Pandora

Whenever I'm feeling low, which happens reasonably regularly, I begin to imagine that the world is in a shape that would fit a variant of the Pandora myth - that all the ills in the world have been unleashed, and that at the bottom of them was hope.  In the original myth (as I recall it), hope is there to counteract the ills - people get sick, but maybe they'll get better.  People die, but maybe the people left will live on, remembering them, and founding families that give the lie to death overall.

But, when I'm feeling low, it seems that hope is there to give all the ills teeth. Hope is what persuades you to press your teeth to the grindstone of your suffering. Buy a house, have a family, seek out work you imagine you'll enjoy - that way the ills will have more to work on.

Perhaps you can't identify with this (I think its slightly buddhist, although getting all upset about how upsetting everything can be is not).  Let me say to you who somehow are not depressed: an Avatar sequel is almost certain.  How about now?  Avatar, but derivative. Yikes.

Anyway, to get back to feeling low - its almost always a result of being laid low by something, or realising it after a period of poor outcomes.  Finish a report that looks dumb, enter a competition and get nowhere, complete something overdue and get two more assignments in its place.  The solution is to 'take up arms against a sea of troubles' by:

• exercising;
• organising;
• making some decisions about what you care about and how to do something about it;
• go to bed earlier
• ease up on the coffee
• ease up on the lollies, pastries, peanut butter from a jar
• stop ditzing on the internet and build something good!

All of these involve a degree of hoping in a certain mode; hoping of myself and my immediately visible sphere.  And