Sometimes I wonder what my purpose is in life. Yeah yeah, it's going to be one of those entries; hunker down, get out the umbrella, find a bomb shelter, get on the other side of the cow, do what you gotta do.

Anyway, I'm wondering in a more thoughtful, "what the fuck am I going to do besides play ping-pong and masturbate for the next 50 years?" kindof a state of mind. You know, trying to find the zen of life without getting post-modern. My life is amusing enough without being artsy.

Best I've come up with is that I have this weird masochistic tendency to help people. Some people like to work with molecules, some juggling chainsaws, I just seem to find myself in situations that require talking skills.

So, I've come up with a few handy suggestion for anyone who has really depressed friends, loved ones, pets, etc.

1) If someone threatens suicide or has a penchant for sharp objects, take it seriously and get their ass some help. I used to be of the frame of mind that anyone who threatened just wanted attention, but then we find things out the hard way sometimes.

2) Talking to someone who's in alot of emotional pain and conveying the right emotion is a bitch, particularly if you're a series of binary characters or aren't used to this sort of thing. I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience just letting the person know that you care enough to talk to them, even if they don't want to, actually does help.

Sure that's obvious, but the message can be put into two hours or two seconds of speech. Being that my ass is perpetually on stand-by for studying, sometimes just the two second approach is just as effective. I used to think you needed to offer geometric proofs and logical conclusions to help people. Reasoning sometimes works, but more often than not it just seems to get in the way. I'm practical when it comes to everything, so this confuses me to no end.

I know, I'm silly and hypocritical; humor me. I'm tired and buzzed on the equivalent of a quart of coffee.

3) There's a fine art to asking a few times versus asking just once. It's an individual by individual thing. I don't suggest going with the indignantly self-righteous prick treatment. It usually doesn't work unless the other person wants to leech off your state of mind and is what I call an "emotive vampires." If you feel incredibly drained after talking to someone, and this happens every time given the same sad/depressed/angry/plaintive conversation...let it go. It's not worth it.

4) If you consistently help someone with what they perceive as their deepest fears, pains, etc., they will deeply resent you in the long-term. This is not bitterness talking. Some psych studies I've looked at, backed up by my own biased experience, suggest that doing incredibly huge favors for people engender a feeling of distance and suspicion.

In an evolutionary way it makes sense: if someone knows what deeply hurts you and actually tries to consistently amend the situation or the like, a defensive mechanism goes off that says "wait a sec...this entity could bitch slap me into therapy. Damnit! Pull away, full impulse!"

No, not even that was bitter.

I say all of this because I have no idea why.

In the end all I can say is that I don't know. Looking ahead I can't say that I want to passionately pursue anything. I mean, do you keep walking ahead? Existentially pull out an ICBM and clear what seems like a neat little (ok, not so little) path?

It's infuriating. I don't take things well on faith alone, especially my future.

But along the way, at least, I'll help people here and there, seeing the same patterns and hoping that something I say sticks. My parting words for everyone I get to know are "Just remember; maybe it'll useful someday." I can't count how many times I've said that. I don't even know if anything I say at those critical moments has been useful. I could just be a manipulative, hollow hypocrite. It's something I just have to take on faith alone.

And that I am bitter about.

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