52 thoughts on “doubled up inside”

1. This was a very lovely little snippet of your day. Thank you for sharing it.

2. That first line is really intriguing. I hope to see the story one day.

3. If it is any help, I have written a zombie apocalypse survival guide. I won’t plug it here (I have some manners) but if you would like a copy, please let me know.

4. From my person journal today.

   “Aaron Sorkin made me believe that a greater fool could make the world a better place.

   Today, looking at the leaders of Canada, America and Britain all putting their own politics and wellbeing ahead of their country’s has made me doubt it for the first time in 20 years. Right wing, left wing, centrist…it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

   1. Uh…Israel? I think you forgot a country there. What a $&%-show we are spectators for.

5. I like the part of expecting the best out of people. And it’s true, we get burned all the time. But I’ve determined in myself that I want to be the best person I can be despite the reaction I might get from others. So, if I feel an urge to interact with a stranger (commenting on a shirt or asking if they’re playing Pokemon Go), even though they might not appreciate it or think I’m weird for making a comment, I’m going go for it, even if I get burned when I’m trying to be the best person I can be. Because we can’t expect other people to be putting forth their best if we’re not willing to do it ourselves.

   As for your story idea, I’ve never been hung over but I’ve read the Apocrypha; that certain opens up a lot of doors for an interesting story. 🙂

6. I see you Wil Wheaton. I feel you. Lately I’ve been feeling like at the age of 55 I’m just waiting to die. There’s a song called that by Mickey Avalon. I hate my job, I hate my apartment, I hate my life, I hate the world right now and how sick it all is. I’m alone. Apparently not loveable in the romantic sense. But given that I seem to hate everything I can see that. I can’t afford good therapy. So I take crappy therapy to just hold me together. What is my purpose. Why am I here?

   1. I see you. I have no answers for you, but here, you are not entirely alone.

7. It’s been 8 months for me. Somedays I come out of the fog better than others. Somedays 100% is 100% others, 100% looks like 8%. But I’m out there giving it what I can, because like you said every day is a gift.

8. I loved this more than makes sense. Thank you for sharing these little parts of you.

9. The best thoughts come from the ordinary boredom that appear in the random minutes between Point A and Point B.

   1. So true and so wonderfully said…

10. Love your wanderings man and so honest. Keep on rocking!!!

11. Thanks Wil,sharing is caring.

12. Thanks, Wil!

13. I love you Wil. You are in my prayers.

14. Love. Thanks for taking us along on this walk.

15. Getting well is work. Hang in there. There is a great rhythm to this: the shift between the external and internal, the positive feeling of warmth and the less positive feelings you are struggling with. Thanks for sharing it.

16. Love the first line! I’m sorry its been difficult lately. A friend of mine posted a video on fb about what her depression is like. I wish I knew how to get it to you because I think that her way of describing it gives us a shorthand way to inform others of the state of the pain…Courage, Wil. Thank you so very much for being real….

17. Hang in there, Wil. You are a survivor and whether it’s depression or a zombie attack, you have the stuff to make it. I just wish I liked zombie stuff-I get no pleasure from it because it’s so hopeless. That’s why I have always liked all the forms of Star Trek-because it gives us hope that we’ll get through the dictator in chief and his minions to a better place. It will get better, Wil. I believe that.

18. You are a good writer, Wil.

19. “I want to have faith in humanity. I want to expect the best of people. But fool me once and so forth.

    I’m so tired.”

    I feel this so often. But I cling to something a friend once told me “The reason it’s news is because it’s NOT COMMON”. Car accidents aren’t news anymore because they happen too often. But acts of kindness and simple humanity are also so common that they don’t make the news. When it seems like the news is nothing but bad, I have to remind myself that it’s only news because it’s unusual.

    1. I love what you wrote because it encourages me. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sad/bad news and feel defeated.

20. So, I’m not the only one. I feel inadequately prepared for a disaster, yet weighed down by a foreboding that it’s all too close. I’m suspended between joy and anguish. You’re not alone in this. It’s difficult to know which way to step, what action to take. What makes this better?

21. Damn, you are so good at writing!

22. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. I liked this post. I want to know the events that led to Matt’s hangover. I’d love the sunshine too! Where I am today we got a late blast of winter weather. I can almost picture the bedhead, and I love that you didn’t smooth it down. You rebel you. Thanks so much.

23. You write very well. I have admired your work for a long time, glad I found your Blog. Have you ever seen Cargo on Netflix? A zombie type movie but more family focused and different.

