I haven't spoken much about the future because my mind is stuck in an infinite loop that should be a part of my past. This loop of mine ponders the lie we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night; the idea that we actually are, after all, good people. When I used to write every day I could tell myself this lie every hour on the hour or as needed. But then one day, last year I think, I stopped telling myself this lie, and started to come to grips with just what kind of person I really am -- a bad person.

Unlike other bad people, though, I know the source of my poison. My journey down this forlorn road began with one of those big family decisions that come about every great once and awhile that are so important as to require unanimous approval. As always, I was the last to be asked and the last to know, and the veto power was all mine. Somehow, I could have stopped a lot of misery -- I could have prevented all this misfortune.

Though, I did not. I said yes without knowing what 'yes' really meant.

The details of this mistake have never left the contents of my head. I cannot even bring myself to type it out, for inside of my mind there are locks I cannot break, locks put on thoughts that I dare not think too long. One day I may break down all these barriers, but only if I'm far stronger than I've ever been. Given my recent decline in courage I fear that day may never come. My mind has slowed to a nearly glacial time-frame and a mental thousand-yard stare has overcome me. Often, I'll remember events from years ago better than I can remember today... as if my life will just flash in front of my eyes and that'll be that. Tomorrow I'll wake up 40 years from now with little more than a legacy of abject failure, or so it seems...

My mood is sour because I had to ask myself a question the other day, a question whose time had come: What does life teach someone whose every decision leads to failure? What would such a person believe, consciously or unconsciously? I asked myself this because I needed some way of explaining myself that wasn't an excuse or some kind of pathetic clinging on to my stupid little dreams. All I wanted then was to know the reason why, because I think everyone who must die wants to know why. Every failure wants to know why he never got off the ground.

"What is the question?" you ask, and when the question is revealed you already know the answer.

Life teaches people like me futility. Enough people hurt and enough wounds sustained and anyone in the world would give up, no matter what he or she actually believed. I've never in my life made a conscious decision to just quit, instead I just let life drift away from me after something inside myself shut it off. Why else would my mind be clear all day long until the time comes for me to do something important? Why does my resolve wait until that moment to cut and run away from me?

Even a life of disaster and failure, however, would never be enough to completely kill the soul, at least not mine. No, what causes the most extreme damage is when someone like me actually dares to try again, despite all better judgement. So then I try again, and it's when I fail that time that I'm completely devastated by enormous, impenetrable doubt. Oh, at first I'll deny it because my pride can't stand the thought of giving up. But I do nothing at all, and I allow it because I tell myself that tomorrow I will do all the things I need to do to make right with myself and the world, only to tell myself the exact same thing the next day.

I used to be nicer than I am now, and I'm so sorry that I'm not like that anymore. Often, I used to listen to others and try to make them feel better about life. As cynical as I am, I'd only wish my stiflingly bleak worldview on a select few. Sometimes I wish I could feel that benevolence again, just to feel any hope at all.

What the world wants to know about people like me is why never change. Why do we insist on wallowing in our failure and despair? Why do I do it? Why doesn't desperation somehow translate into courage? Often, I used to wonder the same things about other people because I couldn't admit that I, too, was among the afflicted. Now that I admit this I understand these things:

As horrible as things are, we still fear any sort of change. Humans in general fear change, and to reform the content of your character in drastic ways is not something we often do, if ever. For despite the outside world's viewpoint on misery and hopelessness, these are things that one can adjust to. We reorganize our minds early in childhood to run on alternative fuels; instead of being motivated by reward and fulfillment, we become motivated to avoid the negatives, the sting of futility and disappointment. Once you have made this transition, the odds are very good that you'll live a very sad, dull and futile life. It's how slaves live, I think. I say that in present tense because I think that slavery is still very much alive and well.

And I say the word 'we' a lot because I can't bear the thought that I am absolutely, positively alone in this. Just yesterday, when I was too depressed to eat, I wondered through a hardware store because walking felt better than not walking. When I tired of walking, I sat down at one of the patio furniture displays and stared into space. There was a sign about 50 feet away from me, and I could read what the larger print said: "You are not alone". Why an advertisement for lawn care products would offer such a heartwarming sentiment, I don't really know as I didn't care to read the small print. I didn't really care much right then and there. Seeing that sign only reminded me more how much I didn't want to be alone right then and there.

I often think of a place to represent what I wanted from life. Just imagine it as a field of flowers in late spring... Imagine butterflies and this gentle, round sort of warmth you feel in the presence of someone who loves you without any resentment whatsoever of that love. What kind of air would you breathe in a place like that? Much lighter than the air I breathe right now.

What inspires me to write this now is my elation at discovering a very important part of myself, as depressing as that may be, it's a discovery all the same. As well, it's also a relief to finally stop making excuses for all my shortcomings. Because when it comes right down to it, I don't do a fucking thing to make my life better because I honestly don't believe, deep in the core of my being, that human existence is really worth a damn; that's there's any dignity to it at all. For me, it's all just so many different ways to wait for death. All this time, I've tried so goddamn hard to convince myself that I believe otherwise, but now I know better. So again and again I sabotage 'myself'...

One day I want to go for a walk, but I get sidetracked because 'there's no point in it, at the end of the day you'll still feel like shit'. So I give up because I'll do that thing tomorrow. Again and again... I know it's wrong, but I'll soon forget every fucking word I write today. Somehow the presence of a keyboard and an empty text elevates my moral standards to the point where I actually know right from wrong.

Now I know that I don't fear social interaction just because I think most people are disgusting, but also because some of them might still have souls, and their souls will remind me how I drowned my own soul in a bathtub long ago. I'll hate them for nothing more than having something that I do not possess; for merely progressing, for allowing themselves the folly of life. My jealously burns inside me until I feel like I must hurt someone who is happy if I possibly can because I can't stand that sunken feeling in my chest anymore. Only in the presence of absolute personhood can I feel this, but when I do it plunges me into an even deeper depression than I am in now.

So I hate good people even more than I hate bad ones, since bad people, as awful as they are, are my people. Good people make me feel small because I've never, ever, in my life cared about anyone else other than myself except to assuage my own guilt. No-one, ever... I only care because I feel bad when I don't. Why else would someone who doesn't think human life is worth a damn care?

This isn't the explicit worldview that I write down in words; this is the implicit worldview of my actions. More truth to that than anything else, I think.

No, I don't t think about the future. My mind seems to have lost that faculty. So much so, that I no longer conceive of tomorrow, or even tonight. When I wake up, that moment is itself, and then later on I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast. So that is that I suppose, and the reason for my absence at least has been explained honestly this time. Perhaps I've just given up, and whenever I seem to have this great renewed passion I'm running on the elation of some anomalous event, and not any impetus at all within me.

But that's that, I suppose, and there's nothing more to say. What's there to say when no-one is listening? But then again, I shouldn't regret my solitude so much, for that means at least I am not alone in feeling that my life isn't worth a damn. Beyond that, there's little more. All this is today, and all that you'll know of it is tomorrow.

So farewell... tomorrow.