I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms til he has gnawed into our hearts?
-Candide, Volataire

I am really enjoying this book, as it is hilariously cynical and satirical of many forms of ridiculous optimism, but this fragment, although embedded of course in the sarcastically horrible story of an old woman, sort of grabbed me. I wonder if it really is the worst of our instincts, or the best?

I wish sometimes that I could just be stone, just sink to the bottom and settle there to grow a film of dust; the resillience in me is annoying; something in me always bounces. I'm bipolar. I can be depressed for days, weeks, months, but there are always bounces, always moments when I am flung back into the sky.

My parents have been yelling all day at each other and me. My father threw something at my mom and she told him that if she gotten take out of the home for being abusive then we needed to accuse him of being abusive too. It wasn't quite the ideal birthday. I don't want my family to be like this when I'm older.

I am happy, but in a cynical, lost way. I find a horrible emptiness in happiness, a void that depression fills but happiness ignores. But I'm taking the pills again, prescribed and others... I do care about life, still. Even if it is the worst of instincts and the serpent devours me, you are all right, there is hope, there is a way.