i appreciate the irony in that fact that i sit in bed practically every night and play solitaire on my phone, and it amuses me.

For those that haven’t been paying attention, I’m in quite a mess here. I’m languishing in an existential funk that I haven’t been able to shrug off or resolve. Recent events that need not be related here have only pushed me further into that dizzying downward spiral and cemented in my mind that I am a terrible human being who is beyond redemption. It’s getting old, and I have no one to talk to about these things. I suppose it’s finally time to help myself.

These days my sleepless nights are filled with fantasies of the end of my life. I sit in bed and imagine what it would be like to be on the precipice of death, staring into the ultimate void. My belief structure is such that I do not expect to find heaven, hell, purgatory or reincarnation in that void. I think about the absolute nothingness that awaits me in 30 or so years (or perhaps 5) and I invariably have a panic attack. This cannot be avoided, though; it is what I believe, and short of a miracle, that will not change.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that things have to be so bleak during my personal blink of the eye. There’s plenty to justify a lifetime that doesn’t involve heavenly rewards and eternal punishments: family, changing the world around you in some way, contributing to mankind in some way. If a person leads a good life, what is there to regret or fear when the time comes for them to shuffle off this mortal coil?

This is the source of my struggle. I’m doing nothing. I’m not procreating, I’m not responsible for the well-being of any other living thing, and my work is becoming increasingly trivial and unsatisfying. When I imagine myself looking back upon my life, I see nothing but a colossal waste, and that’s when my heart tries to beat its way out of my chest, and I feel lightheaded, and I can’t breathe. My life is a mess. If things continue at this pace until the day I die, I will latch on to the nearest person who will listen, cry my fucking eyes out and beg for a reprieve, just one more chance. It will not come. I must take my second chance now.

But how exactly do I go about doing that? What needs to change? What will fulfill me more than having a weird t-shirt collection and a few sketchbooks from high school filled with mediocre doodles? What will allow me to sleep again, without dreaming about war, death, murdering the people I care about and losing everything I care about?

I have a number of theories.

First, though, I think we can rule out women, and thus relationships. They are quick fixes. They are shots of adrenaline in times of crisis. I have no self-esteem because I believe myself to be completely worthless. A girl comes along, bats her eyelashes, and suddenly those beliefs are rebuked, but it’s temporary. It’s true what they say: You must learn to love yourself before loving anyone else. I firmly believe that if I could possibly fix even half of my major issues and actually begin to like myself, love would soon follow, and I wouldn’t fall apart if it eventually left again.

I’m not sure about having a family at some point. On the one hand, successfully raising functioning children is probably the most fulfilling and meaningful experience I’ve ever witnessed in people. I’m reminded of a time before my family went bat-shit insane. My grandfather had quadruple bypass surgery, and the concern and love was almost palpable. It seemed to me, at the time, that this was the pinnacle of achievement. Seeing all of that get shit on in the subsequent years sort of tainted that feeling, but there’s still some truth in it.

Still, I don’t think getting married and having babies would be the best idea. For starters, the world is in terrible shape right now. Second, if I thought for a second that the person I was involved with and considering recruiting into my familial endeavors was not going to go the distance with me, I wouldn’t even bother trying, and let’s face it, the odds are against us all there. Then there’s the overwhelmingly obvious fact that there’s no way I’m a suitable father figure. I’m not a subscriber to the philosophy that squatting out babies will magically imbue you with responsibility, the ability to actually love, and oh, I don’t know, a conscience like some people. I am a child. I would be a horrible pater familias. Maybe someday, but definitely NOT today.

I’m not materialistic, so owning things isn’t really a goal of mine. By that I mean owning land, real estate, nice cars, and so on. I don’t have ambitions of prestige, power, wealth or spirituality.

I do, however, feel extreme gratification in creating useful things. Perhaps I should rededicate myself to my work. I’ve been stagnating for quite some time now, professionally. I haven’t learned any new languages to any satisfactory degree. I haven’t actually made anything new in forever. I’ve simply been maintaining what’s existed for years. I’m sleep-walking through my “career”. I want that hunger back. I want to stay up all night learning something new with nothing but a good web resource and a few examples from which to glean information.

I want satisfaction.

I want to produce artwork again. I bought a new Wacom tablet several weeks ago and have yet to even install the driver. I miss the outlet it provided. I’m starting to worry that I may be broken.

The basics are of primary concern, though. In order to be successful at any of these things, I need to work on a few key issues:

I need to master the art of positive affirmations. My biggest problem is that I’m convinced that I am substandard in every way and undeserving of love, praise or success. I need to stop that. The majority of this “knowledge” is subconscious. Positive affirmations are a good way to tackle that sort of thing, I’ve heard. I’ve tried the clinical hypnosis route. No dice.

I need to take better care of myself, physically. My diet and lifestyle contribute greatly to my lack of energy and general feelings of malaise and lethargy. I’m fat. I’m about 80 pounds overweight and growing. Even a basic exercise regime would go a long way, since I tend to build muscle mass fairly quickly. My self-image would improve, and that would help. A lot.

I need to stop spending so much money. As it stands, I give absolutely no thought to the future. Retirement, further education, buying a house… All of these things seem frivolous when thought of in the context of my own life. Why should I prepare for a second half of such a shitty life? Better to die at 30 and save everyone a lot of grief. This type of thinking needs to stop. I’ve found that having more money in the bank contributes to a more positive outlook on the future. Thoughts of an actual retirement at some point force you to also consider the interim and how you’ll be spending it. As it is now, I literally throw money away by the fistful because I have such a low opinion of myself that I believe a) others are more deserving of the money I’ve earned and b) peoples’ opinion of me will correlate to my generosity. While I don’t think the generosity will ever go away, I do need to start actually saving some money. You know, for the future.

I need to stop eating such crappy food. I once believed that a man could subsist on Wendy’s alone and be quite content. Not so. I need to invest myself in learning to shop for groceries and prepare food for myself. I might even go so far as to get into the habit of eating breakfast. I need to eat smaller portions as well. I justify ordering more than I should by skipping lunch. I don’t think eating a meal and a half once a day is very healthy.

I need to learn to be concerned with the little things that make up everyday life. Cooking, cleaning, yard work, car maintenance, being active in communities of some kind, socializing. My social phobias and anxieties all stem from the absolute lack of self-worth. If that gets taken care of, or even mitigated substantially, I’ll be able to be social to a certain extent. I’m tired of being quirky, or the oddball. I don’t necessarily want to be like everyone else, I just want to be able to exist like a normal person does. I don’t want people to laugh and shake their heads when I describe my lifestyle to them. It’s more alienating than you know.

So… sounds easy enough. The problem here - and this has always been the issue - is that all of the above makes it virtually impossible to create my own motivation to actually start doing anything about the sorry state of my life. I’ve always needed an explicit reason to do anything. I’ve never been able to come up with a sufficiently compelling reason to try to lose weight or chant to myself “You don’t suck” every night before bed. I think the only way I’m going to be able to pull any of this off is to post a timeline here and document my progress, so others can bitch at me when I lag behind.

And I need you to bitch. Seriously. Hit me if need be. I can take it; I have 80 pounds of padding on to soften the blow.

My most pressing concerns right now are diet and professional growth, so I believe I’ll start with those. Tomorrow, I’ll be reworking the site a bit to suit my needs a little better.

Wish me luck. And if you get a txt message late at night about me losing it, just tell me to shut the fuck up.

But you won’t get them.

Because I have no one to talk to anymore…