Just finished the Hum reading. Now I'm depressed. Well, I've been depressed for awhile. It started this morning. The day just felt over before it had even began. The day, the week, the month, the years, and, by a grandiose extension, life. Life over. Dull, boring, nothingness: nothing to look forward to, nothing to make, nothing to do. That's what it feels like. Why does it feel like this? I don't know.

At first I thought it might be a feeling of dissimilation (is that the correct word?) between me and my surroundings. Everyone here is against the war, supports liberal ideals, supports pro-choice, etc. Now, these aren't things that I inherently disagree with, but I guess it's kind of boring to be surrounded by a group of people who are very vocal about things that I generally agree with. It doesn't stimulate thought. Nor am I convinced people spend a good deal of time putting thought into their ideas. It seems they are in a general state of outrage, decrying one violation of the universal code of goodness after another. Relativistic relativism. I'm not quite sure how to phrase that. It's just -- they're so accepting, as they say, so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. Perhaps that's the right way of saying it.

Of course, not everyone is like that and most individuals I know aren't. But there are some people who hold opinions and attitudes that are very extreme and even border on violence, certainly irreverence. I don't like irreverence; I think it bolsters the individual's ego with actually doing anything good about a problem. For instance, people are irreverent toward Bush, protest him, bad-mouth him -- but what do they do about it? Nothing, it seems. They revel in a state of moral superiority simply because they can be irreverent. There's this attitude on campus that the individual, simply by opposing what the majority thinks, is somehow vindicated. Of course, that's not an attitude that is unique to my college, I think that it is rather a very old idea of one's place in the world. And it's appeal is without bounds. It is certainly appealing to me. I use it. We separate ourselves from each other, cut ourselves off, live in bubbles. As if the real world and Reed College could so how be separated. As if what we experience daily is not life.

Well, that is one of the a myriad of the things that are bothering me. I don't like that last sentence, but oh well. I don't have to be a word-smith here. I'll reserve that for writing I don't actually intend anyone to read. Awful constructions, again and again. Probably because I'm writing in passive voice. That colloquial, informal english of the good ol' populist escapes me.

So what else is bothering me? In short, a sense of boredom. Nothing's happening, my life isn't going anywhere, each day is a simple repetition of responsibilities and assignments. I hate biology, for instance, wherein every week I have a lab and every week I am responsible for a lab writeup. The materials being requisite for its completion, by the way, have not been delivered to me by my lab partners. Well if I don't get them tomorrow I cannot very well put together the lab. And it will not be my fault, it will be theirs. In truth, I really don't want to do it. I really, really, really very much do not want to do it. I hate biology. I skipped class on Tuesday partially because I was tired (because now their is a never-ending stream of verbage in the halls at night, laughter, idle talk, and for my part I am robbed of sleep by insomnia caused by an incipient depression) and partially because I just really, really, really did not have any motivation to go. And I will not have any motivation to go tomorrow either. I don't want to go. And I don't want to do the lab. And I know it'll happen all over again next week. There'll be two more classes and a lab lecture of which I have no desire to attend, one more lab report. I got my test back and for all the studying I did, I was just one bar above the mean. I detest it. I'm at the point where I just don't care anymore.

Here's a thought: there are three kinds of activities -- those one finds native joy in (sex, eating, sleeping, parleying with friends, hanging out), those in which one finds self-actualization (flute, writing, reading, etc.), and those which run counter to one's conception of himself and are not enjoyable (biology). Now, doubtless a few more categories can be wrangled out. But the trick, in life, is to have group A and group B overlap. And right now, the activities in which I find self-actualization are not the activities which I natively enjoy. Signing off for the day, please email me with any comments or insights: firezdog@yahoo.com.