i like me better depressed

i like monster train 2. i like slay the spire. i like ark nova. i like spirit island. i like typography and linguistics. i like playing super popular songs on the guitar. i like the first quesiton from the national stage of last year’s philippine math olympiad. i like the mit class elements of software construction. i like typescript. i like the color orange. i like going to square dance conventions. i like new york city. i like spot, the dessert bar in east village. i like chihayafuru.

i like not needing things. i like not having to think about food and drink. i like soylent. i like chocolate, probably too much. i don’t like taking the effort to shower. i don’t want to have to brush my teeth. i like having money, and i like not having to think too hard about how to spend it. i want to live somewhere without having to worry about whether i’m allowed to live there. i don’t like being on an airplane for more than eight hours. i like my bed and my room and the new shirts i’ve bought.

i don’t like failing. i don’t want to have ambitions. i don’t want to disappoint people. i don’t like being responsible for things. i like having a to-do list. i don’t like looking at it. i like doing puzzlehunts. i don’t like hard puzzles. i like seeing a puzzlehunt come together. i don’t like having to set deadlines for when things should happen. i don’t like missing those deadlines.

i like being with someone i love. i don’t want to risk loving someone in a different way than they love me. i want to be with people i love. i don’t want to be disappointed. i don’t like having commitments. i like holding hands with certain people. i like hugging certain people. i like talking with certain people, about certain things. i don’t want to like these things too much. i don’t want to love someone i can’t replace. i don’t like the feeling of missing people. i don’t like not seeing certain people for weeks on end. i don’t want to admit to someone that i miss them. i don’t want to be in love.

i like writing, maybe. i like having a blog. i like that my blog gets posts frequently. i don’t like the feeling of not blogging for too long. i don’t want to write, sometimes. i want to want to write, in those times. i don’t want to want to want to write, most of the time. i like how these sentences mean different things and how they can all be true. i don’t like the fact that these sentences are, in fact, all true.

i don’t want to want things, in general. i don’t like the feeling of not having what you want.

i like the fact that i ran away from home. i like how i lived alone. i don’t want that to be the only cool thing about myself. i like spreadsheets. i don’t like spreadsheets about money. i want to spend more time playing video games. i like leading meetings and taking notes. i don’t like having to give an opinion when i don’t have a strong opinion. i like my job, i guess. i like my job more than i did my last one. i don’t want to work for fifty hours a week. i want to get more of my friends to move to new york. i like the weeks when i spend every night getting dinner with someone. i don’t like how i sometimes feel like i don’t want to do that.

i like when people laugh at my jokes. i don’t want to have dreams about my parents. i want people at work to think i’m cool. i don’t want people at work to depend on me too much. i like the costco white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. i like how, on most weeknights, i can usually find a voice chat happening in one of my discord servers. i don’t like how ai could grow to obviate my job. i want to get better at italic, especially writing at a consistent slope, and making flamboyant swash capitals.

i don’t like how i twitch when i learn that a friend started dating someone. i want to be in love. i don’t want to be in love. i don’t like how i don’t want to be in love. i want people to love me. i don’t want people to love me. i don’t like how i don’t want people to love me. i want the people who love me to be people i love in the same way. i don’t like it when the people who love me are people whom i don’t love the same way. i don’t like how i don’t like that.

i like looking at my face, on most days. i want to feel like that about the rest of my body. i like how some of my coworkers have changed their slack statuses to have rainbows. i like that people read what i write and listen to what i say. i don’t like how that doesn’t make me feel any better. i don’t like being on the verge of having enough motivation to do something productive. i want the activation energy for working on my personal projects to get much, much lower.

i want god to take away my desire to work on stuff, if she isn’t going to give me the willpower to work on them. i want god to take away my guilt for not working on stuff, if she isn’t going to take away my desire to work on stuff. i want god to make me sleep and not wake up, if she isn’t going to take away my guilt for not doing stuff.

i like me better depressed.