Some days I take it all too personally. Rejection of my writing, my words, my voice – it hurts. It feels like a personal rejection. I say things. A tenth seems understood. Grasped. I write things, more digital information in a digital swamp.

Some days I feel like I’m battling alone against bureaucracy, mediocrity, conformity. But I also see myself as those things – bureaucratic, mediocre, conforming. It strikes me that I’m battling myself as well as the world, which isn’t a comfort to realize.

A load crashes down. What am I doing it, and why am I doing it? Why don’t I just stop and live some other life? What is it in my nature that forces me into this hole where I don’t fit?

Some days I feel pitted against the world. The cats desire attention, which is good, isn’t it? But it stops me from advancing my plans – exercising, cleaning, writing. And there is another lost cat out there, crying for food but otherwise healthy, pretty, young and glossy, and well fed. But I take care of it, sneaking it food, telling it to go home, looking for posters advertising someone is searching for it. An hour later, it’s gone.

Even my dreams reflect all this. One out of two, maybe three, days, I experience a mega dream. The mega dream is your summer blockbuster movie, lots of hype. You don’t want to see it but you can’t escape it. Advertising and branding efforts push it on you through your drinks, television, internet, print media, in interviews, commercials, and ads. It cannot be escaped.

That’s a mega dream, too. It can’t be escaped. I awaken and it’s there, crowding out more coherent thinking, vivid, loud and real.

Last night’s mega dream came down to fighting evil. It started at a writing conference, because that’s where evil lurks, right?

Of course not. The writing conference was enormous. It was wrapping up. Hundreds of earnest writers in folding chairs sitting in a semi-darkened hotel cavern, trying to soak up the juice, the energy, the mystique, of one who made it and created a writing career. Got published. Made money. Won awards and recognition. Talks about their writing, their processes, the stories that they’ve published.

And I, in the dream, was in the back row. That’s me in the corner, out of the spotlight, hugging notebooks, a tote bag, and a computer, collecting my pens and writing exercise and handouts. That’s me, listening and frowning, not agreeing, hearing the same thing I’ve heard before, understanding it, yet still failing.

A guest speaker was replacing the guest speaker, and as it was the last day, we were going to socialize, because, as writers, we socialize too little. So let’s all collect our things and go off to the movie theater. We’ll need to brave the night air but it’s just around the corner.

Yes, I know where it is, I’ve been there.  Off I go, alone, as others break up into knots, groups and trios, chattering away in friendly, excited manner, while I, dour as Holden, wander off alone, to first stop and pee. In there is a man in a trenchcoat. Twentyish, of average build, clean shaven with neat short dark hair, about five feet ten, white face, dark eyes, tired looking, endlessly talking. No one I know. He’s following a women. Pestering her. Annoying her. Scaring her.

I tell him to leave her alone. He mocks me but continues after her. So, I push him. He falls off into a pit. He falls silent. We’re done, I think. The woman thanks me. Leaves.

But he arises again. Now, he’s following me. Pestering me. Annoying me. Angering me. So I push him off again, and again, move violently each time. Each time, he arises again. His demeanor doesn’t change. He knows he’s evil. My efforts amuse him. He knows he can’t die. He knows that I’m realizing it. He knows it’s getting to me.

I know it. I run from him. I realize more, like him, very similar, in trench coats, but always white, always male, sometimes taller and skinnier, are emerging, going after others. So I begin warning them. I realize the evil plans to escalate and that we can’t fight it but must escape. So I try warning the others but I won’t be heard. The evil begins pestering others. Annoying them. Scaring them. Panicked noises arise. I try to fight the evil. I explain to the others that they must stay calm. If they can’t escape, they must fight.

But I’m not heard. I remain alone, fighting evil, trying to help others escape, until, at least, the evil is in a restroom stall, and I’m pissing on him from across the room in a strange climax that we both recognize as absurd. I’m just pissing energy away.

Inside my brain of brains, I know others feel the same. I believe this is the stereotype of the lives of quiet desperation and fading dreams, that this blog, and this post, is one of many writing about modern angst, desperation, and frustration. They’re also searching for a way to cope, to explain, to call for help, reinforcements and reassurances.

My coping mechanism is my writing. I’ve always written for myself, but I always believed, as every writer does, that someday, someone will read what I wrote. Yet I’ve reached a moment when I stand alone and tell myself, that might not be true. Maybe you should stop writing, stop pissing away your energy. Quit fighting evil, bureaucracy, mediocrity and conforming. Eat the fast food and drink the flavored sugar waters and be as happy as the vape heads on tv and in movies, and not give a shit about dying bees, animal abuse, the murders, police brutality, privacy, the state’s power, workers’ rights, minority rights, equality, freedom, greed, global warming, unending war, and of course, zombies. Maybe I am the zombie, acting from some part of my reptilian brain that I don’t understand and can’t control.

Yeah, I take it all too personally.

Of course, I recognize that it’s my dark side arising again, I’m sliding from somewhere on my spectrum, slipping down toward the deep end. While I have an active darkside, it does also get sunny. And writing it all out, explaining it all to the unseen universe, relieves some of my imagined burden. With a deep breath released in a long sigh, I tell myself, “Go on. Get dressed. Clean up. Check the cats and brush your teeth. Time to write like crazy.

“One more time.”