The feeling down was a real spiral. First I started feeling down. Then I asked myself why I was feeling down, and when I couldn't find an answer, I started feeling down about the fact I was feeling down for no real reason. It really annoyed me and seemed very unfair. I hadn't been rejected by a handsome man about town. I wasn't feeling guilty following a spell of frenetic seal clubbing. I hadn't done anything of note, to be honest: just gone to work, eaten food and moped, like millions of other normal people the world over. What was the difference between them and me? Why do they just sigh, rotate their legs ninety degrees and regularly get out of bed in the morning, while I lie there in a pit of panic, pleading to some invisible benefactor like a desperate coward, "Please don't make me get up, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease...", hoping beyond hope that something magical will happen and I'll receive a text message or a phonecall that will somehow mean I don't have to face the day, a day which REALLY WON'T BE THAT BAD.
Given that everyone has a good long list of things they'd rather were different, how do they manage to keep on trucking, while I am overwhelmed by my own petty gripes? Why am I so livid that my life is the way it is? Is it SO much worse than I was sold? Is it so horrific, so unbearable? Of course not. But it's not perfect, and that seems to destroy me. In my rational moments, I know that no one's existence is ever perfect, that life is flawed and this is all there is. I'm also annoyed because I thought I'd realised all this weeks ago. I guess the Old Jane keeps fighting back with her evil habits, and I'll probably need to have this conversation with myself a few more times before she shuts up altogether.
So I was feeling not-good-enough and unhappy for five or six days, and then, without warning, it stopped. My first reaction was to analyse. What had changed? Whywhywhy? If only I could bottle what was happening on Wednesday and use it against whatever had been happening on Tuesday. But then, suddenly, I got scared of breaking the spell. "I know," I thought. "I'll just not ask. I'll just take this good mood, and not look at it, in case I spoil it." And I didn't ask, and it's stayed.
And then yesterday, I read this article that my friend Jules wrote about the paradox of happiness, which basically said exactly what I'd been thinking. If you're asking yourself if you're happy, then you're not. If you strive to be happy, you'll fail. I haven't been striving for happiness all this time, but peace. And strangely, I have felt pretty peaceful of late - just peaceful and sad, rather than peaceful and happy. Meh. Is this really all there is? A random and ridiculous series of ups and downs followed by death? I guess so. And if you're aware of that all the time, and work hard to improve your lot, you'll probably make things worse? Hmmm. That sounds like a pretty tricky trap. How best to cope? As always, Mother Nature has the answer, and it involves hot sand:
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