"Yea, I'm alcoholic"
"Why do you drink so much?"
"Because . . . if I didn't, I wouldn't be alcoholic". Duh.

August-September-October-November, it's been three months since I cut back on drinking. It's no accomplishment. It doesn't feel like anything. And with the great revelation that a lot of the physical gripes I'd been griping about went away, there's a huge incentive to not go back to constant drinking.

It hasn't been hard. There have been the expected markers of alcoholism – pangs and temptation – but minimal restraint was necessary to get past those (restraint was necessary nonetheless). Also I haven't totally quit and I still probably drink enough to be considered alcoholic. Alcoholism, I shouldn't wonder, is not just the amount but the habit and regularity.

Ooh! That was quotable! Quote me, baby. Booyah.

Same as I mentioned before, I allow drinking before periods when I'm naturally not going to drink, i.e. before going to sleep and going out. But I also ration one beer outside of those times, meaning one in the morning and one in the evening is OK. I don't consider one beer a drink. It's a refreshing enjoyment, a quick buzz. More than one beer becomes drinking and I haven't done that at all.

To quantify, before I was drinking on average more than six bottles a week, but not quite a bottle a day. Now I go through a bottle about every three days; a schedule I've been on before.

Cutting back on drinking has also contributed to the cognitive dissonance since I'm clear and sober to contemplate the contradiction and futility of my continued existence. There are more spans going from moment to moment where I'm clear to question why I'm still here.

Cutting back on drinking has also put a full stop on insomnia, more or less. Same as I mentioned before, sleep isn't always perfect, but is OK and adequate. If I've been able to identify a bad night as insomnia these past three months, it's been a one-off.

Sleep, who can deny?, is a comfort. Waking rested after a good slumber is a feeling of all that's good about living and existing. For me it's cognitive dissonance. The feeling is quickly ambushed that it is temporary and I can't keep going on like this. The theoretical suicide is there first thing to contemplate during morning sitting.

There isn't anyone in my life, but if there were, this is where they start suggesting I go back to drinking constantly. Sorry, I'm done with feeling like shit all the time.

I finished "reading" Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide (1999) by Kay Redfield Jamison that I quoted earlier. "Reading" because I skimmed large portions of it, not because it was difficult subject matter but because . . . it got boring.

I liked the stories. I'm sorry, that's what I could relate to. All the biology, chemicals, statistics and other stuff I'm too lazy to qualify I could do without. There's a natural type of person who would be interested in this type of book. The author is one of them (an insider). I used to be, I shouldn't wonder. People who could relate.

It's likely a valuable reference read for those interested or curious about the pathology. The book limits its scope to the clinical and normative, but that's nothing surprising. It admits to an age bias, so a narrow focus is already intended. I didn't find a whole lot of insight, but I suppose it's difficult to be insightful about suicide. I don't mean this as criticism, the book does what it does well and handles the topic with compassion and empathy, albeit with added emotion at times.

I felt myself strangely detached while reading it. Maybe I've steeped in the topic for so long that it's not something necessarily emotional or even personal. I'm jaded. Or not even really suicidal, a poseur.

It's not a mental health issue for me as far as I'm concerned. Maybe there may have been a connection long ago, but it's a non-issue now. So reading about other people, I sympathize that they were suffering, but it's not necessarily something I share.

I suppose I found it inspirational, which of course was not its intention. It's not you, book, it's me. People who have been successful; also pointing out that I've been a failure and I don't like being a failure. I've failed at a lot of things, but things I ultimately didn't care about. This is something closer to home. And if I fail at suicide, that just means I live for a little while longer and die anyway. Maybe under more desperate or pathetic circumstances.

I'm winding up for another imminent attempt. Yet again. And like before it's totally hypothetical at this point and doesn't mean anything. I feel a need for it within the next half year or so and I'm going to focus and push for it, cognitive dissonance, aspiration, but admit it's not likely.

It's like telling a psychiatrist I'm planning to rob a bank. Which bank? I dunno, the one down the street? When? I dunno, within the next year. How? I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Any accomplices? No. What would you do with the money? Hm, I haven't thought of that. Continue to pay rent and food? It's hardly cause for a psychiatrist to be alarmed.

I had to buy a new set of earbuds last week.

