Instead of a Diary a Billboard

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In my diary I can write today I want to kill myself and no one will ever know but I don’t have a diary and a secret cry for help feels somehow impractical so instead of a diary a billboard and, at any rate, more or less every day I want to kill myself and it’s been like that for as long as I can remember and I’m still alive. When I don’t know what else to do I sit in cafés and write about how miserable I am and I’ve also been doing this for as long as I can remember so clearly the therapeutic effect is minimal. There is so much injustice in the world and here I am sitting in cafés writing the same thoughts over and over again, year after year, using slightly different words. There is so much injustice in the world and I, like many, feel powerless in the face of it all. But I also no longer believe that there’s nothing that can be done. Or it’s more like I’m split in two: one half feels hopeless and powerless and the other half feels there must be something that can be done. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Yet I have so little will. And Gramsci wrote that, thought that, from jail. In jail your will can barely touch the outside world. But I am not in jail. I am simply sitting here in this café writing about how miserable I am.



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