Maybe you aren't used to having so many choices? I hope whatever comes along, you feel happy.

Good luck!

Well, sure; I tend to believe we'll all be "fine", in some sense, in the long run.

What's probably really happening is anxiety, perfectionism, an awareness of my shortening lifespan, and ... possibly some obstinacy (I do have some.)

As Dar says, "Find a new dream." :-) (That was very a propos, LaLa.)

I saw this today and it reminded me of you, as you relatively often advise to people to be themselves :

How are you, Mark?

Gotta love Oscar Wilde on the subject of uniqueness ...

I was tempted to say that at least I'm not as horny as the lady in the photo, but something stopped me (or didn't.) I think that's an impala, but it would have been more appropriate, though less attractive, if it had been a wildebeest ...

Oops; I didn't get any "pun" (?) on the picture (or was it just you who "interpreted" the horns, not the author of the picture?). I posted it because of the quote; although I know writing it itself would have been probably more "appropriate", I didn't see a reason not to post it like this.

(I hope your post wasn't really an answer to my question about how you are doing, rather an "evasion" of it :-P ... So... I take it as a partial answer: you could post(/write) and your sense of humor was present; that's all positive ;-).)

Well, 'finding' tells me to "pun responsibly", but it's more likely to be "compulsively".

So, being responsible: "horny" is American slang for being ... sexually ready? I doubt that that was included in the intention of the picture-maker, though. It had no deeper meaning for me other than the lady in the picture has horns. There was certainly nothing wrong with you posting the picture; it's a great picture for the quotation, and a great quotation.

My pun wasn't really an answer, either, nor a deliberate (I hope) evasion, though I guess I do use humor to lighten things up, at times. Anyway, my current state is somewhat in the middle: I'm not moving a lot more, but I'm not as painfully stuck.

What that means is that although I'm not moving on the major issues (basically, what to do for a living), I am doing things that I feel are useful. I have put myself on a bit more strict schedule, for one thing, which at least helps me feel more in control. For now I'm doing things like clean house and run errands, which are useful. I hope to move up to regular exercise and nature walks, and then, some sort of real job search. I think I threw myself out of my habit pattern, and I have to decide on a new one from scratch, if that makes any sense.

(Now I see my mistake in my previous post: Instead of "I didn't get", there should have been "I hadn't gotten" (?). Because (as the " " was supposed to illustrate) I knew (for a long time) the slang meaning of the word (I just didn't know it's American, I thought it was "general"). It just didn't occur to me when looking at the picture (probably also because I didn't know the same word is used also in the context of animal horns ). But that's not important...)

What you describe ("the useful things" and the plans) sounds good and promising :-). I'm glad to hear/read that; thanks for sharing! Good luck (again)! :-)

This reminded me of you a bit today as you seem to like puns:

"Seem to", she says. :-P

I use the name "PunGent" online occasionally. I hope that clears up whether I like puns.

Well; you might like "making/inventing" puns yourself (which I know you do) but not necessarily enjoy reading those of others... But yes; I've already remembered that you even have a "collection" of funny news headlines which have two meanings - and those are very close to "puns", though unintended ones.

Anyway, now I have again something that reminded me of you, for a very different reason, but I'll better post it, this time, without comments ;-).

http://apt.rcpsych.o...t/15/3/199.full

A tiny quotation to show at least some context:

The drive system and the threat protection system can be linked in complex ways, especially when we are driven to avoid negative events, which shows up in thoughts of ‘shoulds’, ‘oughts’ and ‘musts’.

And... I've almost forgotten: You once mentioned that you'd be interested in hearing my accent in English (in the context that you like hearing different foreign accents, ...) and so it occurred to me that I may "show" you one accent which... well, fortunately is very different from mine ;-D, but which is a very extreme form of the type of accent (I prefer the word pronunciation, BTW, mainly in this case, but...) people with the same or similar (to mine) mother tongue have if they don't master English pronunciation well (in other words: this is how we would pronounce English if we didn't try at all and just read it in a way that reflects our "pre-dispositions due to our native language" - but, please, don't assume that our languages sound so terrible ;-P! The "reflection"/similarity isn't in the awfulness ;-D ...). The person I'd like to use as "the example", is a Slovenian philosopher (Slovenian (as well as Russian, Polish, ...) language is to some extent similar to our - we can understand quite a lot (40-60 %??? - depends much on the text) when reading it). There are many videos of his lectures, films, ... on YT, so it's not easy to chose an example, but... perhaps this one could be at least (/also) a bit funny, so I'll try it:

Well; it actually isn't as apposite as I'd like; for instance, he seems not to pronounce H well - but we do (unlike the French, for instance)... But perhaps the differences I can hear there aren't so important. Anyway; you can take it just like one of many diverse examples of foreign accents, w/o any connection to me or my language!

(I searched for some YT videos with him because I'm now reading his book about violence and also this text on-line: http://www.lacan.com/zizhowto.html, and recently I've also seen his film Pervert's guide to ideology...)