Some time into my years in Taiwan I started buying quality earbuds. Until then, I was satisfied with the crappy earbuds that came with iPods. When they melted and fell apart in Taiwan's heat and humidity, I never spent much more than US$30 (NT$1,000) on replacements, usually Philips.

I grew up in a time when you bought something, you expected it to last. It wasn't a disposable culture like it is now, where product obsolescence is planned. I was outraged that iPods came with earbuds that were of such poor quality that they couldn't last. Did they have no pride in their product? Now I have a pile of Apple earbuds that I've never touched. It's almost an insult that they still include them.

Then one day I impulsively splurged on a set of UE (Ultimate Ears) earbuds because what the fuck. They were probably in the $60 range and had noise blocking ear pieces. They lasted probably over a year until they, too, succame to Taiwan's weather.

By then, I was sold on the sound quality of higher priced earbuds and on noise blocking, in-ear earbuds. Also at some point during a visit to the States, my brother had offered me a set of $100 Sennheisers that he said sounded terrible, but it turned out he just hadn't used them enough to burn them in. I used them for several hours and gave them back when they sounded fine. But that incident probably set my price range even higher.

For the past few years, I've gone through three sets of Monster iSport-line earbuds which were in the over-$150 range in Taiwan. Same company that makes Monster sound system cable. In high school and college, Monster cable was the gold standard for stereo systems, but at the time prohibitively expensive. What I'm saying is that their reputation preceded.

The sound quality was great, no complaints there. Construction, mostly the quality of material used, not so impressive, especially for a product at that price and advertised for sports usage. I put up with a lot for a long time for that sound quality. Actually I only bought the third set of Monsters because they were on sale for about $100 and I considered that a deal even though I had low confidence in the construction.

Eventually all three failed, finally due to right channel defects. I wouldn't buy Monster earbuds again. Maybe the right channel failures shouldn't be considered uncommon considering how hard I used them, but it's time to try something new.

I bought a set of Audio-Technica earbuds at under $90 ($60 on Amazon). So far I'm not blown away. They're muddy in the lower-mids and bass ranges. Clarity and separation are mediocre at best. One reason I bought them was to test the theory that price is an indicator of quality. This doesn't challenge the supposition.

If they continue to not impress or satisfy, I can go with even cheaper ($60 range) or more expensive ($120) Sennheisers available in Taiwan. If I'm such a stickler for quality, I should go with the pricier ones.

I also have a set of Bose noise-cancelling earbuds which I bought when I was more confident about my finances, needless to say. I only use those on rainy days when I don't go out on bike. I baby them as you would a $250 product.

They sound great, so I also use them as reference in assessing earbud quality, mindful of my age and musician past that my ears aren't as sharp as they once may have been. They only sound good with the noise-cancelling on, though. If the battery dies and switches to passive mode, they don't sound all that great.

addendum: I gave up on the $90 Audio-Technica earbuds (ATH-CKS770). The weird thing about them was that some files sounded passable; nothing special, they didn't draw attention that the sound was just par. But then other files would sound muddy. I can't make any sense of it.

So I went and bought the expensive Sennheiser Momentum earbuds which unfortunately were more expensive than I remembered and were actually $160. The miscalculation gave me pause because I'm always hesitant about big purchases and it's habit to take any excuse to not buy something unless I'm really sure.

I decided I was really sure. I hated files playing and being disappointed how randomly muddy they sounded. I know I don't have money to throw around, but it's all relative, isn't it? How much have I not spent in alcohol over the past three months? I don't know, but probably easily enough to cover the full price of the earbuds. And I didn't stop drinking to save money.

Anyway, the Sennheisers are amazing. No burning in needed. They were immediately and clearly superior to the Audio-Technicas. Clear and tight bass, sparkling highs, incredible clarity and reproduction. No random files sounding muddy.

So no regrets buying the Sennheisers. A little regret having bought the Audio-Technicas, but not a total loss since I can use them with my Korg Pandora PX5D for guitar and bass. For some reason only stereo connector plugs work with the quarter-inch to eighth-inch adapter. If it has the Apple control ring on the plug, it doesn't work. I already tried them with the PX5D and they sound fine.

I think it's fair to say that if I commit suicide, it would have been decades in the planning. Has there ever been anyone who prepared so well for a suicide in terms of limiting impact on others? Probably, but you've never heard of them nor has anyone written about them. Why? Because they limited their impact so that there was no one to write anything nor anything to write anyway.

