Posted on by qscrisp

This Killing Sadness

Sometimes, on a dark night like this, at the end of the day, which might as well be the end of my life, alone with myself again, I cannot help but think of the final words of Thomas Ligotti's 'The Bungalow House':

"I know in a way I never knew before that there is nowhere for me to go, nothing for me to do, and no one for me to know. The voice in my head keeps reciting these old principles of mine. The voice is his voice, and the voice is also my voice. And there are other voices, voices I have never heard before, voices that seem to be either dead or dying in a great moonlit darkness. More than ever, some sort of new arrangement seems in order, some dramatic and unknown arrangement – anything to find release from this heartbreaking sadness I suffer every minute of the day (and night), this killing sadness that feels as if it will never leave me no matter where I go or what I do or whom I may ever know."

20 Replies to “This Killing Sadness”

  2. Well, I might go out tonight, to the cinema, though I don’t have anyone to go with.Thanks for the concern. I have been struggling with depression for many, many years, and I’m better than I used to be. Now, however, I can write something in my blog that ten years ago, not having a blog, I would have kept to myself, or told the Samaritans. I’m not sure that particular change is good.If you talk about your depression too much, people come to think it’s your natural state and it becomes meaningless to them. If they haven’t been there themselves – and apparently some people haven’t, which always amazes me – then they haven’t a clue what it’s like. They think you’re making it up.Anyway, I’m a bit better today.

  3. I am glad that you are feeling better. I also have them occasionally, in fact, just coming out of one. Lasted about 4 days but I am nearly back to my normal self.. if you can describe what normal is… 😆

  4. I lived with someone who battled depression, so I “sort of” understand, but you’re right, it’s difficult/impossible to really understand unless you’ve been there. By the way, I love reading your posts, though I don’t often comment. You write so eloquently and my replies seem so cumbersome. Don’t think too much if a blog is a good thing or not, just do it. It must be awfully lonely being a writer at times. I’m happy to have a chance to read your work. 😀

  5. To paraphrase Tom Waits, “If I exorcise my demons, perhaps my angels will leave, too.”It’s the only thing I can think of to say that doesn’t sound trite (I hope, anyway)…Hope your week gets better.

  7. Hello everyone.I’m back from the cinema. Thank you for your kind words.Sandy – please feel free to comment or not comment as you see fit. I’m glad you read my posts.Errrm.Well, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to give progress reports, as that would get really tedious for everyone, myself included. I certainly think that depression is the natural state in a meaningless, disenchanted universe, but I hope that’s not where we’re living, and if it’s not, then I also hope to find out, though my experience so far remains deeply ambiguous.I do have a sense of myself as I would be without the shadow of depression. I think I was like that before, once. Before adolescence, in fact. I was too gay for this world. I mean, too good. I had to adapt by learning cynicism and so on. Not that I ever really learnt cynicism sufficiently to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with … Well, with being cynical, I suppose. I’m not entirely convinced of the need for demons, though I suppose I’m wary of a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil attitude. And that’s probably the best that I can say at the moment.I shall be back spreading sunshine, or whatever it is that I generally spread, before too long, I expect.

  9. trini_naenae writes:As someone who struggles with depression…The only thing I have to say is this… this universe is anything but meaningless and disenchanted. If you look, you can find beauty and wonder. And that’s enough for me. I’m glad you’re doing better now. :)”It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.” (Planetary, by Warren Ellis) It’s one of my favorite quotes, and it keeps me going sometimes.

  10. “What movie did you see?”I saw The Notorious Bettie Page. I may write a review. Or maybe not. I don’t know.Hello Trini. Thanks for the post. I’m all for strangeness. While I am alive, I hope that the world shall not lack it. I feel something coming to a head in my life. I wish it really would, though, instead of just feeling that way. I can’t really explain, except there’s something in this idea of being ‘too good for this world’. I’m reminded of The Matrix, which I didn’t particularly like. But there was one comment that stuck in my mind, that the artificial reality was originally a kind of paradise, but people dragged it down to the level of misery with which they were comfortable. Anything else was ‘too good to be true’ – like the terrifying radiance spoken of in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is the radiance of your own divine intellect.For some reason, I also, at times like this, think of some of the words of Samuel Beckett. They seem some of the most beautiful words in the English language:”…something is wrong here, if it was the end I would not so much mind, but how often I have said, in my life, before some new awful thing, It is the end, and it was not the end, and yet the end cannot be far off now, I shall fall as I go along and stay down or curl up for the night as usual among the rocks and before morning be gone. Oh I know I too shall cease and be as when I was not yet, only all over instead of in store, that makes me happy, often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon be mine. Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and per­haps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me.”

  12. Well, there’s always Krapp’s Last Tape, which is a very short – one act – play. It’s quite engimatic, consisting of character Krapp listening to scraps of tape recordings he made years ago. The full text – plus typos – is here.Here’s a rather eerie excerpt:”Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited. Pause. Here I end– Krapp switches off, winds tabe back, switches on again. –upper lake, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the stream and drifted. She lay streched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. (Pause.) I asked her to look at me and after a few moments–(pause)–after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low.) Let me in. (Pause.) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (Pause.) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side. Pause. Past midnight. Never knew–“

  13. Thank you!!!! (For Beckett) :DI have just printed it out to read. :)another thing:Looking for volunteers for making the world´s largest comments on a blog -look on my page for link.This is pure silliness but go for it!!!! Come on Quentin! Please post something about it here too!!!

  14. yes…. Isabel is fine…you feel slightly what? :confused:this is a nickname given me back in high school… long story… but nothing bad. 😀

  15. I’ve just posted a short comment. Might try again later. By the way, I feel slightly… something, addressing you as Wicked Lizard. Would Isabel be permissable?

  16. It seems a bit of a mouthful, and I’m never sure if people really want to be addressed by the names given to their accounts, because sometimes these seem like names of convenience, like, Chri777oxford, or something. I just made that one up, but you know what I mean.

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