Darkoshi

On PBS, I watched the Nova episode The Planets: Saturn

From the transcript:

"At 5,000 miles deep, the pressure of the atmosphere is 80 times greater than that at the bottom of our deepest oceans, enough to transform this sooty, graphite rain into diamonds. But even these diamonds are likely destroyed by the pressures of Saturn, eventually dissolving."

Here's another article about it:
'Diamond rain' falls on Saturn and Jupiter

Lightning storms turn methane into soot (carbon) which as it falls hardens into chunks of graphite and then diamond. These diamond "hail stones" eventually melt into a liquid sea in the planets' hot cores...

It made me think of a song I once downloaded and bought, named "Diamonds Shower" by Friedrich Liechtenstein:


Video title: Friedrich Liechtenstein tanzt zu Diamonds Shower vor Raffinerie
Posted by: Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mb3MqB6YNU
Date posted: Oct 12, 2015


I looked up info on the artist...
Once an Ornamental Hermit, Now a German Media Darling

I found this amusing Edeka (German grocery store) ad featuring the same artist, which I'd actually seen before, but it is still funny. The video doesn't show an English translation, but "Supergeil" means basically "super-cool" or "super-awesome", although the word "geil" originally meant "horny".


Video title: EDEKA Supergeil (feat. Friedrich Liechtenstein)
Posted by: EDEKA
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVcgDMBU94
Date posted: Feb 20, 2014


Then I found these even more amusing videos by BVG (the Berlin Transport Company), which runs the public transport in Berlin. The videos have English closed captions that can be turned on. This first one feels especially heart-warming to me:


Video title: BVG "Is mir egal" (feat. Kazim Akboga)
Posted by: Weil wir dich lieben (BVG)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvcpy4WjZMs
Date posted: Dec 11, 2015


"Alles Absicht" means "Everything on purpose".


Video title: BVG "Alles Absicht"
Posted by: Weil wir dich lieben (BVG)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pic3FnvUrY
Date posted: Sep 26, 2016



Video title: BVG-Arie
Posted by: Weil wir dich lieben (BVG)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlKhh6HFGdI
Date posted: Jul 5, 2017



The guy in the first BVG video is Kazim Akboga:
https://www.youtube.com/user/KazimAkboga/videos

From reading comments on his videos, I found out the sad news that he had suffered from depression and killed himself in Feb. 2017.
:-(

When I hear accounts of abductions such as this one, I'm intensely appalled but also darkly fascinated. I feel pulled to learn more of the story, more details. (A part of this I think, is that my own fantasies tend to revolve around bondage and torture and such.)

In a similar way, I'm both fascinated and repulsed by accounts of the Nazis and the Holocaust, and other sordid incidents from history and recent times.

Yet I've learned (somewhat) to avoid reading/listening/watching those kind of things, due to the deeply negative impact they have on my emotions.

When I do start paying attention, reading, digging into the details, then my mind has a very hard time letting go of it. The horror stays with me, and my mind keeps dwelling on it, over and over again, and everything starts to feel very grim. I know that the world is full of other horrors too, not just that one, and all the horrors are too much to bear. How can anyone stand to live in such a horrible world full of horrible people and horrible situations?

It often takes several days for these feelings to start fading away again, and to get distance from them.

So, when I first heard about that particular abduction 2 years ago, I didn't dig into the details.

But while driving home last week, there was an NPR radio piece with an interview with 2 of the survivors, and I listened to it. Then I got home and turned it off, and avoided researching more of the story even though my mind had plenty of questions about it.

With these kind of sexual abductions, it's nearly always females that are the victims, and males that are the perpetrators. This gets me so angry, so disgusted. Men preying on women and girls, over and over again, all around the world, all throughout history.

In some countries, this kind of thing isn't even necessarily considered a crime. Husbands locking up their wives, beating them, raping them... these women, even if they escape, can't just call 911 and be saved. There's no place for them to go. In some places, women aren't even allowed to go out in public without a male escort.

