a long week & several writers: i still struggle with depression, but maybe it isn't just me

Everything is meaningless. Under this hot freakin’ sun, everything is meaningless. The toil of work, the accumulation of stuff, the folly is in full force.

Ecclesiastes seems to describe the way America makes me want to vomit these days. I walk through the mall (what I might refer to now as the jungle) and see tigers made of brand names, poisonous thorns of cheap labor, children running wild in the economy of familial extraction in the name of consumerism.

I don’t know how much more I can take. It weighs on my soul Lord. For some reason, my heart remains heavy for a country I increasingly see as devoid of compassion, integrity, and light - as the black hole of self-indulgent fantasy numbs people into its ever increasing mass.
I don’t know what to do when people say, “whats wrong – you look down.” I’m not trying to be depressed. But simply looking around around at those I know and love just shows on my face because I refuse to hide the emotional toll the country takes on this not-knowing-what-to-do soul. What should I tell these lost creatures of habit whose “unexamined life isn’t worth living?” Since I don’t think they’ll take kindly to my laundry list of Austin-American-Western-Worldwide woes or the fact that a God loves them and sent Jesus as proof, I keep them to myself and try to comment on the weather or their well-groomed appearance.

I don’t know anything else to do besides take in as much as I can bear and attempt a shot at something at least a little bit better. Better than the isolationist sophistication of today’s modern man. Better than the church’s offering plate as a means to an end. Better than the sad excuse for marriage or even love that passes as entertainment. Better than relying on the technology that drives this machine of a country to GDP-bottom-dollared sense. Better than the politic of peace that bombs bring – ring the final bell on freedom, Mr. Bush.

I don’t know what I’m even saying because I’m part of my own disgust. Wrapped up in a house that seeks to be a home for friend, foe and weary traveler alike, I myself am American… but myself I even dislike. The hardest part of being me is perhaps that I’m no freakin’ Trinity and screw up all the time, just like the people who seem so canna-ballistically unruly.

Confession: The soul of this man remains meaningless, aside from God’s peace.

I don’t know what my role in this mess is. I’m burdened, that’s for sure. I’m praying. I’m doing what seems right. But now I just write. Write to help me defeat the worry, at least for this night.