There is no pain you are receding

"There is no pain, you are receding.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

.I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown, the dream is gone

I have become comfortably numb."

Comfortably numb might be a nice place to be now. If I lived my life by those who wanted me to take anti-depressants, that might be where I would be. Instead here I am - doing a little better than I was last night when I sat there lying on my bed in a dark room, tears streaming down my face, feeling hopeless, feeling angry at the injustice and misery of living, feeling life was just a cruel, ironic joke, feeling like a failure for taking apart my leaking bathtub faucet as I had successfully done a few years ago, but this time failing to fix the problem and causing more of a drip than I had before, knowing I was going to have to throw in the towel and call a plumber who will probably charge me something I can't afford for something I - at least in theory - could have fixed myself if not for the old plumbing faucet cartridge being so corroded and stuck that I could only get the middle of it out, not just have it pop right out as it does on the Moen website instructions. In the spirit of my father, I did give it the college try and attempt repairs, I just came up short and I was taking the defeat of the faucet very personally, like my failure to fix it was a symbol of my own inherent failure.

Maybe they were right all along - maybe I am "bipolar" - even if it is more of a controlled bipolar. I alternate from feeling spiritually connected and grateful to be alive, when I feel like I am in part of the flow of existence, to feeling hopeless, infatuated with death, and walking around with "tear stained eyes" and a physical feeling of having a heavy heart when I am on the other side. Each time it doesn't keep me from doing my job and taking care of my family. I just got a compliment from an upper level manager for my ability to continue to "razzle dazzle" the customers, all because I hit it off pretty well with an 84 year old customer, wrote him a check as I always do for his laminate floor damages, and getting a little personal and telling him of my love for music and playing guitar seemed to really impress a guy, who in person as a child met his idol at the time, John Philip Sousa, shortly before his passing. So point being - whether I am on the high side or low side, I have enough sense to not let either side take me too far, which is why I seem to get by without the wonders of pharmaceuticals.

But that is not to say it isnt' a bitch at times. Last night, I was really feeling horrible and today I forced myself against my immediate wishes to drag my ass to the gym and do my hour of cardio and about 200 weight reps, speaking to an Iranian-American Southwest pilot named JT - who shared with me his disgust with American tendencies and values. Sometimes you just have to get your ass out there as I did this morning, have a little human contact, get some exercise, do what it takes to grab a little bit of balance, and just hope that the inevitable gloominess will come to an end, but when it hits, man it is a motherfucker. When those death thoughts seem so prevalent, I just have to remind myself it is temporary and think of my own lyrics "I surrendur to death but I don't need to be dead" or "don't be the pain" and realize that what is so strong at the point to make me a crying babbling idiot, does not have to take hold of me. It does pass - like a solid mountain as our local meditation teacher uses as a symbol - it is a hell of a storm - just like the grey gloominess of our first snow here with face biting cold, but it is going to go away. It just seems so real and permanent whenever it is happening. I am not suicidal, but sometimes I think when it is my time to pass on to whatever lies next, I will feel somewhat relieved to not have to go through the down side any more.

On some level I feel like my own depression I seem to be experiencing now is somehow or another synchronistic with our country's financial troubles. I try to stay away from politics. On My Space, I have Barack Obama as my first listed "friend", I've voted Democrat ever since I can remember and I always will, but I am not going to go on about every move the candidate makes, or how much Sarah Palin appears to me to be a religious right fanatic as the second coming of Hitler, because I just don't get caught up in it. I vote Democratic, hope we get the hell out of Iraq soon, hope whoever gets in there does what's best for our country, but I don't dwell on it too much. The financial meltdown is a little different though and it speaks to our collective culture in a lot of ways. Sometimes I wonder if a financial collapse is a blessing or curse or combination of both. I was very much in agreement with columnist Lenore Skenazy writing about A Great Depression for Kids, but I think that applies to American adults as well as the kids addressed here. Not counting those that are homeless or living in ghettos, I think the majority of us are spoiled sick and have a sense of "entitlement". There is a collective American arrogance that somehow we are better than the rest of the world, and that our excessive proportional use of the world's resources is justified, because hey - we deserve it - even if as a result of this excessive consumption of ours, those resources we unevenly consume lead to excessive pollution, global warming, and maybe somebody else in the world starving to death because those resources are taken away. Hey - Fuck them - that's too bad, but I need my two all beef patties, even if deforestation somewhere is the result, I need to travel all over the place because I feel like it, even if pollution and global warming result, I need my fucking 42 inch Plasma TV to keep up with the Joneses cus damn it they have one, and if they have one, I deserve one too. I think of the "Samsara" concept in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, where you are thirsty and drink a glass of sand to quench your thirst, and our thirst for nice things, for the desire to go on cheesy cruises, have the best shit, have nice landscaping to show off to our neighbors - all seem to me part of a collective sickness that western culture eats up. TV brainwashes us constantly into buying the latest car to be fashionable, wearing the nice clothes and perfumes, even drinking the right beer to increase sex appeal - that somehow all this stuff will make us happy. Every day on the news we hear that god forbid the economy is doing poorly because of all things SALES are down. Consume - consume - and everyone is happy. But at what cost - not only in resources exhausted for the world around us, but our own spiritual cost for the endless desire to have something that cannot be obtained.

