My dear friend, I feel as though it has been ages since y...

My dear friend, I feel as though it has been ages since you wrote. Yet perhaps I deceive myself: the days are so long, I no longer know what I am supposed to do with them. All my 'interests' have gone missing. In the deepest part of me an immovable, black melancholy holds sway. Otherwise, weariness. Mostly in bed. Also it's the most rational thing to do for myself. I've lost a great deal of weight; people are amazed. Now I've found a good trattoria and will fatten myself up once more. However, the worst thing is this: I can no longer seize on any reason why I should live for another six months. I am deprived, and I suffer too much. Further, I've begun to grasp the imperfections, the mistakes, and the genuine calamities of my entire intellectual past, which are inconceivably vast. It is too late to make up for them; I won't be doing anything good anymore. why do anything at all! - 

Nietzsche, letter to Overbeck, March 22nd 1883