Time As My Only Measure

I'm back into the school grind, sort of (not really, but I turned an assignment in so there's that). I'm hoping this means that I'll go back to my usual posting regularity, this past uncalled for hiatus has been odd, even for me.

I've decided that the most depressing part of this US election mess is that because the obvious Dem nominee is Barack Obama, we are stuck with a billion pointless Republican debates. So far this has meant that the public has to be subjected to incredibly offensive statements by candidates pandering to an even more offensive base (racism and imperialism seem to be the big applause themes). I almost wish the Democrats would do a "for the sake of it" primary series, just so the only mention of election isn't always about the current assholes comprising the Republican nominees.

Then again, Stephen Colbert was running in South Carolina, and that was a spritz of fresh air (but more on the fact that his Super PAC is very real and actually taking real donations from people, later).

SOPA/ACTA issues. Very real, very serious and mean more than just Megaupload being taken down (which was taken down without such horrid laws, we'd all like to mention). An entire online way of life is threatened; it's mad to think of how this is happening, that this is happening at all. I think I'm still in shock (which may sound incredibly over-dramatic but is really where I'm at right now). And not all piracy is black and white evil, dammit.

I’m not saying that we are all criminals for participating in file sharing. It is my hope that content distributors will start to realize why people pirate. That it isn’t just because it is free. It’s also goddamned convenient. They need to accept that times have changed. We don’t want to buy their DVDs. We don’t want overpriced cable bundles with 40 channels we will never watch. Photoshop should not cost 700 goddamn dollars. We want safe, reliable content available for download instantly and priced within reason. By not providing this, distributors are almost begging people to steal their shit. Frogman

More on LJ via amethystfirefly:

LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand's identity in a crowded media marketplace. [source]

Sincerely hoping that there isn't a single LJ user at all shocked at this sort of response to their loyalty. I'm trying really hard not to turn this post into a DW IS SHINY one, so I'll stop there.

Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.

Depression is humiliating.

If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.

It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too.

Depression is humiliating.

No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged."

— Pearl

I really wish I had this capacity to articulate. Every single time someone told me it was in my head, or scolded me for letting it get me. Letting it, as if it was a choice. In the author's turn of words, every blessing to those who articulate this shit for those of us who can't.