Friday 20 November 2015
Depression - a summary
(...)
And if I show you my dark side
Will you still hold me tonight?
(...)
(Roger Waters: Final Cut)
Sunday 19 January 2014
Another siege has started
I had a good few weeks, with relatively stable mood. I learned lots of new things - several pieces of music to play, how to configure several things in unix systems, how to rescue "bricked" devices like router, etc. Also finished programming an iphone app, had a few successes at work, earned some money on stock exchange, helped my daughter at school, my son did well at the university.And read to pieces of classical literature. And probably something else too.
When things appeared to be running just fine, the monsters suddenly got out from their hideaways, and started their vicious dance. They go around my mind day at night, performing as a choir. The lyrics of their song go as follows:
Yes, you can do so many various things,
but let's be honest:
all this is rubbish. You do it because
you need it. No one else needs it, and
no one will give you anything for that.
The only thing that counts if your job
because you are paid for it,
and you are not the top dog there.
You do not put enough time, effort and heart
because you do it for money and not because you love it.
You screwed it all up when you were young
And now it is too late to change.
This is why no one respects you there,
your wife does not respect you either,
nor do your children.
The only reason for you to exist is to earn their living
and yes, you can have some surrogate fun in the evening or on weekend,
Learning to play another piece of Bach or Jimmy Page,
Reading Shakespeare or Dostoevsky,
Getting lost in Objective C,
But you know well - this is never will make you happy,
because deep inside you are nobody,
and there is no good reason to get up in the morning.
I am writing this at 6 am - they must have gone tired a bit, because now it is relatively quiet (this means that my mood is not that bad - but not good either). I will go to the gym in a moment for some solid workout, perhaps this will keep them away (who knows - sometimes it does).
The one thing that keeps me going for a moment is fighting them....
When things appeared to be running just fine, the monsters suddenly got out from their hideaways, and started their vicious dance. They go around my mind day at night, performing as a choir. The lyrics of their song go as follows:
Yes, you can do so many various things,
but let's be honest:
all this is rubbish. You do it because
you need it. No one else needs it, and
no one will give you anything for that.
The only thing that counts if your job
because you are paid for it,
and you are not the top dog there.
You do not put enough time, effort and heart
because you do it for money and not because you love it.
You screwed it all up when you were young
And now it is too late to change.
This is why no one respects you there,
your wife does not respect you either,
nor do your children.
The only reason for you to exist is to earn their living
and yes, you can have some surrogate fun in the evening or on weekend,
Learning to play another piece of Bach or Jimmy Page,
Reading Shakespeare or Dostoevsky,
Getting lost in Objective C,
But you know well - this is never will make you happy,
because deep inside you are nobody,
and there is no good reason to get up in the morning.
I am writing this at 6 am - they must have gone tired a bit, because now it is relatively quiet (this means that my mood is not that bad - but not good either). I will go to the gym in a moment for some solid workout, perhaps this will keep them away (who knows - sometimes it does).
The one thing that keeps me going for a moment is fighting them....
Monday 18 November 2013
The Monsters and Willpower
I was travelling on business last week, and I had quite some time for myself, being alone in hotel rooms between various meetings. Also lots of time on the planes, and so I ran many searches on a topic that interested me a lot: the Willpower. I read an interesting book during the flight: Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by
While I am not going to give you a review here (there is plenty of such reviews on the Internet), I can tell you that it prompted me to think how my willpower works (or does not).
I know that I generally have a lot of willpower. I managed to quit very heavy smoking, and I did it cold turkey almost 20 years ago. I managed to get through the challenges of my marriage, in which not everything works perfectly (like in any marriage probably), and after more than 20 years we are actually quite a happy and successfully couple. I have been keeping my job and progressing in it despite the fact that sometimes the processes and people drive me crazy. All that because I can focus more on the future, and where I am going, rather than what is happening right now. For example, I know that in 10 years I will be proud when my children become independent, and I will be proud of being able to support them well in their way there (yes, I am perhaps compensating a little, as my parents divorced, and my formative years were a bit of a mess. I learned a lot of what my kids will not in a "normal" family - however I missed a lot too). So I am can resist a temptation to break my marriage, even though certain aspects of it may not exactly be as I would like. If I do, these things may be better immediately, but in long term I will not achieve what I want.
