Funny Ain't It?

Ah well, how to explain it? I can't really. I fell into a very black, I mean, blackest of black moods yesterday. I wonder if it was the barometric pressure, or genetics (I come from a long line of dead people and well, they descended from some hairy creatures who liked to hang in trees oh those many years ago), or some chemical imbalance, or well, maybe it's because Sister Mary Aquanata rapped my knuckles in third grade (a left-hander don't ya know?), or maybe because my dog died when I was in high school, or maybe it was all those books on existentialism I read in college or, well, maybe it's the music I listen to now, including the Doors, Led Zeppelin and Mazzy Star, and well, maybe there are demons dancing in my head, and maybe every once in a while they stomp around just to let me know they are there?

Beats me. My mood was black. Like Long John Silver's eye-patch black. Like Witches' Brew coffee black. Like really bleak, dark, black. I started out fine, had a nice morning, things were actually looking up and then, well, some kind of cloud enveloped me. I wandered about the city in wretched state of disgust; with the world, humanity, myself. Like I said, bleak black.

So, I went with it. I didn't flee, or drown myself with alchohol, or seek out counselling or medication. I sat in the depths of the black. I didn't murder anyone, I didn't take a razor to myself. I sat and read the paper. I scoffed and laughed derisively at the stupidity of my fellow man. I laughed at myself too. So, I hit bottom, and stayed there. Then, finally, I went to sleep. A long, fitful, dream-filled sleep. And today, well, the cloud has lifted. I'm feeling bright and chipper, with just a little tiny hangover of black on the outer edges of my mind.

I can't explain it. And well, maybe I don't need to. The black cloud came over me, and then it left. So, well, if I can't explain myself to myself, how am I gonna explain anything else to anyone else either? Funny ain't it?

UPDATE: After I wrote the words above, I opened Steve Pinker's "The Blank Slate," and read the following: "Ambrose Pierce's The Devil's Dictionary contains the following entry - Mind (n.) A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. It's chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain it's own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with."

Kind of spooky innit?