And then there are things like Gamergate and online trolls and street harassment. Lesser evils, but still, largely men preying on women. So damn disgusting.

It was also my foster sister's birthday last week. I stopped by her house in the evening to visit. She happened to have a movie playing on the TV in the background which seemed to be about some girl who had been abducted by some bearded guy. It had the quality of an old movie from the 70s. I did my best to ignore it while chatting with my sister. At one point she exclaimed "Is he torturing her?! He is!". I continued to ignore it. With my back turned to the TV, it was actually pretty easy to ignore. I only saw a few brief glimpses of it, and the volume was low enough that I didn't consciously hear any of the dialog. I thought I heard the name of the girl one time, though - "Amanda Bean". After leaving my sister's house, I put it out of my mind.

On Saturday, I watched the Iranian movie "Taste of Cherry". It's about a man who has decided to kill himself. I found the movie likeable, yet not very uplifting. Most of the scenes in the movie seemed quite bleak. Overall, it was neither a downer nor an upper. It was interesting and gave me a few things to think about.

On Sunday, I was feeling rather down - still partially related to the NPR show and thoughts around that. I did something unusual that day - I went outside and laid down on the concrete driveway, in the sunshine. If the dogs can enjoy the sunshine like that, why shouldn't I? I dozed, feeling the warmth, watching the sky, listening to the breeze. Getting some Vitamin D. Supposed to be good for you, against depression. Supposed to make you feel better.

It didn't make the world seem any less horrible, but it was relaxing. I finally got up and went back inside, as Qiao and I were going to take my mom out to eat for Mother's Day.

In the car, driving to the restaurant, guess what topic my mom starts talking about? She had been watching a movie the other day, about some girls who had been abducted. (I'm thinking, really? Is she really talking about this? For Mother's Day??? Why am I being hounded by that topic?) I don't know if she saw the same movie my sister was watching or some different one... what she described was girls being abducted as toddlers and held captive, but actually not being mistreated. It sounded odd.

Then she mentioned again about how I had nearly been abducted when I was a toddler. Some guy had taken my hand in the subway station and started walking away with me. She had lost track of me for that moment, then ran after me in a panic and pulled me away from the guy.

In the car, she patted my shoulder and commented on how lucky she/I was, that he didn't get away with me. I gritted my teeth in silence and waited for the topic to change.

When I got home afterwards, I was again curious. What movie had my mom been watching, and was it the same one my sister had been watching?

I found no abduction-related results for the name Amanda Bean. Yet Lifetime recently premiered a movie about the Cleveland abduction, one of the survivors of whom was Amanda Berry. So maybe that is what my sister was watching after all.

Then I read a few news articles and the Wikipedia page about that case. Just a few pages to answer a few questions in my mind. I'm not going to watch the movie or read the book, if there is one. I don't want to know all the details.

And then last night, I even dreamt about it too. Fer gawd's sake.

Can it get out of my head now? Can it?? I debated writing a post about this, as writing about it requires thinking about it.

But a part of what I wanted to write about, is that I think it is a sign of a depressed or dysthymic mind, in how the mind can't easily let go of topics like that. How those unpleasant thoughts keep repeating themselves again and again, making you feel worse and worse. Whereas good thoughts come and go, and don't stay and don't particularly make you feel better.

Tonight, Qiao watched 2 Criminal Minds episodes. One about some guy killing people by driving them down, and another about a guy killing people with anthrax. Those didn't bother me at all. They seem like pure fiction. (I guess that must be how it feels for other people when they watch movies about things that affect me so badly, as otherwise why would anyone want to watch those kind of movies?)

Those kind of topics aren't triggering for me, whereas many other topics are triggering for me.

Then there's the possibility that the people who made the music aren't horrible, but that they experienced horrible things themselves. The songs might even be about horrible things that they experienced, or which other people experienced.

I have one CD, Balkans without Borders, the profits of which were to benefit Doctors Without Borders. I've never been able to look at the CD cover without thinking about the Balkan wars and the atrocities that happened in those wars. Therefore I've never been able to enjoy the music on that CD much. Now that the songs are separate MP3 files mixed in with 4400 other songs from my collection, and where I might hear them play in shuffle mode without thinking about or realizing which CD it came from, I might be able to enjoy them.