And while generally things work well, there is a caveat. Sometimes I lose my Willpower. Sometime I am having enough, I just feel I have no more power to withstand all the challenges. All of a sudden, I see the world in a different perspective; the problems which are manageable day after day, grow to the size of dark mountains, standing firm in the view of any green fields and blue oceans that used to be on the horizon. Rather than having to climb over a few hills, which does require some effort, but generally is OK, the mountains do seem impossible to cross. If you have ever been to Denver in Colorado, USA, you probably understand what I am talking about. All of a sudden, the flat prairie turns into peaks which are the height of the Alps (that's for the guys from Europe to be able to compare them to something they know). Today, there are excellent roads through the mountains, but imagine if there were not, and you had to go to the other side. Not easy. One needs a good motivation and a lot of willpower to get to Nevada. And there is California at the end, but you cannot see it from the plains. You can only see the mountains. Very big mountains.
So, let's assume that you are on the plains of central USA, and your dream is to get to California (please feel free to replace it with anything else that may be relevant for you).
You need three things if you want to get to California:
- remember that it is there, it is beautiful, full of flowers, vineyards, great companies to work for, with ocean, the Bay, Redwood forests, beaches, fantastic climate, and many other things you may like
- believe that you can get there; if you continue going westwards you will eventually get to California
- perseverance in your going there; you cannot get there by just thinking of it, you need the action.
The first thing is called motivation, the second is the confidence, and the third is the willpower. You need all three to get anywhere. And the problem with depression is that when it hits, it usually affects all three at the same time.You have not power to persevere, you do not believe that you can get there, and actually you stop seeing any reason to get there - California does not seem to be so attractive anymore.
The challenge seems to be that all three seen to be interdependent. When you have no motivation, you stop doing things, stop seeing the desired outcome, and generally your life turns into a piece of rubbish. As a result, you lose the confidence.
If you have no confidence, you quickly give up on any ideas, anything you might like to achieve. You kill your motivation. You also stop training your willpower, because again you stop doing things.
And if you have no willpower, then again you do not achieve anything. This kills your confidence and restricts your motivation.
So what can you do?
What I find that works for me is going with something small, that will allow me to exercise my willpower and then gain some confidence. Then it will allow me to dream about bigger things because I get the confidence and power to make things happen. There is one big challenge though. When I am depressed, I have difficulty moving with the smallest thing though. There is absolutely no satisfaction coming from doing anything, and thus my motivation is zero, and even if I use my willpower, it is all in vain. So the key for me is to find something small that will eventually give me some pleasure and satisfaction. Finding it sometimes takes me days, sometimes weeks, and sometimes months. Yet when I get into a slightly higher mood, I need to use my willpower to do the next thing. And the next one. And so on. If you go to my previous post and read about breaking the negative loops, this is exactly when the willpower comes handy. But to use it, I first need to find "my corn", as per hyperboleandahalf.
While I am not going to give you a review here (there is plenty of such reviews on the Internet), I can tell you that it prompted me to think how my willpower works (or does not).
I know that I generally have a lot of willpower. I managed to quit very heavy smoking, and I did it cold turkey almost 20 years ago. I managed to get through the challenges of my marriage, in which not everything works perfectly (like in any marriage probably), and after more than 20 years we are actually quite a happy and successfully couple. I have been keeping my job and progressing in it despite the fact that sometimes the processes and people drive me crazy. All that because I can focus more on the future, and where I am going, rather than what is happening right now. For example, I know that in 10 years I will be proud when my children become independent, and I will be proud of being able to support them well in their way there (yes, I am perhaps compensating a little, as my parents divorced, and my formative years were a bit of a mess. I learned a lot of what my kids will not in a "normal" family - however I missed a lot too). So I am can resist a temptation to break my marriage, even though certain aspects of it may not exactly be as I would like. If I do, these things may be better immediately, but in long term I will not achieve what I want.
