Sometimes, I wish I knew why, I just don’t get what the big deal is about all this life shit.

 I mean, by many people’s standards, I’ve got a great life. I’ve found the woman I love, and I know she loves me, too. We’re together for going on 5 years now, and we don’t fight that much, and we wouldn’t dream of cheating on each other. I’ve played music for my living my whole life, and now I even get to have my wife onstage with me, singing and playing great right along side.  I’m back in school this late in life, and scoring high grades… sometimes without even opening the books. I’ll supposedly be graduating with a degree in business marketing in Spring ’07 (I’ll believe it when it happens). Most of my friends, I think, admire me… some envy me. I’m reasonably healthy for a middle aged guy, and I think I’m fairly intelligent & articulate. I’ve got a bit of a paunch right now, but nothing serious that I can’t get rid of. I’ve been told that I’m sorta good looking… even sexy, if you talk to the right people (thanks honey). I’m socially aware and therefore pissed-off as all hell that Bush is our President, which only shows I have common sense and decency. Occasionally I even have a sense of humor, skewered though it may be.

But at times throughout my life, even at those times when things are going great and I should be up and kickin’ and givin' it for all I’m worth, from out of nowhere I am struck down by these awful waves of sadness/anger/regret at what I am, and I'm suddenly so tired of it all that I wanna throw in the towel and literally go off alone to court my final hour. Hell, I know I’m doing it when I’m doing it, and some part of me that watches from a small dark corner of my mind CRINGES and is SHOCKED by my own attitude & behavior. But that small me isn’t the one calling the shots at those times, and the blood is in my eye and I just can’t see the point in waiting around to die later anyway, when every year it gets harder & harder to enjoy life “in the moment”.

When I feel this way and talk this way it deeply hurts the people I love, and I know that very well. I know it better than anybody, and it causes me some heavy regret. And Oh my God, I would worry ‘til I was beside myself if it was them talking this trip to me… Then again, regrettably and perversely, sometimes the thought of having someone along to check out with me sounds pretty heavenly... Sounds like "the way to go", if you will. (And you will, someday). But I'm sure it doesn't work out like that, two going off together to wherever... it just doesn't ring true, and I would never allow it or be part of it in a million years. It's all just too macabre creepy... eerily Hitlerian. Yock! Shit, how do I get going on some of these sick tangents!?

Ah, Christ. Look, I know depression is some sick freaking mental illness. I’ve been to scores of counselors for years and have been prescribed everything from lithium to saraquel to paxil to prozac to… blahblahblahblah ad nauseum. For the last 4 or 5 years,  it’s been wellbutrin twice a day, and frankly, I don’t see any difference, but my wife knows immediately when I go off of it, so it must do something.

Still, the bouts with listlessness-to-immobile-to-anger spikes-to-guilt and shame come and go like the flicking on-and-off of a light switch, just as they have since I was a child. At least I very seldom get the migraines I had back then… thank God.

 Oh, by the way, don’t let me peppering my monologue with “Christ” & “God” and “heaven” & all that stuff fool ya… that's just blasphemy straight up plain & simple. I only capitalize out of a sense of respect for literation. I am a devout agnostic, for those of you who aren’t that familiar with me and haven’t read my previous rantings about how everybody’s on a rocketsled to Hell, just depending on which religion is judging which, which is painfully obvious to even the most God-blind zealot of any faith. So let’s not get on the soapbox about how Jesus can and Allah will and Jehovah does and Confucious say and Father knows best. (Just for the record, Robert Young takes it hands down over that whole lot in my book).

No, I’ve come to the studied conclusion that depression is a serious PHYSICAL malady of the mental processes which, in our superiorly evolving understanding of all things life-form, we still have not one shade of a clue. Call it genetic disposition or chemical imbalance or seritonin deficiency or cognitive malignment syndrom or misfiring receptors or left brain immaturity from too much booze & pot. Call it dumbassness if you want, it changes nothing. Through the years I have eagerly been the firm and faithful recipient of “new treatments” and “new chemicals” and “new therapies” and “new cognitive philosophies” which were guaran-Goddam-teed to be the state-of-the-art best way to beat this pisser called "depression". And I’ve spent years staying totally straight & sober, self-isolated, dutifully following expert-prescribed programs. I've gone on a million searches for higher meaning, of both the self-launched and the closely guided varieties, and have left endless prayers on God’s answering machine, waiting for what I thought must be a common universal magic I'd somehow missed, or an epiphany I must be just short of deserving. It makes my ass tired.

Thing is, about every 8 to 14 years or so, “new” crops of enlightened therapists charge valiantly onto the scene to deftly denounce all preceding regimes "NULL AND VOID". (Soundbyte of a GARGANTUAN rubber stamp pounding parchment). The only thing each new school of thought has in common with the last, or the next, is that they are unanimously “progressive”. My late wife was a licensed therapist (and I was at least one thesis paper), and if you want to really experience total dysfunction in all its twitching, neck-muscle popping,, back-biting glory, just take yourself out to any therapist or counseling office Christmas party and feel the breadth of the season come lurching to purpose-driven life. But make sure you don’t get caught in the crossfire…you could get ego & envy all over your nice new holiday sweater. These highly-trained and enlightened professional therapist people sport the kind of vicious that only unilateral certificates of higher learning can impart. (Oh, and if you want scotch, better bring your own. It goes FAST!).

So anyway… yeah. Um, I get fed up with this life, and sometimes can’t fathom what the big deal is about some of us with an inclination to want to check out early. Some of us just can’t always see much percentage in outliving our usefulness, and getting slower and less self-reliant as the world accelerates. I well know the manifestations of the depths my anger can plumb right now, and I loath the thought of subjecting some young nursing home aide to all that poison when I'm 80, literally pissed, and barely know my own name. 

It’s not like my aim would be to hurt those that I would leave behind or to drive home some tragic karmic legacy to "teach anyone a lesson" about how my life so "unjustly" left me complacent or anything… boohoohoo. In fact, I often think the main reason I'm still here is that I can’t stand the thought of my loved ones blaming themselves for some selfish act of surrender on my part. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, “hey… anybody got any LOGICAL answers or experiences that might shed a little light on something that plagues so many of us who hide it out of a sense of shame or deny it for fear of a long, enforced rest in the loony bin?

But come to think of it, I AM feeling a bit better now that I’ve gotten in a good old Iggy-style tirade on some of my favorites: religion, aging, and the head shrink biz… (Even a LITTLE shot at Bush, but hell, he'll always be there being an utter ass hole, so I've got lotsa time to catch up). Man, I DO feel better! I ought to figure out a way to book or bottle this. I could go out in real STYLE… Ig