I was thinking "how can I visualize my emotional condition over the last month or so". My level of happiness is roughly the inverse of that graph. It's so much easier to be happy about simple things, about the status quo, because life is not bad at all. It's when you start looking ahead to something you would like to achieve that the feelings of anxiety, fear and depression hit you. Me anyway. Wanting more is a calculated risk, if I forget all about what more I could do in life, then I'm safe in my environment. If I start wanting, then inevitably I face the fear of failure. And fearing failure can actually be worse than failing itself, because failing immediately puts it in the past, whereas fear is anxiously expecting the future to unfold in your disfavor, it saps your strength.

It's a Saturday morning. I woke up at 9, it's now 13 and so far today I've done...nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad, I'm not happy, I'm not sad, I don't have to be anywhere, I don't intend on going anywhere, I didn't plan anything for today, it's entirely my "free time". How I loved free time in the past, free time meant doing everything I wanted to do when I couldn't. Nowadays, free time has become polarized. When I don't have free time, I wish I had free time, I have ideas about what I could do with it. When I do have free time, I have no ideas and I basically waste it on nothing. And nothing illustrates that outcome better than the summer. If I do have something planned for the summer, I end up doing that. Otherwise I end up doing nothing. And it's much the same kind of feeling that has filled many summers as I have right now, a feeling of nothing at all.

What happens is that I methodically reject every option open to me. I try to get some work done, half an hour into it I'm bored with it, I have no drive to work. I start a book, I get sick of the book. I watch some tv, I get sick of tv. I run through the bookmarks in my browser, exhaust everything of interest there in 40 minutes. I check my email, nothing new there. I start randomly clicking through my filesystem, hoping to find something interesting, but of course I've seen it all before. And so on and so forth. Instead, I wish there were *something* meaningful that I would like to do right now. It doesn't mean there isn't anything worthwhile to do, there just doesn't *seem* to be anything. It's a problem of being entrenched in my own world, people try to help and suggest things to do, but of course those suggestions sound no more interesting to me than the things I've already conceived and rejected myself. And someone trying hard to sell an idea that isn't actually very good, piling on false enthusiasm, just makes me want to ignore them.

When I was a kid and I got in this situation, sometimes I would ask people for suggestions. Invariably, those suggestions rarely opened my eyes to anything I hadn't thought about before, or they would be variations and combinations of my own ideas, things that were already painfully obvious. What I'm really looking for is new impulses, distractions maybe, to guide me in a direction I hadn't seen before, that I didn't know existed. That's the only way I get interested in doing something.

Is it a necessary part of life to feel emptiness ever so often?

Well, trying to understand the mind is a oxymoron in the first place, granted. But do we ever let that stop us from trying understand ourselves, at least the general patterns which guide us? What seems to be self-contradictory from our point of reference may as well turn out to be perfectly logical from a higher perspective. With that limitation stated up front, the scene is set for this entry.

Do you ever find yourself thinking at opposite ends of the spectrum in cases which really do not seem very different? Most of the time, when facing a significant problem, I don't buy into quick solutions, easy fixes, tweaks. I analyze the situation and draw conclusions which factor in a range of small things that affect it, knowing that no one little thing can tip the scales in the long run. When I'm stuck and I present my reasoning to someone who's eager to help, they will almost always pinpoint the small, simple steps that I could take immediately to lighten the load a little for the time being. Well, I know about them, they are already part of my analysis, I know that they solve nothing in the long term. It's like if you struggle to motivate yourself for a test in high school, it does little good to come up with some solution to get past that one test if you recognize that you still have several years of college ahead and you need some more reliable method of motivation for that. Now you're thinking long term strategy, looking for solutions which will stand the test of time. And most of the time, I do just this, I'm skeptical to solutions which only work this one time. Cynical if you like.

But then the opposite happens sometimes. It is rare, but in some cases I do see a facet of life in terms of one single problem. And for some reason I think if I can get past this issue, if I can conquer this obstacle, suddenly everything will be within reach. As if to say that the first step is the hardest one, then gradually everything becomes easier. And that's completely unrealistic, it's completely incoherent with reality. Whenever I do solve that first problem, inevitably I face the next problem, which is just as challenging. And once that happens once or twice, I do begin to see that my view on this was all wrong. But why do I believe that in the first place? Why do I stray from my realistic approach and buy into a fairy tale? I don't understand why this happens.

Is this some kind of fantasy we have that we want to believe in a fairy tale until reality puts a stop to it and we can no longer convince ourselves that it's true?

• suffering a temporary loss of hearing
• taken hostage for a day with 3 other people whose language you don't speak
• moments before your imminent execution

Perhaps you could help me think of more scenarios in which a game of cards sounds like a wonderful idea? Seriously, in our generation, which grew up with computer games, how could you possibly sell card games to a person? Yeah, I know what you're saying, you spend half the day playing solitaire at work, but that's because you have few [no?] options. I'm not talking about dead time you *have to* kill anyway, I'm talking about free time. Who the hell would play cards in their free time, my god how dull! Invariably, from time to time we are trapped in a situation where there's nothing happening, let's say a rainy night in a tent [/caravan/hotel room/whatever], and playing cards seems to be the only option. But why would you then ignore the sparkling imagination and intellect of the mind as a means to a fulfilling conversation in favor of switching to a mechanical, sleep inducing process? It's like trying to convince people that hand sewn clothes are much better than factory made clothing, and we should thus all sew our own clothes. I'm sure you'll find some romantics even in that area who'll be happy to rain some of their gospel onto you, but would you really take to that approach? I think not.

To top it off, they recently introduced poker on tv as a means of entertainment. As if playing poker yourself wasn't boring enough, now you can relax from all the stress and just sit and watch as someone is doing it for you. Clearly a sign that your bed time is overdue.

Ps. I will give an allowance for bridge. I don't know anything about bridge, I've never played bridge and so it may just be an exception.

59 days. Almost two months. What am I talking about? Oh, I didn't say? It took almost two months before I would have something to say about Dutch politics. See, I just caught the appearance of one Geert Wilders on BBC Hardtalk as I was surfing the channels and it took me about 2 minutes to realize that the guy is an asshat. Yes, I know what you're saying, "you don't even speak Dutch and now you're going to bash this politician you know nothing about because you happened to hear him speak English". Yes, you're damn right. In this society of public correctness, it's amazing sometimes to hear people say things that are so blunt that you think they have no awareness of public opinion.

Let me reiterate some of his stand points for your pleasure.

• if you wear a burka, you will not get a job, you will not make Dutch friends and ultimately you will fail to integrate into society
• in these times of insecurity, noone should wear clothing which covers their face, everyone should be able to identify everyone else in the street
• if you have dual nationality, of which one is Dutch, and you repeatedly commit a crime, you should be stripped of your Dutch nationality
• it is unacceptable that the major Dutch cities are becoming dominated by citizens of the faith of Islam, this country should be dominantly white/Christian/Jewish
• if Turkey, a moderate, democratic Islamic state joins the EU, the Netherlands should leave the EU