And while generally things work well, there is a caveat. Sometimes I lose my Willpower. Sometime I am having enough, I just feel I have no more power to withstand all the challenges. All of a sudden, I see the world in a different perspective; the problems which are manageable day after day, grow to the size of dark mountains, standing firm in the view of any green fields and blue oceans that used to be on the horizon. Rather than having to climb over a few hills, which does require some effort, but generally is OK, the mountains do seem impossible to cross. If you have ever been to Denver in Colorado, USA, you probably understand what I am talking about. All of a sudden, the flat prairie turns into peaks which are the height of the Alps (that's for the guys from Europe to be able to compare them to something they know). Today, there are excellent roads through the mountains, but imagine if there were not, and you had to go to the other side. Not easy. One needs a good motivation and a lot of willpower to get to Nevada. And there is California at the end, but you cannot see it from the plains. You can only see the mountains. Very big mountains.
So, let's assume that you are on the plains of central USA, and your dream is to get to California (please feel free to replace it with anything else that may be relevant for you).
You need three things if you want to get to California:
- remember that it is there, it is beautiful, full of flowers, vineyards, great companies to work for, with ocean, the Bay, Redwood forests, beaches, fantastic climate, and many other things you may like
- believe that you can get there; if you continue going westwards you will eventually get to California
- perseverance in your going there; you cannot get there by just thinking of it, you need the action.
The first thing is called motivation, the second is the confidence, and the third is the willpower. You need all three to get anywhere. And the problem with depression is that when it hits, it usually affects all three at the same time.You have not power to persevere, you do not believe that you can get there, and actually you stop seeing any reason to get there - California does not seem to be so attractive anymore.
The challenge seems to be that all three seen to be interdependent. When you have no motivation, you stop doing things, stop seeing the desired outcome, and generally your life turns into a piece of rubbish. As a result, you lose the confidence.
If you have no confidence, you quickly give up on any ideas, anything you might like to achieve. You kill your motivation. You also stop training your willpower, because again you stop doing things.
And if you have no willpower, then again you do not achieve anything. This kills your confidence and restricts your motivation.
So what can you do?
What I find that works for me is going with something small, that will allow me to exercise my willpower and then gain some confidence. Then it will allow me to dream about bigger things because I get the confidence and power to make things happen. There is one big challenge though. When I am depressed, I have difficulty moving with the smallest thing though. There is absolutely no satisfaction coming from doing anything, and thus my motivation is zero, and even if I use my willpower, it is all in vain. So the key for me is to find something small that will eventually give me some pleasure and satisfaction. Finding it sometimes takes me days, sometimes weeks, and sometimes months. Yet when I get into a slightly higher mood, I need to use my willpower to do the next thing. And the next one. And so on. If you go to my previous post and read about breaking the negative loops, this is exactly when the willpower comes handy. But to use it, I first need to find "my corn", as per hyperboleandahalf.
Tuesday 12 November 2013
How to spot and kill the depression monster when he is small - which actually means how to prevent the negative thoughts from taking over.
A few days ago I wrote about various things I tried to deal with my mood problems, and I mentioned the interesting finding that alcohol, applied at right time and in appropriate (not too little and not too much) amount, seemed to help break the vicious loops of negative thoughts controlling my mind when I am depressed. It does not seem to work when I am heavily depressed, but it seems to work when I am, let's say, at 3 on a 5-point severity scale.
The concept of loops of negative thoughts is nothing original, I read about it in many places. But it does feel like something I experience when I am depressed, it feels like my thoughts produce the wrong neurotransmitters, which make me feel gloomy and then I think of even more bad things, and then there is more bad stuff flooding my brain, and so on and so on. Of course when I am not depressed (which does happen), all that does not make any sense, and I see the absurdity of my depressive thinking. The challenge is once I am in a loop of negative processing, or explanatory process, or whatever I call it, it is almost impossible to break it. Something must happen to stop it. There are concepts shock therapy (electronconvulsive, and also insulin shocks in the past) work exactly in this way - be resetting the looped processes in the brain. Of course this is a theory only, and there is no proof. But, as I mentioned, a drinking session with a good friend does help from time to time. Perhaps it is an old method of self-therapy? It is very risky though, as it may lead to dependence and all the nightmare of alcohol problems, so I do not recommend it to anyone, especially to people who have a tendency to get hooked on anything. But perhaps this is the sense of so called "civilised drinking".
