The soundtrack for today's' blog entry:

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

If I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
If I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat

--The Who: Behind Blue Eyes

I think that this song has some subtle undertones to how society treats the creative male. How it slowly, but surely, does what it can to eradicate any hints of the being. The verses above are the strongest indicators -- they point to the slow but subtle ways that most men are influenced, slowly, but surely, into simply being automatons.

Some of us buck the trend (for our sanity). We, for some unforeseen reasons -- maybe the influence of a teacher or trusted mentor, decide to ignore the advice, shoving and general peer pressure, and let the being grow, fester and ultimately win our inner being.

I used to have a friend named Stacey. Believe it or not, he (yes, he) was a manager at a Dominos' Pizza where I was working. Stacey was pretty crazy in his persona -- I liked the guy. He was the manager over a crew of about 30-40 drivers and cooks, and the restaurant was pretty successful. I reference him here, because somehow he also survived with his creative persona intact.

A Stacey story; He used to wrestle in college. He gave it up about the third year -- not because he wasn't any good at it -- but because he's like this really happy go lucky kind of guy (not much got him down, from what I remember). And he would go to wrestling matches, reach out to shake the other guys hand and say "Hi! I'm Stacey!" expecting to simply have a sporting wrestling time -- and the other guy was inevitably an asshole, aggressively, and in the most masculine, angry voice "I'm gonna Kick Your Ass!" -- this is from memory, Stacey, so if I got parts of it wrong, sorry.

The deal was, Stacey liked wrestling for the "fun" of it. In case you're wondering, he was very much a heterosexual (references to earlier blog entries here, sorry). He had a beautiful girlfriend from what I remember. In other words, his sexual orientation (to me, at least) was never in question. He gave up wrestling, however, because he couldn't stand the stupidity of guys who simply couldn't enjoy the sport, as opposed to look at it like some sort of way to play WWE Monday night raw.

It bummed him out. It was simply not something he wanted to contribute to, eventually. I have a lot of memories of him making funny comments and causing the day to go so much faster because of his sense of humor. These things are important. As a matter of fact, humor helped me through this ordeal (so far). I have to laugh.

Transitioning...

One of my coworkers learned of my recent depression about 3 days ago. She was pretty much floored, because during the whole ordeal I still made jokes (some were pretty morbid, unfortunately). The deal is that there's a perception that if you're always laughing, then you must be happy. Usually, it's true. For me, the problem is that the depression didn't dent the facade of who I appear to be (much). Complicating matters is that I've lost a lot of weight recently. Only a few people had any idea, and I even chose to limit these contacts eventually, as I simply didn't want to drag anyone else down with me.

Might as well blog it out, eh? Kind of funny, when you think about it. Maybe I'll infect the whole human race (doubtful). My hope is that someone going through similar experiences will be able to see that I made it, how I made it and so on. I'm still battling the train of thought issues, by the way.

Off and on, I feel more and more in control of my thought patterns, and that's an important change. Some of this restoration is coming from my sleep (6+ hours last night, but not contiguous). Still, I need your prayers.

Take care, and God Bless,
--FeriCyde