I've been having a lot of conversations lately, with a bunch of people with differing opinions. I've talked about purpose in life, Hemingway, Jung, Bukowski, the ADHD generation I am coming up in, intellectual boredom and stagnation, the difference between academic and public writing, and most important, the overall sadness that invades daily life.

There's a certain sadness to the daily events of life. Not specifically, because it's nothing you can put you finger on, but generally. It's not an overwhelming sadness.

It doesn't team up with the other negative emotions to push you down. It waits in the background most of the time. Occasionally, you can let it out of its cage, and play with it until you're both satisfied. It then will return to its cage and wait your next moment of weakness. In this way, it is like that ex-girlfriend, or friend-you-slept-with-and-sort-of-regretted-who-won't-go-away.

A lot of conversation has centred around what causes this sadness, and whether it will ever go away. I don't think it ever really goes away. The dull pain is probably always going to be there behind my ears. Maybe that's what got to Hemingway and Hunter S. Thomson.

Maybe it comes down to knowing that eventually we're all going to die. Our bodies can only continue for so long, and then the show's over. Good-bye Andy consciousness, you'll be gone for good one day. Hell, the whole species is doomed for that matter.

That's the eternal sadness of being human. It may be the only part of us that survives.

There is an emotion that teams up with that overall sadness well; loneliness. The feeling, or even thought, of being alone. To quote Bukowski, "there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock." The clocks have gone digital, the loneliness has to.

Now we sit around on MSN, Facebook, Twitter, just waiting for that message to lead us to salvation, away from loneliness. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't; but it never lasts. 

It's quicker than ever to get in touch with someone, but it's harder than ever to hold their attention and time. How much spectacle is acceptable in one's life to keep on entertaining, without becoming the jester?

Some nights are harder than others.