Coming back to the idea of "negative loops", there is this wonderful blog about depression, a real masterpiece, and I can only wish I were able to create something like that. It is called Hyperbole and a Half, and it is here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. This is really a piece of art, not only a blog. If you get to the very end of part II, there is actually something very interesting: the author, desperate, exhausted, and hopeless, is crying on the kitchen floor. And then she sees a piece of corn under the refrigerator, And seeing this piece of corn somehow breaks the loop of negative thinking and triggers an uncontrolled loop of happiness and laughter. How amazing!
Having been severely depressed many times in my life, with the episodes lasting anything from weeks to months, I experienced similar things. For no reason, the depression would go away one day, leaving me in a slightly elated mood, perhaps a bit hypomanic. There would be something allowing me to break the loops of negative thoughts, although I am not sure what that could be. My own piece of corn. I may have seen something, I may have started doing something, I may have spoken to someone about something particular. I had not had the expectation that it would help in any way, and I did not do anything intentionally. It just happened.
And thus it is so important that when I am starting feeling depressed, I keep trying. Trying to look for a piece of corn, instead of locking myself in my depressed mind. I cannot think myself out of depression - actually, the more I think, the worse it gets. But when I force myself to do stuff, interact with people, and watch out for things around me, it does happen to me to find a "piece of corn" that somehow brings my brain to balance. I experienced it yesterday, when I woke up in such mood that I thought it might have been better not to wake up. I also experienced it today, when I had a moment of weakness, having travelled across time zones and being rather out-of-sync with the world around me. Somehow, it does seem to work, and it is good to do something actively for as long as I have the energy and drive to do it. To actively find my piece of corn that will reset my thinking loops and correct the mood.
If I do not kill the monster when it is tiny - it will grow. I know it. And then I will have no energy to look for a piece of corn. I will have to wait until it just happens to be in front of me, and this may take months. A terrifying perspective.
The concept of loops of negative thoughts is nothing original, I read about it in many places. But it does feel like something I experience when I am depressed, it feels like my thoughts produce the wrong neurotransmitters, which make me feel gloomy and then I think of even more bad things, and then there is more bad stuff flooding my brain, and so on and so on. Of course when I am not depressed (which does happen), all that does not make any sense, and I see the absurdity of my depressive thinking. The challenge is once I am in a loop of negative processing, or explanatory process, or whatever I call it, it is almost impossible to break it. Something must happen to stop it. There are concepts shock therapy (electronconvulsive, and also insulin shocks in the past) work exactly in this way - be resetting the looped processes in the brain. Of course this is a theory only, and there is no proof. But, as I mentioned, a drinking session with a good friend does help from time to time. Perhaps it is an old method of self-therapy? It is very risky though, as it may lead to dependence and all the nightmare of alcohol problems, so I do not recommend it to anyone, especially to people who have a tendency to get hooked on anything. But perhaps this is the sense of so called "civilised drinking".
Coming back to the idea of "negative loops", there is this wonderful blog about depression, a real masterpiece, and I can only wish I were able to create something like that. It is called Hyperbole and a Half, and it is here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. This is really a piece of art, not only a blog. If you get to the very end of part II, there is actually something very interesting: the author, desperate, exhausted, and hopeless, is crying on the kitchen floor. And then she sees a piece of corn under the refrigerator, And seeing this piece of corn somehow breaks the loop of negative thinking and triggers an uncontrolled loop of happiness and laughter. How amazing!
Having been severely depressed many times in my life, with the episodes lasting anything from weeks to months, I experienced similar things. For no reason, the depression would go away one day, leaving me in a slightly elated mood, perhaps a bit hypomanic. There would be something allowing me to break the loops of negative thoughts, although I am not sure what that could be. My own piece of corn. I may have seen something, I may have started doing something, I may have spoken to someone about something particular. I had not had the expectation that it would help in any way, and I did not do anything intentionally. It just happened.
