Existential Angst is a Bitch and I Hate Her.

     I suffer from depression.  Anyone who knows me knows this.  I think it's about as obvious as the color of my eyes or the shape of my nose.
     My depression has seemingly always been with me.  It has been a part of me at least since I was 10 years old; the time since my dad died.  Mourning is a common source or starting point for depression, and I am no different.  I say that as an adult now, but as a child and adolescent I did not think I was common at all.
     I used to believe that I was special and that I was destined for great things.  I know now that this feeling was only a self delusion and was, if not encouraged, certainly not discouraged by my mom.  Of course, she had self delusions of her own.
     I was a much better than average student, achieving academic success without much effort at all.  I had a near photographic memory, an ability to grasp even complex things quickly, and to then use the knowledge for problem solving.
     What I did not have, and still do not, was perseverance.  After high school, or even during it, I would quit or give up if something required effort.  Homework?  My hubris told me that it was unnecessary.  I could do Algebra in my head, so why did I have to do homework or even "show my work" on tests?  The answer was correct, the teacher knew I didn't cheat, so why?  I understood French as easily as I did English.  "Madame" Knowles even told me at one point that I was one of the most gifted students she had ever had.  My ego took that and ran with it, to the point that I rarely if ever did my homework in her class again.
     I don't say these things to brag, although I am still a bit proud of them.  I tell you these things to set a foundation for the rest of this post.
     After not graduating from high school (I failed the 9th grade, then barely passed it, and again with the 10th, hence my four years were spent) I took the GED pre-exam and only missed a handful of questions.  Two days later I sat for the real thing and passed it on the first try, having essentially walked in cold off the street.  I enrolled in the community college where I took the GED exam and learned a lot, but I have no college credit to show for it.  Homework (and attendance) issues again.
     A few years later I wrote my way into a well respected liberal arts college, with the same result.  Two years later I petitioned my way back in, with yet again the same result.
     Obviously academia is not where I excel.
     So from the age of 20 or so I have wandered from job to job, never finding a career, and never really making much of myself.  I'm like the anti-Gatsby.  I have been asked time and again why I have ended up the way I have.  "With so much ability, and so much promise, how did you end up like this?"  I ask myself the same question frequently.  I have no answer.
     I have a wife and three kids who all love me, and I am grateful for them.  I do not feel like much of a provider though, and history bears this out.  I have tried to teach my kids the things that I was never taught as a child, about honesty, and fairness, and compassion.  About being comfortable in your own skin, and in being different.  And in some ways I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  And yet in others I see that I have failed them as a father because I see what I have not done for them.  There is no solace in the fact that I could not have taught them the things that I myself do not know.
     They are brilliant, every single one of them, and yet I see that I have given them all depression as well.  That I see is my greatest failing, and yet is also one of the things that I could not have prevented, because I did not know I was doing it.

     So in seeking some understanding for just how "existential angst" is defined, I turned to that most unreliable of resources Wikipedia.  In reading what was posted there, I learned that part of the definition lies in a "fear of freedom and responsibility", and so, in that phraseology, lies a day to day source for my depression.

From the article:

""Existential angst", sometimes called dread, anxiety, or anguish, is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.^[20]

It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing one's freedom as angst, one also realizes that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no thing in a person (his or her genes, for instance) that acts in her or his stead, and that he or she can "blame" if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action. Angst is often described as a drama an adolescent troubles with during their developmental years. This adolescent trouble or self-loathing is often tied to sexual attractiveness, both males and females often feel this angst and worry that they will not find both a partner or romantic conditional love for who they are. As adolescents face the prospect of adulthood where they must take control of their life the dread of both facing life alone and the fear of freedom and responsibility often lead to depression."

     I suppose, in short, that I have reached a point in my life (mid life crisis?  I don't know.)  where I feel that since I have some years left I should decide what the hell to do with myself.  Living paycheck to paycheck sucks, and yet what else is there?  I have no formal education, no qualifications for anything that I can list on a resume, so what do I do?  It feels like I am standing on a cliff with two planes of possibility.  If I maintain my course as it is, then I fall off into depression and banality of existence and what I see as a wasted life.  If I jump, then perhaps through that freedom and that choice I find some happiness, or at least some lesser form of depression.  Jumping requires acquiescence too, and will require relying on my creativity and whatever lies within myself that can provide not only material sustenance, but also the stuff that I believe life is truly made of.  I have a faith that if the intangibles inside of me can provide, then they can also lead me to those other intangibles that I see in the people I admire and want to be more like.  It is not a case of "I want what they have", so much as "I want to learn what they have learned, to understand some of the deeper mysteries and meanings of existence", so that while there is time left I might yet give my children things that I do not have the tools to build, pieces of character and of strength that I do not have, and also the path to knowledge of finding these things for themselves.  To know that life is always a journey, even when we are standing still.  And to never be afraid to take that next step.