Routines

If you remember my earlier post on feeling generally unmotivated, I think I may have figured out the cause of my depression: I am sinking into a routine. This has happened several times in my life, when I find myself grinding to a halt, and I can barely countenance seeing another day. It is during these times that I seriously consider suicide or at the very least withdrawing from humanity yet again. The issue here is not that something in particular is upsetting me, things like another person or work pressures or the like. It's the general feeling that I am stagnating and living life as a routine, doing the same or similar things over and over again. Given that the marginal differences of each day are minimal, my days blend into one another and I get an overpowering impression that I am in fact wasting my life away. I recall that when I was younger, one of my key comforts in life was the library. This may sound strange, but social contact is just draining and libraries are perfect places to hang out with something meaningful without having to interact with people. The library is where I can sail away on tomes of random knowledge, and on to flights of fancy with a novel at hand. Libraries really are remarkable places. Thinking back, I realize that I've recently taken to regarding libraries and books in general as repositories of narratives and escapist fantasy. While that was an aspect of my comfort, it was never the complete solution. I thirst for knowledge, and right now I am not learning nearly as much as I wish to. So here I am, sitting around listening to random Nine Inch Nails tracks for the ambiance, thinking about what such music tends to awaken in me. Ultimately, I feel a renewed sense of purpose, and I think I should go hermit for a while. Take some time away from the humans, and go back to my solitude. At the very least it'll be a rather cathartic experience, and restorative in the very least. When I think about the night walks I've always enjoyed, I realize that they are effectively an exercise in getting myself a dose of solitude while simultaneously discovering some part of the city each time. Even despite that, I find myself going into a routine by visiting a single place too often, and basically I can foresee running out of novel places to visit in my vicinity. The solution there, obviously, will be a change of scene.