Antinomy

First off, please note in the previous blog entry that my story is now up at Apex and you can follow the link therein if you want to read it.

Today's blog is not about:

Antimony: Contradiction or opposition, especially between two laws or rules.

That just happens to be the state I'm in. The contradiction is that I strongly believe in clearing the air, but I also abhor needlessly hurting feelings. A similar issue involving a few of my friends has been weighing on my mind for several weeks. I want to talk about it with them, but

1) I don't know if any of them even know there is an issue.

2) I could get an e-mail or other communication today that would turn my feelings around 180 degrees and moot the issue.

3) It's entirely likely that by tomorrow I'll just do what I always do, which is: say screw it, decide that my expectations for the friendship were all out of whack, and adjust those expectations downward. (Do this often enough and the friend eventually becomes an acquaintance, and then someone you never hear from anymore. In one unique case the person has become someone I go out of my way to avoid.)

I have to watch how I react to things because, as slight as my case is, I do suffer from depression. In high school prior to being treated for it, even at happy times I was never more than one unfortunate image or mental connection away from falling into darkness. Upbeat as I usually am, the D is always there, in the background, a gloomy backdrop against which life plays out.

It also doesn't help that my mind never, ever shuts off. It is always accumulating and manipulating data. This isn't bragging--it's a damn nuisance--I accumulate and manipulate data, but life is an uncontrolled experiment. I can't rely on the validity of the data, let alone trust the conclusions. But it just keeps swirling around, like one of those Star Trek computers that freaks out trying to calculate pi to the last digit.

When it gets to be too much, that's when I pour myself a scotch, turn out the lights, sit in my favorite chair, and crank up the iPod to 11. A few hours of that, and then sleep--it's like hitting the restart button.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the fun I had on Facebook last night. I was having several pillow fights at once, and one of them with someone I didn't know very well. During the course of the swatting, we started having a conversation via the comments you can send along with the pillows. It was so much fun! My antagonist turned out to be funny and clever and interesting and very nice. Apart from the networking thing, the only reason I'm on FB is to find other people I can have an interesting conversation with, and nothing makes me happier than to find one.