You don’t have to be in a cage to feel hopeless

Swallowing a tangy cheese and washing it down with a tasteful glass of red, for me is a momentary avoidance of thought. The senses are pleased and distracted for a brief gulp, allowing an emptiness to be filled, a hole to be closed and a cloud to be dispersed. Vice and depression are forever coupled, married in Vegas, but never having got around to filling in that annulment paperwork. Despite not wanting to be seen in public together.

Select your poison

Decisions to fight off the anxiety of existence can include powdering your nostrils for a gratifying boost of serotonin. Habitual masturbation to chase that oxytocin addiction you didn’t know you had. The yellow-toothed, black lunged often-ignored practice of chain-smoking. Let’s not forget the wonderful reward system of gaming addiction or glutinously eating until you can’t lift yourself without using a machine.

You could choose to simply wallow in self-pity. Conversely, it isn’t nearly as destructive. However less damaging and a personal favourite of mine: Masochistically punishing your internals with spices so potent they would kill a Chihuahua.

Coming back down

Whichever you choose, the distraction of administering your vice outweighs any logical decision to better yourself or the world around you, the injection of temporary gratification encourages the deflection of anything productive.

Escaping from reality is a short-term endeavour. You always have to come crashing back to earth at some point. The inconsistent lifestyle of being airborne and colliding with a surface is the metaphorical embodiment of life itself. You just have to hope that the next time you crash, you’re further above sea level than where your furious flapping originally lifted you off the ground.

Depression is a muggy bitch, you can’t really see her or feel her. Unfortunately, she’s always there, judging you and wrapping you in her cold blanket. Ensuring your limbs aren’t tightly constricted but are lightly weighted against your body. She’s making certain every step is an inconvenience and a chore. Depression is especially haunting and difficult to self diagnose when you have nothing to be down about. If you have your health, shelter, food and a lifestyle others might be envious of, what right do you have to complain?

You’re flying!

None. Chin up! Things could be worse. You’re flying higher than the rest, why can’t you just sit in your seat and admire the miracle of flight. Why do you have to crinkle your nose? You’re soaring through the air like a bird, in a tin tube, compressed with technology you can’t comprehend. Navigating with ease that evolution can’t even compete against. Complimented with hot beverages and TV screens with the latest movies.

Sometimes acknowledging the miracle of flight isn’t enough, sometimes your curiosity wants to pull the handle on the emergency door to see what could be in the final moments of existence, what would it feel like to soar, helplessly to the inevitable abyss? To finally free the heavy blanket from your muscles and feel the rapid, freezing winds blow through your extremities. To know that in this moment, it’s the end, no more blankets, no more flapping, just a few moments of excitement before the inevitable.

It’s unlikely I will find out any time soon, and I hope that you don’t either. Just cling on to the sticky feathers and don’t flap harder than you need to, glide until you can gracefully land where you really want to be and try to keep your head above sea level when you do realise you melted the cheap adhesive providing the lift.