would be a great name for a band.

[Katy Newton]

You should have some soup. It makes your insides warm. Impossible not to be comforted by soup.

[Darcy]

Gee, sounds like one hell of a fun time. Errr, or maybe not so much.
An awkward situation...people who exist for reasons that have no interest to me. What to say to them? Nothing. I think you handled it very well Andre, as always.

[skiergirl]

It's unfortunate when people become more focused on "things" and "stuff" than what's really important in life. I was heading down that path but I recently slammed on the brakes and veered to the left. I'm a much more interesting/interested person now.

[BOSSY]

Bossy thinks maybe you need more women friends.

[Annie]

More women friends?!!!!!!!
How big does a man's harem have to be?!!!!!

[andre]

Men think I'm weird.

Ladies wish to mother me.

Homosexuals think I'm in the closet.

Cats never sit on me.

Dogs always growl at me.

In the middle of my harem, I am still all alone.

[Jane]

Hello Andre,

How are you ?

[Annie]

Wow,

so are you a virgin?

{if it isn't a personal question}

[andre]

oh the mirth

[andre]

Hello Jane

I am well

How are you?

[la fille]

I believe you need to spend time with more sensitive artistes (like the lovely folk who frequent your blog). Nary a financial advisor in the lot.

[An Unreliable Witness]

I think there are some people who - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your opinion - go through life shedding various people along the way, even people whom they have previously considered close friends, confidants, even lovers. I know this has happened to me in recent years. I have almost lost count of the number of occasions over the past couple of years during which I have sat with groups of people with whom I used to share so much and, suddenly, it's like I don't know them any more. Worse, sometimes I find myself thinking "Why on Earth did I ever know these people, let alone get along with them and sometimes even share my deepest thoughts with them?"

The other side of the coin, fortunately, is that there are then those moments when you meet a person or a group of people for the first time and you find yourself fitting in, immediately. And you also find yourself hoping, in your heart of hearts, that you will be friends and confidants forever.

People who feel this way - and I may or may not be confirming that I'm one of them - often think it's because they themselves have changed whilst others have not. Curiously, I am gradually coming round to the way of thinking which says that it's us who are the constant ones (where constancy is a good thing, naturally) and everyone else is changing. I wouldn't go so far as to say that those other people are changing for the worse, but that they're just getting sucked into the mundane business of life - the mortgages, work and holidays you mentioned (plus, of course, washing the car on Sundays).

The stars are so big.
The Earth is so small.
Stay as you are.

Change in your own way, not in everyone else's.

[Annie]

I second that emotion.

[Robin B]

"Bipolar bears"

*snarf*

[andre]

An Unreliable Witness: That has made me a little emotional.

Today I saw a fox and thought of people I know.

I wrote that post whilst listening to this song.

*people are stupid*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5fpsln6cUg

[An Unreliable Witness]

Yes, but before you get too emotional, I should remind you that every post on your site is really about me. Isn't it?

[andre]

I was only a bit emotional... one day I hope I will find those people you talk about - You know, the ones where you instantly feel comfortable in their company. Maybe one day.

[Eloise]

Holidays in Dubai! You poor bean. If I EVER talk about holidays in Dubai (except in the context of "shoot me if I ever talk about holidays in Dubai") I really hope there is someone to shoot me. With a silver bullet, because surely that can only mean that one is undead.

The problem is, if there are in your life or the people you spend your time around not enough guerilla poets, performance doodlers, wearers of marvellous hats, adventurers of the heart and dreamers of dreams, and too many of the sort who might consider financial investment or Dubai as something worth talking about. At least for me, I seem to notice that my own craziness and sparkle and feeling of beng in the world gets muffled, or faded. It's terrifying! We must resist that they make us like them...

My sympathies, Andre, for the loneliness of not alone - it is the worst kind. It bothers me that in Spanish (which I am learning) there is no proper word to say I'm lonely. There is sola, whose primary meaning is alone, and solitaria, which primarily means solitary, and also alone. The distinction between alone and lonely seems to me to be so crucial, the ability to express that you are alone but not lonely, or lonely even in a crowd. Probably it reflects the Western protestant individualist tradition, or something equally pretentious...

[Eloise]

You'll find them. But comfortable is overrated. It's a suburban semi; you want a big gothic castle or something...

[andre]

all I really want is a moody muse to read me kafka in the naked.

[greyratt]

my brain
is in fact
totally in love
with yours

[flunt]

don't you think it's a man thing though? I used to have loads of friends but I made life choices they didn't and so they thought i was a nob and stopped hanging around with me. Later on, they caught up and wanted to be friends again but i could not forget the judgemental behaviour so fuck 'em.

Women don't seem to work like that. They never really like each other that much, but they like each other on a level where it's always easy to pick up again.

[keda]

aww you are my mostist favouritest whiner and depressed soul.

i can't usually stand them for long. but then even they would be preferable to bankers 'n disgusting dubai.

how are you sweetness??
really??

flunt.. i like my friends very much. and the ones i've lost touch with completely i'll never speak to again. and they have very good reasons for that apparently.

[Franz Kafa Ate My Hamster]

my brain
is in fact
kept in a pickle jar
in the kitchen

[guyana-gyal]

I've met them. They are everywhere. Lots of them in the Caribbean. Very 'yuppie-ish' and follow trends slavishly. They talk about airfares, costs of putting in a swimming pool, etc. They're not depressing. They are boring.

[greyratt]

most pickle jars
I have met
are quite small
This does not
bode well

[Franz Kafka's Half-Eaten Hamster]

Oh God, it's really all quite pointless, isn't it? I'm going to end it all by jumping from the top of my running wheel. Don't forget me. Goodbye, cruel world.

[andre]

*hand clutched to brow*

'Gods speed half-eaten hamster, Gods speed"

[Franz Kafka's Half-Eaten Hamster]

Stop interrupting. These death scenes take a long time. I'm milking the moment for all it's worth.

WOE!
WOE!
WOE!
And, er, MORE WOE!

[greyratt]

was it something I said?

heh

[Ariel]

Some people have a voice so loud they can never hear others. Others like talking to themselves in front of an audience.

[andre]

greyratt: don't mind Kafka - it was nothing you said. He is just a drama queen.

Ariel: what a wise lady you are.

[greyratt]

I wasn't minding it very much as just the fact that I have mentioned meeting pickle jars AT ALL, has been enough to cause many a rodent to throw themselves off all sorts of things (running wheels and water bottles, alike)....

drama queens are much more fun to muck about with than regular old queens any day

[loneliness]

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart...
(written by Jorge Luis Borges in English)

[loneliness]

Inclinado en las tardes tiro mis tristes redes
a tus ojos oceánicos.
Allí se estira y arde en la más alta hoguera
mi soledad que da vueltas los brazos como un
náufrago.
Hago rojas señales sobre tus ojos ausentes
que olean como el mar a la orilla de un faro.
Solo guardas tinieblas, hembra distante y mía,
de tu mirada emerge a veces la costa del espanto.
Inclinado en las tardes echo mis tristes redes
a ese mar que sacude tus ojos oceánicos.
Los pájaros nocturnos picotean las primeras estrellas
que centellean como mi alma cuando te amo.
Galopa la noche en su yegua sombría
desparramando espigas azules sobre el campo.

[loneliness]

By Pablo Neruda
English translation

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that beats on your oceanic eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.