I read. Reading is the only constant in my life. No matter what.

It's amazing to see that despite the amount of reading I do to become smart, I'm dumb as a brick. Maybe I should do some reading about that..

I look in retrospect at all the hard times I have been through, recall the state I was in and remember that at that time I invariably said to myself that in a few days/weeks/months all of that will fade away. I have been right so far. Life goes on and whenever I'm in a tough situation, I know that it will either get worse and I should enjoy it before it does, or it will get better. It also helps to keep in mind the following: When all of this is over, would I have reacted like the ideal I'm striving to be would, or in a way beneath that ideal? I also live while a 100% conscious at all times that I could die right now. That's why death doesn't shock me. That's why I have always wondered how people are somehow "reminded" it exists only when someone dies.

That's also why when I party, I do so like I'm both ephemeral and eternal. And why I hug the loved ones. That's why I look at the sea like it's the first time, every time. It's why I'm happy to wake up; because I'm not dead yet and when you die there probably aren't good books and showers. Though it's also why I'm sad, because I could die without yet having achieved anything of importance having wasted so much organic matter and emotional investment from others, and no contribution in the slightest to entropy to even deserve to die. But then again, all the more reason to live another day and try to do just that.

Some people also go for entertainment. Here's a quote from Blaise Pascal's "Pensées" (it's an amazing read. A brilliant mind.) where he addresses entertainment:

>Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few months ago, or who this morning was in such trouble through being distressed by lawsuits and quarrels, now no longer thinks of them? Do not wonder; he is quite taken up in looking out for the boar which his dogs have been hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He requires nothing more. However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; and however happy a man may be, he will soon be discontented and wretched, if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which prevents weariness from overcoming him. Without amusement there is no joy; with amusement there is no sadness. And this also constitutes the happiness of persons in high position, that they have a number of people to amuse them, and have the power to keep themselves in this state.

>Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from thinking of themselves.

PS: When I was 17, I became aware of what Gauss did when he was my age. I've been "depressed" and doing that ever since. Now cheer up, you could be me!