This NaBloPoMo has been far easier than the exercise was in November.

Sure this little foray into dating has given me plenty of material, as has the whining about the job search. The sad thing is, that I have attempted to be mature, to show restraint, and to acknowledge that things are Not That Bad and Could Be Worse.

Yes, I could whine more if I tried.

Another month approaches, and July 1 means 2010 is half over. I won’t even go into the many reasons why this is depressing. In some ways, it surprises me that I fight so hard to not be pessimistic and doom-and-gloom. I used to be famous for my pessimism.

David (brilliant, as usual) summed it up that he and I are both optimists who have been shown the proof of pessimism. Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. – Thomas Hobbes

Oh Thomas Hobbes, how you slay me.

I still often have this (delusional) belief that things will get better, because they have to. But that is total fucking bullshit. Things don’t have to do anything. The universe is completely random. Sure things could get better. But they could also get worse.

That is where I am supposed to pause, and express gratitude, that things are not as bad as they could be. It is something that I have trained myself to do, having been in rock bottom situations far, far worse than the existential angst of not having the career track I want or the vague self-doubt of not knowing what I did to make a boy reject me.

Yes, I am grateful it is no worse than that. But after months upon months of just getting by on “it could be worse” my passion for that brand of gratitude wanes, and I couldn’t care less about the ways in which things could be worse, because things not being worse hasn’t really gotten me anywhere. I am still in the exact same place I was when things were worse. Maybe my head is a bit more together but the raw statistics are the same.

I wish that I had a more eloquent way to sum up what I’m thinking and to emphasis the muted despair I feel. Because I want no mistake about the fact that my despair is in perspective – my problems are white, middle-class luxury problems, the type I am afforded the privilege of fixating on. Unfortunately, I’m still human and all the rational thought in the world can’t turn me into a robot that remains emotionless on these issues.

George: I don’t want hope. Hope is killing me. My dream is to become hopeless. When you’re hopeless you don’t care. And when you don’t care, that indifference makes you attractive.
Jerry: So hopelessness is the key?
George: It’s my only hope!

This is how I feel about now. My hope dies last in every sense of the word, and it may kill me first. Sorry Andy Duphrane, but right now it’s not fear that’s keeping me prisoner. It’s hope.