Note: the tone of this post is not “extremely depressed.” To relax and remain silent may be the solution to the problems which plague us.

You know that feeling when you feel like talking but there’s nothing to say that comes to mind? I don’t know what you do when you get that feeling but I usually just come up with something stupid and pointless to say. That’s the post you’ve been blessed with reading here. Sorry.

When I started this Medium, I figured I’d practice writing some short stories maybe cover some cool emerging technologies and go on weird dumb rants about neat ideas I might have. And I’m the sort of person who will latch onto any neat adventure, idea, accomplishment, or discovery and blow it up to epic proportions. I’m extremely narcissistic and I pretty much write for my own ego gratification (with the hope that at least someone can benefit) — look at me, I’m a genius, I’m so ahead of the curve. The thing is though, I’m an honest one too and I’ve had no epic ideas, I’ve done nothing great or even mundane, I’ve gone on no weird surreal adventures, I don’t care one way or the other about Great Leader Trump, I don’t care who doesn’t or does immigrate where, I’ve completely lost track of the latest technological developments, and I’ve gotten tired of long endless intellectual rants. I haven’t even read any great books, binge-watched any new TV shows, or eaten any potato chips.

Picture a flat cracked dusty wasteland that stretches on endlessly, and you can’t quite tell whether it used to be civilized or not; whether those craters over there are from H-bombs or impersonal meteor strikes on some backwater desert planet that could be only as accurately described as post-apocalyptic as any other lifeless planet in the universe. That which has never lived cannot die. That which has no beginning can have no end. Unless you’re in geometry.

“How much difference between yes and no? What difference between good and bad? What the people fear must be feared. O desolation! Not yet, not yet has it reached its limit! Everybody’s cheerful, cheerful as if at a party, or climbing a tower in springtime. And here I sit unmoved, clueless, like a child, a baby too young to smile. Forlorn, forlorn. Like a homeless person. Most people have plenty. I’m the one that’s poor, a fool right through. Ignorant, ignorant. Most people are so bright. I’m the one that’s dull. Most people are so keen. I don’t have the answers. Oh, I’m desolate, at sea, adrift, without harbor. Everybody has something to do. I’m the clumsy one, out of place. I’m the different one, for my food is the milk of the mother.” — Lao Tzu