If I commit suicide or simply disappear, which would be preferable, there isn't anything anyone could say about me that would be valid or current. There would just be the fact. They would be left with just the fact and nothing else to say beyond it.

Mind you, it's very intentional that I'm writing "if I commit suicide". I've been contemplating and aspiring toward it for years to the point of meaninglessness, which I suppose also adds to the lack of impact if I actually succeed. I'm all talk and the only meaning to this blog would only come from actually doing it. If I'm still talking, that's all it is.

I deserve to die. After all, I've put so much effort into dismantling my life so that there's no social value to my existence and withdrawing from everyone who was in it so that no one would be significantly affected by my dying, that I should be rewarded for it in some way, don'tcha think?

Years and years of continued existence, frittering pathetically away in base enjoyments of reading, watching TV and videos and listening to music and maintaining a marginal, nominal mindfulness practice is hardly any reward. I deserve better than that.

It's so sad, embarrassing and pathetic reading what I've written and re-written over and over repeatedly and redundantly about suicide and killing myself and realizing I'm still here years and years later.

Those patients with schizophrenia who are more intelligent and better educated, for example, who perform better on measures of abstract reasoning, and who demonstrate greater insight into the nature of their illness, are more likely to kill themselves. (p. 84, Night Falls Fast, Jamison).

The experts agree that I'm no great intellect or abstract thinker. Thanks. Of course, I'm also not schizophrenic. But I haven't been diagnosed otherwise, either! Wait, what am I saying? That I still might be schizophrenic which would just prove what a failure I am because I haven't committed suicide?

So physical activity is OUT because it would likely contribute to a false sense of accomplishment; no cycling or attempting to run. Until I do.

Fake reading Chinese is OK because it emphasizes the futility in learning the language in my case. I love the complexity in this pathology. I don't think I'm unable to learn the language in some fundamental failure of being. The key to learning a language is interaction and usage. You have to communicate with other people. That's what I'm unwilling to do and presumably the basic reason for my failure. 

Forcing myself to pretend to read a newspaper with Chinese phonetics just exposes me to a diversified vocabulary and emphasizes how much I don't know. It's not vocabulary I would necessarily need in daily conversation, or if it was I'd learn it in daily conversation. It keeps me mystified by a seeming impossibility of learning a new language because there's always so much more to learn, when basically the problem is that I've pretty much isolated myself from interacting with people.

Pretending to play bass or guitar is also OK for pretty much the same reason. I've given up any identity thinking I was a musician. I still have some basic technical facility on fretted instruments, so I can play along to songs and work out chord progressions and appreciate what went into the songwriting. 

I also have the Jamey Aeborsold jazz play-along series of workbooks and music files. These are apparently THE essential studies for anyone interested in playing jazz. Despite that not including me, I still wondered why I'd never even heard of the series, so I asked my sister-in-law's sister's husband, Tom Kennedy, an A-list professional bass player (go ahead, look him up), and he confirmed it. Everyone goes through Jamey Aeborsold. It's K-12 for aspiring jazz musicians.

It's an endless source of music learning and backing tracks to play along with for practical application. For me, it emphasizes that after however many years I thought of myself as a musician, I really know bupkis about music. Even the meager facility I have on fretted instruments, my fingers always do the same one kind of pattern and movements over and over, and even that I don't know what I'm doing. I assume it's some basic blues scale.

So in terms of wasting my life away on the conveyor belt of distractions to get from day to day, pulling out my guitar and bass is OK.

It's about getting me to a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance about my existence. I shouldn't be here, but I am only because I can be with minimal effort. I'm here because I'm lazy; too lazy to end my life even though the very framework I've built for it has been to end it.

The framework and foundation of my life, through attitude, theory and implementation, has all been set-up for ending my life. All the activities and things I've done and pursued during my life were just fluff and filler, false identity. I don't regret any of it, a lot of it was probably a blast as it happened.

But the fun should be over and I can't let myself be fooled by it now. I don't know what I will do, the pattern my history shows doesn't suggest anything dramatic *yawn*. The best I'll expect at the time being is continue to work on relatively sober development of perpetual cognitive dissonance and hope for the obvious and only proper outcome.