Cher, cher, cher, cher, cher, cher...changes

I was pondering the nature of my misery the other evening.  I won't lie to you, because I respect and love you, but I am a melancholy chap by nature.  And as one's nature is immutable, this has always been the case with me.  I wish that it were otherwise, but it ain't.  That's why I give self-help and positivity short shrift.  It can't work because it relies on the subject being able to change an intrinsic trait.  That cannot happen.  You might as well produce a book that claims it can make the reader shorter, or change the colour of his eyes.

The only way to deal with a pessimistic bent to the be disciplined.  One must simply get on with things that one finds boring, or worse, fear-inducing.  That's the downbeat's lot in life, and it's a negative feedback loop of course: the more one does this things, the more miserable one gets, but at a slightly slower rate than by not doing them.  Miserable, eh?  

I overcome the ennui of the day-to-day by filling my every waking moment with mental and/or chemical stimulation.  Sitting and meditating on life is an absolute no-no.  That way, disaster lies.  This is starkly at odds with the prevailing wisdom de nos jours, which advocates inwardly-directed practices like transcendental meditation and mindfulness in place of  outward-facing ones like trampolining or adultery.  This universal clamour to self-examination is akin to suggesting that everyone should take up base-jumping or try acid because some people gain pleasure and insight from these practices.  One-size does not fit all.

The problem with this condition is that it gets worse the older you get.  The reason for this is that less and less changes in your life as you age, and change brings at least the possibility of improvement.  As you get older, you move house more infrequently, don't change careers, find new sexual partners.  You don't even make new friends; you just gain colleagues or people to hang about with.  This statis has a depressive effect on everyone.  That's what the midlife crisis is in effect.  But for the depressive, beginning from an already low happiness quotient, its net effect on the psyche can be disastrous.  

The same effect also explains why lottery winners and Olympic gold medal winners experience feelings of sadness and loss in the immediate aftermath of their seeming good fortune.  Olympians think that winning medals will fulfil them and give them purpose for the rest of their days; the rest of us think we'd be happy with a shitload of money in the bank or a solid-gold car.  It also explains why people buy bigger and bigger tellys even though the programmes get worse and worse.  "I'd be happy watching Britain's Got Talent if the screen were 14% bigger."  This, I'm sure you'll agree, is a floored and fanciful notion.

What a depressing thought...