Down time (explanation and apology)

I've been having a lot of down time lately. I'm not referring to the kind of down time where I kick back and relax. I'm referring to the kind of down time where the psychological illness that I've been struggling with all my life rears up especially strong and makes me doubt my fitness to exist in human society.

One sign that I'm going through a relatively rough time is that my ability to communicate effectively with other human beings (both in person and electronically) drops further - and I'm not exactly a master communicator even at the best of times. When I do "communicate" with people online at times like these, it's often to argue and contradict. So, I end up doing what I did here - that is, getting into an argument for the sake of getting into an argument. I must apologize for that. I still don't entirely agree with the people that I was arguing with, but I overstated my case just to irritate people, which is the kind of thing that I should have stopped doing quite a few years ago when I became an adult.

I should have posted this days ago, but writing about this even briefly is not an easy thing for me to do, and I unfortunately treated it like I treat a lot of emotionally unpleasant things - I avoid and procrastinate as long as possible.

I'll get to it

I'll eventually finish that long-winded post that I started about the President's role and head of state vs. head of government. I've been distracted by various other things, and I've blown what free time I had by participating in the ultimate in futile activities - arguing about politics on the internet.

I never learned to take my father's advice - be wary of arguments about religion and politics, because they are fundamentally emotional subjects rather than rational ones. Both religious believers and people with strong political views generally base their positions on articles of faith which they have accepted. It's not impossible to change somebody else's articles of faith, but it is usually a long and difficult process - not something likely to happen in a casual online argument!