I had another CD which I finally decided to get rid of. It had electronic music mixed with Jewish liturgical singing. But some of the songs also had voice overlays of people talking about the Holocaust. It's hard enough for me to hear traditional Jewish or Yiddish music (which I once enjoyed), without automatically thinking about the Holocaust. With that CD, there was no way I could enjoy the music.

When I was in high school, I sometimes listened to an Armenian radio show. I liked that music too. But they sometimes talked about the Armenian genocide, or maybe I read about that elsewhere, and later on it became hard for me to enjoy Armenian music, because it makes me think about genocide.

I know that reading or watching films about certain topics* is almost guaranteed to leave me emotionally/mentally wounded. Doing it fuels my depression, makes my mind hurt, brings a dark mental cloud more to the forefront. Those feelings tend to linger in my mind, and take a while to fade away again.

And yet, I often have a morbid curiosity that makes me want to continue reading or watching those things, even after I've realized that they are going to affect me in a bad way.

Sometimes, I am able to stop myself at the outset... by not clicking on a particular link, by skipping past the material in question, or by switching the TV channel. (Because yes, I already know it is bad, and I don't want to expose myself to even more details of how bad it is, when I'm already too horribly aware of how horrible it all is!)

But once my curiosity has been piqued by something, I'll often keep watching or reading, and even actively searching out more information. Why is it that I do this, even when I know it is going to hurt me?


One might say that I got my fill of the topics in question at an early age. By reading too many National Geographic magazines, watching too many documentaries. Too many "real-life" stories and biographies, too many news shows. The depression that starting coming over me during my teen years may be related to why those topics trigger me so badly. The topics helped shaped my world-view, which helped shape my depression... Then again, maybe those topics are bad enough that I would feel the same way about them even without a history of depression; I don't know.

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* There are many such triggering topics: Wars, the military, the Holocaust, mass killings, individual killings, rape, torture, unjust imprisonment, industrial pollution, clear-cut logging, environmental degradation, radioactive waste, factory farming, slaughterhouses, animal experimentation, pesticides, genocides, the Inquisition, African-American slavery, unjust treatment of Native Americans, racism, sexism, gender-based inequality, police corruption, government corruption, dictatorships, child soldiers, modern day slavery, just about any nation and place on Earth because they've all got horror stories in their histories, and more.

I talked myself into going to the Pride festival downtown today. I was undecided at first; some of the local BDSM groups were marching in the parade, but as I haven't been active in those groups for a couple of years now, I didn't feel that I'd belong in the parade with them. I'd be an odd-ball out. I felt that way last time already, even though at that time I was more active in the group.

I'm not gay or lesbian or bi, in the normal sense anyway. I'm not straight in the normal sense either. But I am an ally and somewhat trans. I finally decided that maybe by going, I'd at least see some pretty people. Maybe I'd bump into someone I knew, and could say hi.

I managed to get there just slightly before the parade was scheduled to start. I started walking towards the front of the parade where the BDSM groups were... then I faltered, wondering what I'd do there. After dithering about for a while, I headed back in that direction, thinking that I could at least see the parade as it headed out. After getting up there, I didn't know what to do with myself, and felt awkward and bored.... I wasn't even looking at people (how can I "see some pretty people" when I didn't even feel comfortable looking at anyone?! Gah.) (There were a lot of dogs on leashes. I don't have a problem looking at the dogs.) I wondered what the heck had I come to the festival for, and felt like leaving already.

Then I decided to go to the swings. I found one that was partially shaded, and swung for a while. The parade left without me noticing, while I had my eyes closed. I got thirsty. After a while, I decided that I could go buy something to drink, and then watch the parade as it returned to the park... so I did that.

Watching the parade pass by, I felt a discomfort similar to what I felt while marching in the parade the other time. I felt like I had to keep a strained smile stuck on my face. I don't feel capable of cheering or shouting like the other people do, so I feel that I should at least try to look cheerful and supportive, hence the awkward strained smile.

