I'm very lonely, blogger. I don't know what it is. The fact that I have no difficulty making new friends wherever I go. The fact that I almost always have fun wherever I go. The fact that I am constantly busy driving and working and dancing and planning and all sorts of other verb-ings. The fact that I am contented easily. The fact that I have books and video games and food and more books to occupy every waking moment I'm not out with people and very comfortable pillows and blankets when I'm asleep. The fact that my girlfriend is a thousand miles away, in a different direction than usual as she hikes in the colorado mountains, unreachable until monday. The fact that I feel pulled toward people by the inevitably interesting things about them. The fact that I feel repelled by people by their inevitable inability to be who I want them to be. The fact that I reveal neither of those. The fact that my expectations for others are as high as those of myself, and everyone (including myself) is failing. The fact that I'm tired of facts. The fact that what I really want to do is not be better, but just to feel better. The fact that that disgusts me and depresses me even more than the not being good in the first place. Blogger, why is it that I can work hard and get things done and still feel useless, go to job fairs and work on my resume and still feel like I am doing nothing, hang out with people who remember my name and enjoy my presence and feel so totally and utterly alone and unable to bridge the gaps, have a loving family and a loving girlfriend and friends who are all but loving (and even faith in a God who loves me) and still feel totally untouched by love? I don't know, I'm depressed. Reading helps me forget. Drinking doesn't. Funny, that? Something is cracked inside me I think, and I all run out, dripping on the floorboards and the carpet, draining into the bedsheets. Misanthropy starts within. Those who alienate themselves because they have been hurt one too many times are not true misanthropists. No, the true misanthropist is alienated because he is unable to bring reality into focus, align his perceptions of reality with his expectations and desires of reality, or vice versa. He blindly gropes in front of him, smile on his face, uncertainty in his eyes, despising reality for being blurry, despising people for being either shallow or unfathomable, despising himself for his inability to hold his head high without feeling fake, and his inability to lower his head without feeling shame and defeat. I close my eyes and see the world imprinted upon my retinas in opposite colors, a natural phenomena, a property of our visual system. I fear I may be split in two, and only a shallow David remains, like a transparency slide held up with a blank sheet of paper behind. Where has the light gone? Where the artist with his steady hand? Where the pen?