My latest med switch seems to be helping me.  I am presently taking Lamictal and Trileptal, with no noticeable side effects.  I have gotten my hopes up before about new meds, thinking that they were helping, when in reality, a particular cycle of depression had simply run it's course (and would, of course, come back before long).  So, I tried not to get too excited when I noticed my depression abating, some weeks back.  Now, it's been a while, and I am feeling hopeful about my present course of treatment.

In some ways, things are good.  I had a show recently, and it went well.  I'll be showing my work in a couple of weeks at the Flat Bar Festival, and that's going to be pretty bad ass.  A lot to do…  I need to reshoot some of the pix, and build a complex frame piece.  I will let you guys know how it turns out. 

I have been getting more and more depressed lately over animal rights issues (something I have always ben passionate about).  I've been particularly focused on chimps, gorillas, and orangutans, all of which could easily be extinct in the wild within the next 20 years.  These animals are poached, exploited, and even tortured for commercial purposes.  There is actually an orangutan sex trade, for sick f@cks who want to have sex with these poor creatures.  Political conflicts in Africa make it all the more difficult to protect these endangered animals.  In places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human rights aren't readily respected, animal rights are virtually nonexistent.  In the Congo, chimps are regularly poached, and the orphaned infants are taken as pets by members of the military, or sold as pets on the black market.  Once the chimps mature, they are incredibly strong, and become uncontrollable.  At that point they are killed, inhumanely caged, or otherwise disposed of.  People don't seem to realize that every adorable baby chimp you see in films, or in someone's private home, comes from a family of chimps that was massacred, either for bush meat, or for the express purpose of collecting the infant for commercial purposes.  Loss of habitat could mean that the remaining 20,000 or so chimps could be wiped out by 2030.  Orangutans could be gone much sooner than that, as could gorillas.  (For more information, please visit:  http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/gorilla/ebook.aspx)

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that human beings are monsters.  The rest of the world's creatures are able to exist in a sort of harmony that has always elluded humanity.  We can't wrap our minds around that sustainable coexistence, and we blow holes in it every chance we get.  I am beginning to think that the world will only be as it should be after nature finds a way to get rid of us.  Perhaps, we'll be wiped out by a virus, or some other looming threat.  Maybe some judgmental aliens will land, and decide that we are overpopulated, and thusly sterilize us, for our own good, the same way we spay or neuter our pets.  Yes, I'm joking about the aliens, but I think it's a perfectly sensible notion.  We inherited the earth, and we've trashed it about as well as we know how.  I think the best chance this world has is for us to get disinherited somehow.  Not a single day passes lately when I don't see something else that makes me shake my head, and think, "dear God, we really are monsters."

And, on the subject of God…  I find myself getting a lot of unsolicited spiritual advice lately.  While I appreciate the thought, I like to handle God in my own way.  I'm probably closer to agnostic than anything else, these days, and I'm okay with that.  I certainly don't think, as some have suggested, that a lack of religion is what ails me.  So, while I appreciate your advice, and prayers, I (like you) have my own beliefs, and I think I can take it from here.  No offense intended.