After the parade had passed and everyone headed back towards the park, a familiar-looking guy passed me and held up a couple of fingers in greeting. Startled, I said hi, and after a short mental pondering, I realized that it was someone I knew from the BDSM group. But he was already gone by then, so that was that. So I did get to say hi to someone, at least.

Then I wandered by all the booths and tents and saw what there was to see. Twice, I headed towards the tent manned by one of the BDSM people, intending to perhaps say hi, but there were many unfamiliar people at the booth, and suddenly it seemed purposeless and silly to say hi, so both times, I ended up veering away from there.

Then I decided to go back to the swings. On the way there, I sat down to take a brief rest, and stretched my back (it still gets achy), and then pulled up a knee to my chin. I must have looked sad, as a woman passing by spoke to me, saying "It will be all right. Do you hear me? It will be all right". She held out her hand to me. I clasped it for a moment, and she continued on her way. But then I started crying, as if those words had broken down a wall. In that sudden transition from feeling relatively ok to feeling like weeping, I realized that there is an emotional wall that comes up in order for me to cope with navigating through a social situation like that with a bunch of strangers. And that's why I often feel like crying afterwards, while leaving - that's when the wall finally starts to come down. This time, it came down prematurely.

I was glad that I had my reflective sunglasses on, as that made it less obvious that I was crying. I got up and continued towards the swings, trying to get my crying under control. The swing-benches were thankfully still empty, so I chose one and swung for a while. Swinging is soothing; comforting. The fountain noise is soothing too. I felt better after a bit. I swung back and forth to the festival music. I leaned back and watched the sun and clouds swing back and forth. I swung for a long time. I watched some birds; I watched an ambulance come and go. I swung hard; I felt like I did when I was a kid, swinging on swings. The most enjoyable part of being at the festival for me was when I was alone on my swing, listening to the fountain and the distant music, and playing with an acorn.

Then I left.

Do you have memories that you consider "good"? Memories of times when you felt great, or happy, or when the world seemed exciting and colorful? Memories of times when the future seemed to offer further fun and excitement? How many memories like that do you have? Does thinking of those memories make you feel good now too?

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Memories that at some point seemed good to me.

On Mallorca, walking and climbing out on the rocky lava-like outcropping towards the ocean. Hearing the ocean all around, roaring and rising and falling. With the sun shining and wind blowing. (Magic... stories... accompanying me in my mind) 2 distinct memories like that, different locations and trips, but otherwise similar. One time Forestfen was with me, the other time either Forestfen or my aunt was, I don't remember who... in both cases, they were distractions to me, pulling me away from the magical and back into the mundane. I preferred to be alone with my fantasies.

In the woods behind my apartment house in Munich, walking or running carelessly along the path, and being startled by my older brother and a group of his friends, who seemed to step out of nowhere, surrounding me in a narrowing circle. They must have been playing a game of stealth, hiding behind the trees and waiting to surprise me. It gave me a shivery/tingly feeling, as if I was being hunted/chased, as if I was a hero or on some quest, and an enemy wanted to capture me. It was creepy too; I pushed through the circle of boys and escaped. I'm not quite sure if this really happened, or if I dreamt it when I was a kid and kept the memory ever since.

The Empire Strikes Back. I *was* Luke. I had powers. Darth Vader was *evil* and wanted me to join him. There was magic and light and the depths of space.

The school trip to Egypt and Israel in the 7th grade. I kept mementos from that trip for so long, that I must have associated good/poignant memories with it. I had a mild crush on our tour-guide. He was Israeli, foreign, and had sparkling eyes. He was the leader, and I was one of the followers. He told us what to do. At one point during the trip, he noted my interest in the Hebrew alphabet and words, and he swiftly wrote a short phrase in Hebrew on a piece of paper for me. I treasured it; that was his only personal interaction with me but it felt special. Other memories from the trip were ambivalent; I remember being sad and possibly even crying while alone in a hotel room, while the other kids were socializing together. I remember one boy talking to me... I don't remember what he said, but it was something about me being sad or staying to myself and how I shouldn't do that... The mere fact that he talked to me seemed special and unusual, although I didn't know how to respond to what he said. Overall, it was a good trip. There was magic in the air; life was magic back then. Egyptian mythology and history, and ancient ruins were part of the magic.