    1. Cargo is brilliant! Everyone should see it. I went to the same high school as the writer and co-director – we even played on the same soccer team. So seeing the nicest, coolest person from my high school kick goals and make such a brilliant movie is great.

24. Thank you for your writings. You probably do not realize how your stories give me hope, happiness and laughter along with thousands of others. Don’t get me wrong, I do not enjoy your pain, however I can equate to your pain, your depression, your anxiety. You write so eloquently what I feel and felt most days of my life especially now. I see my children suffer from the same and asked my daughter to read your stories.I recently read an article which references the greatest writers, artists of our time. The article points out the fact the most talented ingenious people of the world suffered from depression, manic episodes and were hospitalized many times. Point strongly articulated throughout the article was the fact people who artistically talented seem to all suffer from the interlockings misconnects of their minds. Their talents are gifts to the world yet many do not know how or why they suffered from debilitating mental disabilities. Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, Allen Gibsberg, playwrite Eugene O’Neill and many more were some of the greatest literary minds and yet they could not ever feel Normal. Your writings, the Times Special Edition ” The Science Of Creativity” has made me understand that normalcy is just an illusion of the mind. I often miss Robin Williams, the greatest artistically ingenious comedic mind that will ever grace this earth. Yet in missing his work I can’t help but feel sadness how he suffered with mental illness everyday but most did not know. His extreme shyness of not being able to speak with someone in an elevator, however, could go on stage and entertain thousands was definitely a brightly lit misconnected wire in his brain which had to bring him both sufferings and blessings of happiness at the same time. While I am far from a successful writer, entertainer etc. I can tell you an imagine of my.mind would be brightly lit fireworks Beautiful when they are shooting off, yet your left with the screeching sizzling dying sound at the end. Too many, too quickly with an abrupt end that leaves you standing there going “Now What”? What I am learning to accept finally because of you and the grace of your talent along with others the “Now What” are so painful and also so demanding that they can also be the most blessings in my life. The process is step by step, dealing with one firework at a time and finding one spark of joy in that shot! Never to be healed, never to be understood, never to be fully finished beyond sight. It’s there, will always be there, will fly high and low till another day.

25. Hi Wil,

    Funny! When The Walking Dead on AMC first premiered I was freaked out when Rick sees this little girl in a robe and slippers and then she turns around… I could no longer watch it & flipped off the tv! lol

    Then about 2016, I was homesick I was living in Omaha, NE working full time answering suicide calls 40 hours a week as a Certified Peer Specialist. My call center answered 15,000 suicidal calls a year. I got one call from a girl who told me she overdosed just before she called me. She refused to give me an address so I could send the police and an ambulance to save her. She just didn’t want to die alone so she called me and I listened to her die on the phone. Her call with me being powerless to help her no matter I tried everything I could including keeping her on the call as long as possible trying to get her to talk about some clue where she was so the ambulance could find her like a local restaurant or school. I sat there with her on the longest suicide call of my entire life and my hands were completely tied. Listening her til the she was silent broke my mind, heart, and spirit. That call triggered me so badly I called my little sister Sassafras in Mineral Point, WI and told her I need to come back home to Wisconsin. So I took the Amtrack from Omaha to Wisconsin where she picked me up from Madison Train Station to come live with her after I was triggered.

    While living with Sassafras I discovered she was a huge zombie apocalypse fan especially religiously watchig the Walking Dead while desperately trying to avoid spoilers. I did not know this about her we hadn’t seen each other in decades. So since I was a big scaredy cat with anything regarding anything to do with the Zombie Apocalypse, Sassafrass and her wife Sarah watched the entire Walking Dead Series from the beginning season 1 with me so I didn’t have to watch it alone. We watched together for weeks! I started to really get into the characters I especially loved Maggie’s character and her husband Glenn. So my sister was also into other Zombie Apocalypse stuff so she bought the Zombie game Dead of Winter Board Game and she got me hooked on the 7 Days to Die Video game which I totally sucked out cause I kept waking into radioactive ☢️ hazard zones and dying! lmao My sister rocked at the game though and was thinking about live-streaming on Twitch dressed up and roleplaying as a little old lady kicking Zombie butt! My little sister cracks me up! Plus of course she got me hooked on the Resident Evil movie series. 🧟‍♀️

    Horror really is not my genre! However I remember all the fun I had watching 9 seasons of the Walking Dead, movies, and games with my sister Sassafrass and it really was the best way to spend a year living with my sister. See when she was 13 and 15 we were put in separate foster homes because we were removed because of abuse caused by my Dad. We lost years. So catching again in my 40s really helped.

