I’m not sure at all what I’m going to write about this morning, but it’s a work morning, and I’ve just arrived at the train station, so writing my daily blog post is what I’m going to be doing, at least for the time being.

My hands and fingers are a bit sticky and sweaty as I start this.  Obviously that’s not going to be evident in my writing—other than the fact that I’m telling you about it.  I walked just under 12 miles yesterday, total, since my bike is no longer an option, and I’ve already walked about 5 miles today, which explains the sweatiness.

17 miles isn’t all that much when you’re riding a bike.  Even I could probably do it in an hour.  But my bike is inoperable right now, and when walking, 17 miles is the work of over five hours, which is a fair chunk of one’s time, even over a day and a bit.  Not that I have anything better to do with my time.  My time is pointless.

I more or less deliberately arranged things to get here just after the time for the train I caught yesterday, because I wanted to have a moment in the station where I could start writing this post.  I like starting my posts at the station better than starting them on the train; I’m not sure why.  There is an occasional nice breeze blowing at my back and cooling me down, but it wasn’t blowing when I made my decision, and it hadn’t occurred to me that it would happen, so I don’t think it was part of the calculus.

I’m working on adapting to new, slightly larger (and thus less tight) ankle braces, and the knee brace I got seems to be helping my left knee, though I woke up in the night last night with marked left knee pain, and had to put Icy Hot with lidocaine on it.  I think that was mainly because I had been sleeping with my ankles crossed, as I often do.  I guess I should probably break that habit.

It doesn’t really matter much, of course.  No habits really matter much right now.  I don’t expect to have any long-lasting habits.  What I’d like to do is be able to summon the gumption just to walk until it kills me (or to walk until I get back to where I grew up, or something along those lines).  That would at least be an interesting way to go.  The main obstacles to starting have been blisters and so on, and soreness in my knees and ankles.  But I think I’m at least getting past the blisters, mostly, and trying to find ways around the soreness.  If I pace myself, the soreness shouldn’t get in the way.  I hope.

I had almost, after getting myself into better condition by working my way up toward this idea, decided to take “another route”, what with the bike and all, and see if I could make it through to continuing with life.  I have even started reading one of the books by Matthieu Ricard, the French-born Buddhist monk and so-called happiest man in the world.

It’s an interesting book, but he isn’t saying anything I haven’t heard before.  I’ve done meditation, quite a bit; when I was younger, I used to meditate and/or do self-hypnosis every day, usually more than once a day.  Weirdly enough, meditation seems to tend to make my depression worse, though it does calm my anxiety somewhat.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll find any worthwhile answers.  I don’t expect to find any, though I’m not ruling it out.  But there needs to be some better reason to carry on than just the vague notion that “people care about you” or “people would miss you”.  While there are people who will be saddened if I am gone, it’s not going to be a deep or very direct sadness, because there’s no one with whom I spend any significant time.

No one else’s day to day experience will be changed significantly whether I live or die or whatever.  The vague notion that there are people who care about me is a nice thing and a good thing, as far as it goes, but it has no local consequences, and it’s not a strong enough reason to stay alive.  It’s like the old saying, “That plus a buck fifty will get a cup of coffee.”  Of course, nowadays it would be more like at least “that plus five bucks”, but the idea is the same.  It’s not really consequential, because it’s really just an idea, some kind of abstraction.

The vague fact that there are people hundreds and even thousands of miles away who care about you and would be sad if they learned that you were dead is not enough of a reason to be alive.  After all, they would only be sad if they learned that you were dead.

And they would only learn it indirectly, because they are not actually present here in my life.  No one I really care about is actually here, nearby, and frankly, I don’t blame them.  I don’t want to inflict myself on other people.  I hate myself severely.  One of the last (or least) things I would want to do would be to inflict myself upon those whose happiness is important to me.  I don’t bring people happiness.  People who are around me tend to become more unhappy.  I’m no fucking good, and I never have been.

Anyway, I don’t know what I’m getting at.  None of this makes very much sense, and it’s certainly not worth the effort to try very hard to make sense of it.

I hope you have a good week, and if you’re celebrating any of the upcoming holidays, I hope you enjoy them.  Take heart in knowing that that they’ll be a little bit better than they might otherwise be because I won’t be present at your celebrations.