Walking on a trail through deep woods near some mountain lake with ForestFen and Bro. I found a smooth gray stone that was vaguely shaped like an arrow-head, which became one of my treasures. Walking through forests, I was a ranger/"Indian"/(or whatever the word may be for that feeling of skillful knowledgeable self). I was in an alternate reality.

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Memories don't seem good or special anymore, because the feeling of magic is gone. I don't remember being happy; I can only think back and wonder if I felt happy in the past or not. But I do remember feeling magic, or at least being able to imagine a magical existence, and that made things seem exciting. Life had possibilities; the stories could come true for me some day; *I* would learn magic; I would be an apprentice to a wizard, or would somehow break through to an alternate reality were magic was real, and where someone like Darth Vader would interact with me.

Or maybe I was never happy with real life; maybe I escaped into fantasy. Books and fantasies were the real, exciting world. Maybe the only particularly good experiences I felt were ones where I was superimposing a fantasy onto the real world.

But the magic is gone. It is fiction. It does not seem real or believable anymore. Even if there were a Darth Vader wanting me to join the dark side, so what? And if I did, then what? Or if I didn't, then what? WHAT? Where is the magic? Where is the purpose, where is the reason for doing anything?

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I think the interactions with Wododu, and that one other dom, and Qiao early on, were good because I was fantasizing then too. But I was doing it with a *real* person, and they were *interacting* with me, and I started hoping that real life could actually possibly be amazing like a fantasy could, or even better! Except it wasn't real. It was just in my head. Thinking back on those experiences makes me awfully sad now, if I let it. Awfully sad from the disappointment, or not bothering to feel any emotion over it.

I'm beginning to think that Q tends to mistakenly interpret other people's actions as acts of passive-aggressiveness towards him. Or it could be that his interpretations are correct, and that I am naive to think that people generally would not act that way.

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I'm feeling a slight level of general anxiety. Must be hormones.

I don't know how to enjoy things. I've got things to do. I've got this vague idea that once I finish those things, that I'll be able to relax and enjoy being on vacation. But I don't know how to do so. I don't particularly enjoy anything. Maybe that is why I keep myself busy with these "things to do". If I could think of something enjoyable to do, maybe I wouldn't waste my precious time like that. Or maybe the things I'm doing are the things that I originally thought would be enjoyable, but which I now find out just feel like things that need to get done.

Phone-calls have been annoying me. I don't get many; but when I do, I feel interrupted in the things I'm busy doing, and annoyed at the interruption, and annoyed at having to listen to someone talk and talk and talk instead of being able to continue and complete the task I was interrupted in doing. But I'm always busy doing something, so there's no good time for anyone to call.

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The wrist-cuffs of my sweaters and jackets smell like dog saliva.

There's a friend of one of my co-workers who had indicated to them a strong interest in taking the puppy. I think I should have heard from him by now, but I still haven't. On the one hand, I'm anxious about having him call, as I'm worried that Q will be upset if I give away the puppy. But I've always intended to find a different home for it. Why does everyone think I'm going to keep it? Do they think I'm such a good-hearted person that it would be natural for me to keep it and keep taking care of it for years and years and years?
On the other hand, I'm anxious that he won't call, and I'll end up having to keep the puppy, and that Q and me will break up, but that I'll still have to keep the puppy even though Q says he'd be willing to take it, and that the dog will be lonely and neglected because I can't take good care of it, because I'm an unhappy, joyless individual, and I can't love it, and taking care of it feels like work and takes away from my precious time. My precious time, which I can't find anything enjoyable to do with it. Because nothing makes me happy.