    Zombie Apocalypse is great idea 💡 and I want to show what you create with my sister Sassafrass! 🧟‍♀️

    Wenona Gardner
    White Turtle Rainbow

26. I love the way you write this. Genuine, determined, honest. Sometimes all we can do is show up, right? See what the day holds, get through it because the alternative sucks. And let life surprise us with simple beauty. Keep going please. Some days you show the rest of how.

27. OMG WIL… I’m totally stunned by how good you’ve become. Your descriptions moment to moment are so precise I can feel them. What a beautiful piece of writing this is.
    “Matthew woke up with the kind of hangover that can only be described apocryphally. ” Yes!!! That one line gave me a visceral reaction to this crazy awful hangover. It’s a masterpiece. I love it, and I want to know what happens to Matthew! As well as to his hangover…

28. Thank you for sharing. These blog posts always feel like a letter from a pen pal. As soon as I see the e-mail notification I smile and click to see what you have been up to hopeful that you are doing well and wanting to reach out to let you know how valued you are to all of us if you are not.

    I just finished listening to your narration of John Scalzi’s “The Consuming Fire.” I really enjoyed it and you did a phenomenal job.

    Now I need to start the Old Man’s War series while I wait for book three.

29. A beautiful piece of writing noting keen observations — so vivid, so rebellious, so painfully honest, so grateful, so loving, so ultimately hopeful.

30. We are in a zombie apocalypse, Wil. The zombies are non-critical thinkers who are attempting to dumb down any type of critical thinking. When they hear or see a critical thinker, the zombie attacks in any way they can, sometimes by bullying, name calling, disgusting posts, and even violence on persons, animals or personal property. I have had a lousy year similar to the vein you are walking. Your post reminds me not to give up because i don’t want to give the zombies i know the opportunity to “eat” my brain and “win” kudos for taking down another critical thinker. Thanks for the inspiration and reason for not to give up walking in the valley of the shadow. Eventually, i will get to a rise in the elevation. But for now, i think i will take joy in baby steps and defeating zombies with a smile, silence, and even an index finger wave instead of a middle finger wave. My index finger wave says, hey zombie, you lost this fight right here and write now (pun intended). Hugs zombie killers

31. Some days, the sun and the wind and the feel of the road beneath my feet are enough. Some days they remind me that I am enough.

32. I also was outside yesterday enjoying the wonderful weather (here in the Chicago ‘burbs, where the first warm spring days are embraced like a long-lost chld). I’m not a fan of bumper sticker philosophies, but I noticed a sticker on my neighbor’s car, and it’s a good one: BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world. Yes, the “Be The Good” is highlighted. When things seem overwhelming, it’s one thing you can do. Believe there is good in the world…Be the good. I’m just going to leave it at that.

33. First, thank you for allowing us travel for awhile in your head; second, thank you for bringing the travel vividly to life so well. I’m not “glad” that there are others who are experiencing the fear/anguish of our country and communities slowly being torn apart in that sense, but it’s nice to know your thoughts are not singular. I have not lost all hope.

34. I really hate zombie stuff. it’s such a poor apocalypse since it is a fairly easy fix. Burn bodies, all the bodies. I’m not for stories that are what authors always try to make a Kobyashi Maru. “I don’t believe in a no-win scenario”, which is likely why I’m still with my very bipolar husband. 🙂

35. ❤️ your writing is the best.
    Keep on going. Stay on the side of hope with the rest of us.

36. If the zombie apocalypse comes, will I be one of the zombies?

37. I was working in Queens, just a few blocks away from the Queensboro Bridge in NYC, when the power went out from Canada to almost Washington DC, and a friend from work and I walked across that bridge, over to Broadway, and up from 59th St to 123th St. We saw citizens directing traffic so the total blockage of cars didn’t hurt each other, we saw a bakery giving away its food, we saw people out in front of their buildings having barbeques, and we saw a lot of folks just handing out water to everyone walking by, and there were a lot of people walking. New York City, man, a place that used to be stereotyped as bad-ass, chew you up and spit you out: it was, but maybe its people have changed, and there are bad-ass spots and crime and neglect and all that, but in a time of mass crisis, when people didn’t know how long the power would be out, they chose to help each other. I will always remember that. We live in our own little bubbles, but when all the bubbles burst, we come out for each other. I truly believe that. I am scared for our societies, but there are good people, and I have hope.