And thus it is so important that when I am starting feeling depressed, I keep trying. Trying to look for a piece of corn, instead of locking myself in my depressed mind. I cannot think myself out of depression - actually, the more I think, the worse it gets. But when I force myself to do stuff, interact with people, and watch out for things around me, it does happen to me to find a "piece of corn" that somehow brings my brain to balance. I experienced it yesterday, when I woke up in such mood that I thought it might have been better not to wake up. I also experienced it today, when I had a moment of weakness, having travelled across time zones and being rather out-of-sync with the world around me. Somehow, it does seem to work, and it is good to do something actively for as long as I have the energy and drive to do it. To actively find my piece of corn that will reset my thinking loops and correct the mood.
If I do not kill the monster when it is tiny - it will grow. I know it. And then I will have no energy to look for a piece of corn. I will have to wait until it just happens to be in front of me, and this may take months. A terrifying perspective.
Sunday 10 November 2013
A Pact With The Monster
From time to time I am trying something new to see if it would help stabilise my mood. It can be a change in my behaviour, nutrition, the way I speak, and so on. So far, I have tried a number of things, with variable results. Here is a list of what I can remember:
Why stop smiling? I have a great sense of humour, but sometimes I feel that I am abusing it. Whenever I should be serious and strong, I use my humour, jokes, and I think I am perceived as goofy, unreliable, and not respected. I thought about it for a while, and the trigger was when I read about a recent that showed that for a male smiling is not necessarily a great idea. You can read it here: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Happy-Guys...in-pres-Emotion.pdf
Of course a study is a study, it is just an observation under specific experimental conditions and drawing conclusions from the "calculation of the unlikeness that what we saw was just a coincidence". If you are not a scientist, this is my way to explain to you what most research studies are about. What it means is that the results of any studies are unlikely to be a coincidence, but still can be a coincidence. In real life, scientists usually accept that the likelihood less than 1:20 or 5% are good enough to assume that things are not a coincidence. So the study may be wrong.
But I will try for myself. This is my pact with the monster. He does not want me to smile? Fine. I will not. In a controlled way, and on my own terms. I will tell you the outcome in a few weeks.
- Quitting smoking. This definitely helped my physical health, and at first made me very happy with my success, but that effect did not last too long. Now I have not smoked for more than 15 years, yet I had several significant periods of depression, as severe as when I smoked. But I am very happy that I did quit.
- Getting into a group of friends instead of being a "lone wolf". This worked for a few days or weeks, after which I had to run so I could be alone and do what I wanted and not what other people wanted that we did. And I wanted to do things on my own and alone!
- Starting a regimen of physical exercise. Same as smoking, it had a significant positive effect on my health, and resulted in elated mood for a while, but not for too long. And when I feel depressed, I have to force myself to exercise, as much as I can. After I force myself to exercise there is perhaps a little mood improvement that keeps me up for a few hours. So I continue it, but it is not a long-term cure.
- Going vegetarian. That was a mistake, I felt horrible, no benefit or fun whatsoever.
- Stopping drinking alcohol. Actually, I do not like just "having a drink". Whenever I have had one or perhaps two drinks, it makes me unable to function. I cannot think straight, I cannot drive, I cannot exercise, I just do not feel right. And I always have something to do. But there is an exception: I like to have a good few drinks on Friday or perhaps another occasion, ideally in a good company of someone I can have a good, deep conversation with. It seems to have a cathartic effect on my mind the next day, I wake up free of running the loops of negative thoughts, and can start the new week fresh. Strictly no overdosing though - hangover is not welcome. And so I thought one day that perhaps that was wrong - perhaps I should not rely on the purgative effect of alcohol, and just let the thoughts turn into action. After a few weeks (eight or so) I was extremely tired with myself, but there was no action. Actually, I noticed that I am more likely to take some little positive actions when I do allow myself to enjoy some nice wine on Friday night; I am still not sure about this being just masking the need for a "big change". Perhaps I am not yet ready for a "big change", or I just do not know what this could be.
