Step 1: Time Over Things

I recently wrote about how applying constraint to one thing everyone is trying to extend — life span — has allowed me the space to truly focus on things that I care about. My friend Tucker challenged me to dive deeper and do less talking about what I believe, and more showing. So here goes…

I found that length of time has begun to matter less to me. It’s not how much time I spend with people I love, is that I prioritize spending time with them rather than assuming there is always time available.

I wrote that piece while in the midst of a deep depression. I wrote it because all the posts about depression are always AFTER the person came out of their depression and was a RETROSPECTIVE of why the depression happened.

Fuck that. We — I — are depressed now. I want you, me, everyone to know that depression is not SADNESS. It is DISPAIR. It is LOSS. It is CLOUDINESS. It is LETHARGY. It is MEDICAL. It is spending time trying to convince yourself that everything will be better when everything right now fucking sucks. And you can keep your sunshine and smiles as I don’t “just have to know that things will get better.” They FUCKING won’t. Things don’t get better with time; our memories of them just fade. Depression never disappears, it just waits in the wings.

I operate in a depressive state way more than the average bear. I hurt. I cry. I look at the world and wonder why I am still in it. Every FUCKING day.

And every day, I have the following conversation with myself:

Do you want to live?

“No.”

Why don’t you just kill yourself?

“Because who would take care of my animals? My family would be crushed, especially my sister, Natalia, who I love more than anyone I have ever met.”

They will get over it.

“I don’t know that to be true. So today, won’t be my last.”

Yes, there are a million suggestions of drugs, diseases, therapies, etc that have been suggested to me. And yes, I have a unfathomable number of friends that will be at my door if I just asked.

I am lucky. We aren’t all as lucky. Sometimes, the darkness is so dark that the light becomes a faded memory. We live among you happy people; we smile; we hug. Sometimes we marry and sometimes we make millions of dollars.

But, we are always depressed. I am always depressed.

So I applied constraint to my life. Rather than worrying if I couldn’t convince myself one day to not commit suicide, I restricted my life. Convinced myself that my reducing my life expectancy to five years that I would focus on what mattered, and in learning about what matters to me, I would stop focusing on time, and start focusing on me.

It has been a few weeks since I came up with the idea of constraint, and I have seen a few changes. I have been dealing with a medical issue that has required a bunch of scary tests and bewildered looks, but I’m confident it will resolve itself … over time.

The biggest change for me so far is that my real feelings about people are starting to seep out. I am not a touchy feely kinda guy. Being touched is not something I enjoy.

While in Boulder earlier this week, I had lunch with my friend Matt. He and I started Current Wisdom, and while he was being responsible, I was being a drug addict. It destroyed our friendship, and now almost ten years later, we are just getting back to where we were. As we were finishing hanging out, I said “Love you man. Lets hang out soon.” The words were real and they didnt stop at my lips as they do so often. It felt right and more importantly GOOD. It felt EASY.

This five year block concept is weird. It has scared a lot of people who know of my struggle with life. With living. But, it has made me happier as I am beginning to understand what it is to be part of life; rather than seeing life as something I had to do.

Has it fixed everything? No. But I smile more. I have stopped caring about things and started to care about me.

Tucker asked me once if I had an inner circle of friends and confidants that truly understood who I was and would help me shoulder my burdens. I have great and close friends, but no inner circle. Not because my friends won’t do it, but because I haven’t allowed it.

Perhaps its time.