38. I have next-to-no faith in humanity. I have aspergers and ADHD, and have spent forty-nine years trying to fit in.

    I’ve concluded most people just have a capacity for self-interest I do not; most are also delusional, because that’s how the human brain keeps us from losing our shit constantly –with the delusion that their groups/tribes/money offer them security via power or the strength of numbers.

    I’m an author; I sell about 30,000 books a year, yet make starvation wages, because that’s what happening to that industry… and every industry. The greedy figure a way to get the creators to produce, and then take most of the money to allow capitalized access to market. Even when people are being selfless, it’s because their internal security check tells them its necessary to THEM, not the person they’re helping. And this is all increasingly confirmed by neuroscience.

    We’re a shitty species. Even people who are wonderful sometimes have malice in them; the only place you’ll find without natural malice is the autism spectrum community, and even then it can be bred into us, or pulled out of us by trying to fit into a society full of histrionic, uninformed, self-interested assholes.

    I don’t know how a guy with your decent sensibility and talent can work in Hollywood; the publishing industry is difficult enough to navigate, but dealing with some of those people? It is, as Patrick Walsh often notes, ‘A terrible industry, full of terrible people.

    In twenty-four years as a print journalist, it became apparent to me that nobody wants someone to always be rational and objective and to try to be fair and decent to everyone. Everyone just sees the world through a binary lense of “is” or “isn’t”, and this translates in tribal terms to ‘with us or against us,’ even though ideology is, by definition, a stupid concept, as one side is provably never right all the time.

    I’m just tired of all of it. I’m not suicidal, as I understand the neurological underpinnings of faith-based delusions, and that there’s no evidence of anything beyond this. But that’s about the only reason. On days when the depression from my condition is overwhelming, I am finally, this year, at the point where I think about it sometimes.

    I take a pill called “Vyvanse”. It’s a slow-release amphetamine like aderall for my adhd. Basically it makes me “normal” — which means I have peaks and valley all day, highs and lows. But most of them aren’t particulary restrained or rational or appropriate. They’re just the same uncontrolled feelings everyone else has. But that’s not a good thing, except that it deludes me into being super happy for four hours a day.

    So to be a happy person, I have to be a worse person. I have to drug myself into being like a neurotypical person, an emotional, fly-off-the-handle, suspicious, untrusting, selfish, frighentened normal person.

    Bleh.

    I’m glad you’re doing better lately, Will. I’m just an occasional reader of your blog but it reminds me occassionally that humanity doesn’t always suck. I guess that’s better than a poke with a short stick.

39. I think you’re right. It feels like the wind is, finally, at your back. Press on, internet friend. <3

40. Thanks for taking us with you on your solo walk. I won’t be able to help it but think of your day the next day I’m solo walking.

41. God, I love when you post like this. Your writing absolutely transports me to accompany you on your journey. I see what you see, and feel what you describe. Do you realize how rare that is?? As far as humanity reacting to an apocalypse, I think it may run true to the individual character and whatever innate qualities you already possess. If you are naturally a good and kind person, you will sacrifice to help others. If you’re regularly a prick, then your behavior will be selfish and possibly cruel. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and one hopes there is good in everyone, whether they normally practice it. There is hideous hatred and division in society today, and it can be depressing and overwhelming. But I’m hoping if disaster strikes, all that will be considered as petty and unimportant, as compared with survival.

42. This writing meant everything to me today. Thank you for the gift you have with words and the courage you have to share them. I needed to read that someone else feels much the same as me.

43. Love this will. Expressing many of my own thoughts now, at 67 yo, but who cares about age. Many at all ages feeling this way. TV zombies don’t scare or facinate me at all. I’m scared of those zombies are under a crazy man’s mind control. More and more talk of killing those not like them, hiding behind the bible, with a gun in front of them, waiting for the call to action from the crazy one. I let my mind wander, I’m wonder woman, ready and able to protect them all, striking down all those who have placed themselves as judge, jury and executioner. They will have no trial, they have been judged, and execution is instantanious. I snap out of it, wondering how this old lady got to be here, in this state of mind…

44. Nice, evocative post. I could feel the breeze right there with ya. Keep the opening line, btw, it works!

45. i’m so glad you’re writing here again and that things are starting to feel better for you and anne and your family.

46. Just a tiny note to say that I appreciate your use of they/them/their here. 🙂

47. Thanks for sharing that, Wil. It’s certainly food for thought and I know I’ll be thinking about it for the next few days. So thank you for that as well.

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