Have You Ever...

...felt like nothing you do matters?

Ok, I'll admit that I'm in the midst of a world-class funk right now. I don't want to whine about it on here because I doubt that any of you want to read that.

It's 3:02am as I write this.

My back hurts and the last dose of pain medication is wearing off.

I can't get to sleep and my brain won't shut off.

I went and laid back in my recliner for a couple of hours to see if a change of place might help, but although I'm crazy/sleepy, I can't go to sleep.

I think of several good ideas to write for blog posts, but in the mood I'm in right now, although they are good ideas, I just don't care enough to write them out. It's too hard to put words to a feel good story that I remembered when I'm anything but feeling good. So I can't write those things now; they'd sound horrible.

Kind of like how you're not supposed to go to the grocery store when you're hungry. It usually ends badly.

But I didn't want to have day after day here to be blank.

I appreciate all y'all coming by and reading, and especially your comments and hope that I get better and pull out of my funk soon.

Problem is, that chronic pain is something that will tip a depression prone person like me into deeper darkness.

And my back hurting so much lately has been like pouring gasoline on a smoldering coal; it helps to make my outlook on life quite dim.

I haven't wanted to get out and take pictures, everything that I think would be nice to do or that I should do or whatever just gets shot down by the shotgun blast of I-don't-really-care-enough to go through with these ideas.

Conversely, I've been reading when I can, and have been reading some good fiction and non-fiction like the books I mentioned last week, so all is not lost.

In the end, it has been my blogging and photography that has taken the biggest hit. I'm almost totally robbed of all creativity right now, so bear with me.

When I'm not feeling creative, or flat-out in a depressed state, I tend to do things that are menial, non-creative, but useful.

For instance, I've been converting some VHS video into digital form on my computer. This is a first for me. I tried to do video several years ago but it was a dismal failure, our computer was way too slow and all attempts at capturing video onto the computer turned out jerky and just plain pathetic.

This computer that I have now that I bought this past spring is super fast and it captures video with great ease.

So I've been climbing the steep hill that is learning to capture, edit, and produce simple videos and it's pretty neat.

Things like converting home movies and whatnot to digital form are quite useful and allow me to do something worthwhile during these creative down times in my life.

Although I sound as if life sucks for me right now, it doesn't, but as far as blogging is concerned, it takes a pretty big hit while I deal with my issues.

I'm also learning a bit about music and am listening to CDs on how to train my ears to discern musical pitches to improve my abilities on the guitar.

Not one person in my family can play any musical instrument, no grandparents, parents or siblings could. I grew up in a family that loved to listen to music, but not one that played any music themselves.

People that I know that grew up around musical instruments being played seem to all have a better and quicker grasp of things when they themselves attempt to learn to play an instrument.

Listening to instruction on how to improve my ability to hear and understand absolute and relative pitches, will, I hope, eventually help me become a better and more confident guitarist.

Anyhoo, all is not darkness and gloom, but during these funky moods it helps me feel better about myself to learn new things and to try to accomplish positive things like with the video and music so that I'm not just wallowing in my own self pity.

Hope y'all understand. I'll keep on trucking and try to at least throw some photos out here from time to time.

And if I keep having insomnia, I'll just get on here and ramble a bit like I am tonight.

It's now 3:27am, and I'm gonna shut it down and try to go to bed. Again.

Later.