- Stopping eating any wheat. Bread, cookies, pastas, dumplings, etc. I read lots of stuff about the problems wheat may be causing, some of them make sense to me, but others sound like a paranoic belief. A very true thing though is that wheat is a very "unnatural" type of food for a human (same as all grains though), we cannot eat wheat unprocessed. We need to do many things to it to make it edible, it is actually one of the oldest processed foods. But does it mean that it is bad? I am not sure. I stopped eating it, and initially there was one effect: I ate less, I did not have the bout of hunger. But soon I compensated with other things - meat, cheese, fruit, nuts, chocolate, all these can be overeaten and give me quite a lot of pleasure. I am still trying to stay away from wheat, as I see it as pure energy without much other nutritional value, but I cannot say abstaining from wheat has had a dramatic effect on my life.
- There must have been other things but all that would still be boring.
Why stop smiling? I have a great sense of humour, but sometimes I feel that I am abusing it. Whenever I should be serious and strong, I use my humour, jokes, and I think I am perceived as goofy, unreliable, and not respected. I thought about it for a while, and the trigger was when I read about a recent that showed that for a male smiling is not necessarily a great idea. You can read it here: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Happy-Guys...in-pres-Emotion.pdf
Of course a study is a study, it is just an observation under specific experimental conditions and drawing conclusions from the "calculation of the unlikeness that what we saw was just a coincidence". If you are not a scientist, this is my way to explain to you what most research studies are about. What it means is that the results of any studies are unlikely to be a coincidence, but still can be a coincidence. In real life, scientists usually accept that the likelihood less than 1:20 or 5% are good enough to assume that things are not a coincidence. So the study may be wrong.
But I will try for myself. This is my pact with the monster. He does not want me to smile? Fine. I will not. In a controlled way, and on my own terms. I will tell you the outcome in a few weeks.
Thursday 7 November 2013
The Logic of Depresssion
I knew it would be coming again. And it did. Very familiar feeling, very familiar thoughts. I got back from work yesterday, and it was all inside me. The perception that everything has no sense, that I have not achieved anything significant, that I am no one, and that I am defective because i have no concept how anything could be achieved, and so on. I was only looking forward to the night coming, and being able to go to sleep and not think about it.
And thinking is a major problem when one is depressed. This is because the more I think, the more I get depressed. I know there is no point speaking about being depressed to anyone who is not depressed and is trying to rationally explain to you that there is no reason to be depressed. It just does not work, because when I am depressed everything seems perfectly logical. The world sucks, work sucks, family sucks, people suck, I suck, nothing can be done perfectly. And the fact that I have to accept the world and the life "as is" sucks too!
The way out, at least for me, is to stop thinking. Have a good rest of sleep, and then force myself to doing something that prevents me from thinking and perhaps can give a little pleasure. I know I have to do it very early before the dark thoughts take over. When they do, there is practically no pleasure possible, and the depressive thoughts run at full speed. But the good news is that the depression does go away one day. Sooner or later. Even if I do not do anything.
Yesterday I managed to switch off the thinking; I practised a realtively hard piece of music, than read a book in another language. These are quite difficult things and I can do them without expecting an immediate result; I can do them with focus on the process (e.g. the perfection of playing or the understanding of words and phrases), so I cannot really fail. And every time I do them, they do get better. It did help a bit.
I can see that today I am again in a mood that makes me take everything as a personal attack. I had some emails from work colleagues overnight, and it is actually interesting to see my first emotional reaction, and then by delaying the action I can see the emotions fade out and the reason kick in. That's my way to manage myself today.
And thinking is a major problem when one is depressed. This is because the more I think, the more I get depressed. I know there is no point speaking about being depressed to anyone who is not depressed and is trying to rationally explain to you that there is no reason to be depressed. It just does not work, because when I am depressed everything seems perfectly logical. The world sucks, work sucks, family sucks, people suck, I suck, nothing can be done perfectly. And the fact that I have to accept the world and the life "as is" sucks too!