I don't know if she reads this any more, but one of our friends out this way - perfect example - they bought a house for 150K - got it as a steal from their parents - and then went ahead and borrowed about another amount close to double that to do everything from re-model the kitchen to buy a custom new van with doors that open by themselves, and spend the rest going on their constant travels and vacations. The real jaw dropper was when she told me they borrowed an amount to cover the actual payments. Why not - re-model, cash in on some equity, make a killing on the house that could only increase in value, and then get the hell out and move to Seattle and live happily ever after. Never mind the hygiene issues that are quite apparent when you walk into the house due to noticeable traces of urine. I have nothing against them - they are nice people and their kids have played with Sara - but I continue to find this type of behavior not only shocking, but completely destructive. Barring some miracle, I don't see how they hold onto their house. Last I checked the husband makes a decent, but not overwhelming salary, the wife works a little part time, and they had their second kid, may have a third, and have a barn full of animals to care for.

Yes - the Wall Street execs - using creative terms like leveraging, credit default, whatever they were doing and whatever they call it - in simple terms were doing nothing more than gambling on the strength of the market - that the bubble would never burst. In the event that it did, they had shakey "insurance" policies with no adequate funds to back them up, and as long as the gravy train kept coming they could inflate the numbers, own their mini-mansions and live the high life of the American dream. I don't see them as any more or less guilty than my friends who decided to borrow double the amount of their house to live a lifestyle they can't really afford, because from top to bottom it's all part of the same delusion and at some point every bubble is going to burst, just like every high time of mine is inevitably going to fall into gloom and doom. I seem to know first-hand what many in a collective state of denial had to learn the hard way. Apparently even billionaire Warren Buffett warned of coming doom, but as long as the gravy train was flowing nobody cared too much about tomorrow. It is all part of the same sickness the way I see it - Wall Street - Main Street - we all buy into the same arrogant lie of entitlement, and when we all end up on our asses - maybe that's where we need to be to balance it out. For me it is a mere matter of having somewhere between 100 to 150, 000 in dollars on paper anyways, gone, but life goes on - I have a job - I don't see myself foreclosing - at least any time soon - and I try to live at least as responsibly as I can, though honestly we have our excesses too. I resisted the temptation to dip further into debt to redo a lot of badly needed home repairs - from cabinets falling apart to cheap-ass low grade carpet with holes in it needing replacement - to realize that I can only afford so much after the first re-fi that covered the roof and new siding, among other things.

My re-fi shows I succumbed to it too, but I at least did not get too far out of line. I do not owe more than the very decreased value of my house, and if I were to sell now I'd probably break even, but sure it was a shock to have the equity line stripped down dramatically, and the 401K drop down to 50% dramatically. We may scrape, but we'll get by. For others - losing their jobs, their houses, losing it all - I can only imagine what hell they are going through - but sadly to me - if we all just lived a little bit more modestly and realistically, none of this would have had to happen. But when we all go overboard, collectively, consuming more than we are entitled to at the expense of the remainder of the poplulation of the world, running off on our cheesy little cruises and travels, buying our stupid little toys - consuming - consuming - consuming - then what the hell did anyone really expect and is it so bad now that some of us can't afford the toys we had before. Some cows out there must be living it up - probably now some people who can't afford to buy steak are saving their lives.

So - I have to stop somewhere and there may be more to say - but a kick in the ass and a depression is often something we need to balance our delusions of grandeur. In the end it's not the end of the world and somehow we'll get by. Maybe we'll even learn a thing or two in the process. Once can only hope.

One silver lining to add - thanks to the help of a neighbor who works in construction and takes apart cars in his spare time, he yanked out the old cartridge and now my faucet is working great - no drips!