I have stayed away from the board because I was beginning to misbehave. I got upset somehow, overwrought or something. I have read your thread "depression" to an extent. It stands to reason the iron regularity required for diabetes is real hard for us to do. I hope you are feeling okay today as much as you can.

I had a look at the two artists. My style would usually be closer to burchfield than the other. I have not painted for a couple of years. Everything I used to enjoy somehow got tainted by some people around me. Right now I am too depressed, I know I would be so much happier if I did certain things again that I used to do but can't make myself do them. They are all either made to be not mine any more or coupled with anxiety. That does not mean I give up.

Somehow I feel I am so ready to make a change, I am desperately looking for something that I can use to lift myself out. I know the last couple of years I have done the things everyone needs but does not like to do out of fear, and not done things because I enjoy them. Another motivation for the procrastrination was avoiding the anxiety I still feel as a result of old and recent trauma, I was told by a psychiatrist. It is like a wounded animal keeping still and hiding in order to heal, only I am through with it. I just don't know how to overcome the anxiety that attacks me any time I try to move.

So, I thought of this: I have a notebook that I will keep close. In it I will make a list of all the things I would love to do before I die. Regardless of whether they seem to be feasible. Small things, big things, anything.
Also I will pay close attention to what I do like to do out of my procrastrinating activities. Like you said to me I write so well. That pointed out to me, that, yes, I like to write. So I will find a course in writing short stories and try to flog them on the net. This is something I have never done before, hence untainted, and it is creative. Thanks a million for that.

In this notebook I will also write down how and where I would like to live in 10 years, and what I would like to be doing with my time, and who I would like to be able to physically see regularly. These things are all positive. I will look at them regularly and so I will automatically start to see everything I encounter in the light of their usefulness for the things in this notebook.
Just trying to replace all the "shoulds" in my life, which is all there currently is, with "I would love to's".

I really do hope you bid on the book-version of the china-author. There is also a comic-version, which does it no justice whatsoever. The beauty is in the accurate description of details of daily life, environments, thoughts which are all missing in the comic. This guy was the greatest sinologist of his time and wrote these books because he felt sorry for the chinese, who had lost so much of their own culture. Certain aspects of this culture were weird and sick but a lot of valuable aspects have been destroyed alongside the bad parts by MAO's revolution.