Qiao and I have now watched episodes of 2 ABC shows online, which we missed when they were broadcast on TV. The quality of the online videos is just as good or better than broadcast TV. The video player window can be maximized, and the quality is still just as good. The commercial breaks are more convenient than on TV, and being able to watch the video when you want, and pause it, makes it more convenient than TV as well. The only benefit the TV has is a larger screen. Well, that and less likelihood of technical issues - the 2nd time around, the video player wasn't working in Firefox, so I had to switch to IE.

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The puppy is growing larger. She doesn't *look* larger to me, but certain things make it apparent that she is. I've had to give up on the enclosure. She kept getting out - she is large enough now that the metal drawers which previously were a formidable obstacle to her, are now relatively easy for her to clamber over.

Oh, and the puppy is purportedly female, not male. It seemed silly, after finding that out, switching the pronouns we used to refer to the puppy. Just because his/her body turns out to purportedly be one way instead of another way, it's expected that we refer to the puppy differently. Qiao also quickly switched from calling the puppy things like "good boy" to things like "sweet little girl". Tcheh. We didn't change her name though. She's still Zorro.

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I didn't get any other antidepressant pills. The psych didn't think that the non-generic Wellbutrin would work for me, since the generic one didn't have any positive effect on me at all. So I said that I didn't want to take any more pills, for a while at least. I've tried an SSRI, an SNRI, and an NDRI, and none really made me feel better. I was majorly bummed after leaving his office. Nearly started crying while waiting for the receptionist to get me my receipt. It doesn't seem like there's any hope left. I'm not capable of truly enjoying life. It's incurable. It's who I am, not an illness, not something that can be fixed.

Qiao seems to think that my purpose for taking antidepressants is to control or curtail my fits of anger, as opposed to helping with my depression. Even though I told him it's for depression, not anger. The anger is somewhat related to depression, though. If I'm not feeling particularly down, then annoyances are just annoyances, and I can deal with them. But when life feels like a pain in the first place, then any annoyances are insult on top of injury, and I rage at having to deal with either.

I did a search in Aetna's DocFind tool again, this time searching by distance from zip-code, and I found 3 psychiatrists, all at the same address. That's better than before (when I got *no* results), but it still is hard to believe that there would only be 3 psychiatrists in my urban area covered by Aetna. So I emailed Aetna about it.

I was thinking about meditation today. Maybe meditation feels good to people who are not depressed, but doesn't feel good to people are depressed or dysthymic. Maybe the default brain state for mentally healthy people when they let go of all thoughts, is a good feeling. But for people like me, the default brain state is neither good nor bad. It's just empty. So letting go of all thoughts just results in me feeling nothing. It can be relaxing, but it doesn't make me feel good.

Then again, there are many webpages that say meditation can be good against depression. Maybe if I envisioned feeling good while meditating, it would work better. Maybe it's just pessimism which makes it seem like a non-productive activity.

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Who's my god?
Am I special enough for a god?
Everyone has potential.
What does a god get out of those who belong to it?
Pieces to play in a game?
What game is this?
What is fun about *this* game?
What is fun about *that* game, for that matter?

Gods are created
in order to have something to believe in.
There isn't anything I feel drawn to believing in anymore.
What was different, before?
What was it about light-sabers and Darth Vader?
What was it about ESP and magic?
What was different?
I was younger, less jaded, less experienced.
Is that all it was?

tickety tock
tickety tock
the mouse ran up the clock

I can't find any psychiatrists in my health insurance's doctor-finder directory. I found a few clinical psychologists under the Behavorial Health section, but apparently they can't prescribe medicine, from what someone I called told me. Guess I'd have to call the health insurance up and ask them how to find the psychs.

Maybe I should just start eating a lot of walnuts or taking flaxseed oil. I tried vegan omega-3 capsules for a while, but didn't like them because they tasted fishy, and because I got a sore throat a few times afterwards, which made me wary of them.

I'd feel better about taking something natural like flaxseed oil than prescription drugs. But I don't have much faith in natural remedies like that, so it probably wouldn't work. I don't have any confidence that prescription drugs would work either.