Music is a brilliant outlet. I’d love to hear some of your stuff Everyone has their own outlet, but I would suggest that the outlet of complete self-destruction is a no-no.

As you can see from my post, the chap I mention above is completely destroying his own life. Some people self harm, some people have compulsive sex, some people turn to violence, some people go to sleep…

Getting a good stress-vent is crucial in life, in my opinion.

Anyway, mmm, perhaps. As I say, my negative feelings are currently so infrequent that it doesn’t really matter too much. If they were occurring every second weekend then, yeah, I agree blaming it on an ex-girlfriend or similar would develop a complex, which would be harmful.

Way back when, I would use shitty poetry or music as an outlet. Now that might be favourable, but the LAST thing I want to do is go emo. However, I am writing and playing a lot of blues at the moment, which provides a more healthy outlet - and perhaps explains in part why I haven’t had any of those negative feelings we were talking about since about christmas (except in CGP crunch time, where the solution was obvious: write more code. faster; more intense).

Meh.

I’m not totally sure that I’d agree. I think that a lot of us feel unhappy or “depressed� for no particular reason occasionally. Just some chemicals and whatnot faffing about in our heads. When I’ve found myself in that position, no amount of searching inside myself for the core of the problem and dealing with it will help, because the problem is - as I’ve mentioned I suspect - due to chemicals and hormones and the like.

Then maybe you’re not looking hard enough?

I am 100% certain that feelings like this don’t come about for “no reason”. Chemicals are produced and they affect your emotional balance, yes, but these chemicals are also released for a reason. Blaming it on your ex-girlfriend may work for you, and I’m not disputing that at all. Do what works for you, but remember that blaming your ex for it could be potentially harmful in the long run. You will start - or probably have already started - building an emotional complex about it.

As I was telling Tom Hill last night, I feel angry and bitter about a break-up that I had. However, I find that writing about it reveals not only why I feel that way (most people would find it obvious, but there are other reasons that I have to feel so upset about it) but also how I can deal with it in the most positive and constructive way. Writing works for me, as it helps me get to the true source of my emotions.

I would recommend that you find some other vent for your negative feelings, not just from a psychological perspective, but also from a parapsychological perspective, but I won’t go into that.

So, instead, I’ve developed a scapegoat. Gemma. Occasionally I get in a big pretentious self-pitying mess about this, and Alex asked me why, a little while ago. We split up two and a half years ago. Still whining about it is, like, totally Emo. Yuck. So I told him. If I start to feel upset, the easiest thing to do is blame the Gemma thing, get it out of my system in an evening, and feel better when I wake up!

Now, you might argue that this is not being honest with myself, and that I should search within myself for a way to fulfill that problem. But when I’m NOT moping about Gemma (which is most of the time - this only comes up every six months or so, and hasn’t since Christmas), I feel totally fulfilled and happy. So I think it works well.

Good ol’ Steve Pavlina