@RealSteveHolmes – – 40 years of exploring ideas and now for 20 more

Today I hit the kind of mood that would drive most people to drink or drugs or some kind of diversion like going out to eat a disappointing meal or even hiking in the rain to the point of exhaustion. And I’m lousy company, but what’s worst of all for me is the loss of the core feeling of my very life, which is inspiration.

Normally, for most of the time, I am thrilled by my impressions, fascinated by everything my attention latches on to, stupefied by my own ability to express my thoughts, buoyant in mood and fairly fascinating to be with. That’s how I spend my life, except on days like today, following weeks like this, which in turn followed a dull week. I haven’t felt like this since I was deeply depressed after the death of my wife, in fact, and I have absolutely no reason not to feel as cheerful as I was three weeks ago.

Because I have a new love in my life, a new plan for where and how to live, plenty of projects to keep me occupied – and my health is gradually recovering.

What most people do at this stage, as I said, is attempt to divert themselves. When that fails they may take it out on those around them. Or they may want to talk about it to solve their “depression”. Or they may start looking for causes in the hope of finding a remedy while secretly cursing themselves for not having grown out of feeling this way.

I happen to know that none of those things works even to the slightest degree. “Fun” is never fun for me unless it occurs spontaneously. I do not inflict my emotions on other people. I do not believe in the concept of a personality that can be worked on. I never expect to unravel the nature of myself for the better because I know for certain that much of what I am is genetic and beyond my control.

On days like this my only pleasures are bitter ones: it’s a perfect time to work on tax returns, filing systems, catalogues of stuff you can’t find, a weeding project in the garden, ironing the pile of shirts that’s been waiting for almost a month… It’s a rotten day with rotten feelings attached so I might as well do something I hate instead of spoiling a great day with it.

Normally I refuse to tell anyone about having a grey day because people start to offer patronising advice, positive thoughts, banal diversions, reassuring platitudes, all the stuff you really don’t need to drown you deeper in hopelessness. But today I thought I’d write it here, to make a record of it, to remind myself later of what a blessed life I normally enjoy.

Some people feel like I do today for much of the time. How do I know that? I know that from the way the waste their lives on diversions, from the way they can’t stop talking about being happier, from the way they can’t share a conversation but insist on acting out their own world, from the misery and hostility in their eyes and the resignation in their slouches, from the hysterical tone of the behaviour they generate to cover over the fact that they aren’t ever feeling that good about life, which is tragic, and stems in my view from not letting yourself feel lousy when you do feel lousy.

Some day soon I’ll be inspired again, for no reason that I can control in future, so until then I’m just going to have a decent lunch, try not to depress Cora, take a long evening nap and continue sorting out the Mozart section of my music collection.

Have a nice day out there.