When another day goes by and I haven't done what I intended to, do I think it was a failure. Perhaps. It's a little like ground hog day. Each night I think about what I need to or want to do the next day and then sometimes I get up the following day and pretend in my head that I'm going to follow the plan concocted in my head the night before and then simply proceed to follow a different plan. It's like my body is acting out one thing but inside my head I'm mentally doing what I'd planned the night before. Like I'm pretending I'm doing it, physically aware that I'm not doing it but mentally I'm completly denying what's really happening. I'd like to think that what I've planned for tomorrow might actually happen. I wonder how I'll feel if I actually do what I pretend I'm going to.

I would like to think that it shouldn't take visuals to make one feel better, or even good. But then I must take into consideration Alain DeBottons 'The Architecture of Happiness'. I believe what he says about dull surroundings make people feel dull and depressed. It's no surprise that people who live in horrible housing estates, full of concrete and low brown brick buildings are bored and angry at the rest of the world. I know I would be if I had to live like that.  Most people when they think of green lush surroundings or stunning old architecture feel good. It's depressing when things are bland and boring. So I wonder then if I dressed in bland boring clothes all the time if I'd then feel dull and depressed all the time.  People comment on how much black I wear. I like black. It's dark and that's how it makes me feel. But that's not always bad, just different and sometimes I need it to get myself into a particular head space and state of mind to work on specific paintings, drawings and other art works. However, maybe, after today (a day spent with someone convincing me of the virtues of structure and colour), I should start to wear some more colour and see if I don't turn into a stepford wife.

I wish I could not care about how hard it would be to not be like this. Familiarity, even when the situation is not 'good' brings some comfort. If I keep going in this direction, I'll end up in a place where I thought I wanted to be.  I fear that once I get there I'll suddenly realise I don't want to be there. It will feel like wasted effort and energy on something that I put my faith in, and then it failed me. It's kind of like someone giving you  directions that you believe to be correct and then once you arrive at your destination you realise you're in the wrong place.  The longer you stay at your destination before figuring out you're in the wrong place the harder it will be to get back to where you were.  The longer the journey is the more fearful I am.

Yesterday brought about another episode of such inense feeling makes if feel like the world around me has ceased.  When I'm in that moment I'm unsure whether the world has actually fallen away from me or if I have been carried to an entirely different place where I'm totally protected. Only people in the know can see inside my head and read the thoughts that are spinning around in there. It's like the rest of the world doesn't even realise I'm there, they can't even see me.  I wonder if this is what it feel like to be no longer alive.  I'm walking around with me mind swirling and my body is almost floating and I'm sure that no one can see me.  If they did see me they would surely realise I'm mad. But when I have these moments that are intense, and I'm alone, I feel completely connected to myself and to the people in my head.

I'm watching the sun stream across a range of mountains that descend into tiny hills in the foreground. I feel like I be could or actually am in another world, far away from what is a mundane life. No matter how fast you go or how much closer you think you're getting the mountains can still seem a world away. If I was sitting or lying on one of those distant hills it could possibly feel like I'm in a completely different world, away from the mundaness and the spiralling madness. I would be loved, secure and safe with sun streaming through clouds and warming my body, making it tingle. I would feel like someone could lie with me, perhaps someone no longer alive or someone who has taken their place and we'd mould together, like soul mates, and be totally protected from a world we (or maybe it's just me) no longer want to take part in.

I cannot even attempt to describe how I might feel should everything in my life stop, or worse go away. Would I attempt to be a new person or would I yearn for things to be back the way they were. I don't know whether my heart would stop, plummet or soar. I have a plan, a visualisation of how things might go but I've know idea if it could possibly happen. Problem is, there are too many mind states I want to reach, mine and others. If you were given the opportunity to go back, and have no idea of what all the events were like, and never know any different, then I wonder how many people would do that. I think there is a part in all of us that yearns to go back. If just we could pick and choose particular events. I don't know if I could say for certainty that I wouldn't. If I could choose just to eliminate the lows, then it's an easy choice. But if I had to forget all the highs, even the out of control ones, then I simply could not do it. I would never ever give those incredible intense amazing feelings up for anything. Even if it meant my life had to stop.

To follow a path that you think feels amazing only to be momentarily jolted by a pang of doubt and intense fear makes you begin to wonder how much trust you can put in yourself.

I'm not sure where I begin right now. Thinking about something that seems so enticing yet many people would view it as wrong, or even worse, totally sickening. It's really just a change in attitude, expanding one's mind to contemplate something different, that doesn't hurt anyone, well possibly oneself but is that so wrong if it's desired and makes you feel amazing.

A wise friend said all of our experiences are totally neutral until we place a negative or positive emotion onto that experience.  I say the same. It's a lot to 'un' learn.