Selfishness

'Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.'

[The Dauphin, in Shakespeare, Henry V, II.iii]

I went black this morning and now I'm blue. I was feeling gloomy and depressed, but now it's the weekend, and now I'm really just wondering what I want to do with this blog next. In reality I'm probably going to need feedback from other interesting people if I'm going to be able to go on writing. I need controversy and argument. I also need approval and people saying nice things. And I can't really run on porn alone.

Yes, I've been masturbating in the last few days. Not a lot - maybe just four times in two days, and not at all since. But it's still a manifestation of the old vicious circle - depression and self-abuse chasing each round and round in a horrific dance between cause and effect. And here of course, like the classic masturbator (as C S Lewis describes him, for example) I'm turning in on myself, cutting myself off from the outside world.

For me, it has to be said, a good day is a day when I see a boy smile (and, maybe, I get an erection). A bad day is a day when I end up alone and morally constricted, full of fear and guilt and, in a word, "stress". One thing I've noticed about myself recently is the way my jaws often seem to be jammed together, even when I'm sleeping. Perhaps it's trying to maintain "self-control"!

Or is it all just selfishness?