The way out, at least for me, is to stop thinking. Have a good rest of sleep, and then force myself to doing something that prevents me from thinking and perhaps can give a little pleasure. I know I have to do it very early before the dark thoughts take over. When they do, there is practically no pleasure possible, and the depressive thoughts run at full speed. But the good news is that the depression does go away one day. Sooner or later. Even if I do not do anything.
Yesterday I managed to switch off the thinking; I practised a realtively hard piece of music, than read a book in another language. These are quite difficult things and I can do them without expecting an immediate result; I can do them with focus on the process (e.g. the perfection of playing or the understanding of words and phrases), so I cannot really fail. And every time I do them, they do get better. It did help a bit.
I can see that today I am again in a mood that makes me take everything as a personal attack. I had some emails from work colleagues overnight, and it is actually interesting to see my first emotional reaction, and then by delaying the action I can see the emotions fade out and the reason kick in. That's my way to manage myself today.
Sunday 3 November 2013
Trogotor and the overwhelming feeling of non-performing
Do you know what a trogotor is? I do not know either, so it is good. It s good because I used this name to call a strange creature that appeared in my dream today. It was a very simple dream. I lived with my wife somewhere in a big city, in an apartment in a building dating back to the early 60s (I am not sure why this is relevant, but here you go). It was quite nice and comfortable. The only challenge was that somehow we were getting various little animals as unwanted guests. Usually small frogs, or crickets. But this time, it was different. It was something bigger, about the size of a small sub bun. It was black, hairy, and had colourful shiny dots of various sizes, arranged in regular lines of various colours, along its body. As if may daughter covered it with little marbles. One could not say where was the front and where was the back, and one could not see any legs. I did not know what it was. I went to bring my wife to ask if she had ever seen one like this, but when she came there, it had been gone. She spotted it in the other room. That thing must have been moving incredibly fast! We looked at it, and it was sitting there still again. We were wondering what sort an animal it was - a small reptile (but reptiles usually are not hairy), a large caterpillar, or a small mammal? We could not tell. One thing we could say was that it was quite beautiful, but also quite frightening. We decided to get rid of it, and when we looked back to find a tissue or a paper towel to grab it with, it ran away again.
We finally found it behind a bookcase, running on the wall. I grabbed it with a large tissue, and I could feel it wiggle in my hand. I went to the balcony and I wandered where to leave it - on the balcony (we had some plants there), or perhaps ... one of the neighbours (it would not be too nice). My wife asked me to drop it onto the lawn underneath. So I did, but I was not sure if it would survive. And it fell to the ground with quite a visible yellow explosion.
We called it 'trogotor' afterwards. The word was rattling throughout my mind until I woke up in the morning.
I was not sure what to think about that dream until this very moment when I finished writing it down. I think now that it shows that I do run away from beautiful and fascinating things out of fear. Or perhaps other people are too frightened and not curious. And then I lose them. Like we lost the trogodor without even knowing what it was.
I am almost 50 know and every day ends with a feeling that I have not done anything great. Anything great for the society, for the humanity, for the nature. An idea, a product, a service, something useful. I did many some small things for my family and myself. For some reason, these are not enough to keep me satisfied. I am not going to give up trying, still have some time.
We finally found it behind a bookcase, running on the wall. I grabbed it with a large tissue, and I could feel it wiggle in my hand. I went to the balcony and I wandered where to leave it - on the balcony (we had some plants there), or perhaps ... one of the neighbours (it would not be too nice). My wife asked me to drop it onto the lawn underneath. So I did, but I was not sure if it would survive. And it fell to the ground with quite a visible yellow explosion.
We called it 'trogotor' afterwards. The word was rattling throughout my mind until I woke up in the morning.
I was not sure what to think about that dream until this very moment when I finished writing it down. I think now that it shows that I do run away from beautiful and fascinating things out of fear. Or perhaps other people are too frightened and not curious. And then I lose them. Like we lost the trogodor without even knowing what it was.
I am almost 50 know and every day ends with a feeling that I have not done anything great. Anything great for the society, for the humanity, for the nature. An idea, a product, a service, something useful. I did many some small things for my family and myself. For some reason, these are not enough to keep me satisfied. I am not going to give up trying, still have some time.
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