What does it say about me as a writer and a thinker that someone else has captured perfectly what I have been feeling?
It probably doesn’t mean anything at all.
I stumbled upon this essay that made me shout “Yes! That is it!” inside my own skull. Some would call it fate, some would call it the collective unconscious that illustrates the human condition and binds us all together, some would call it utter coincidence.
It probably doesn’t mean anything at all.
Or perhaps it was simply the goad I needed to crystalize what I’ve suspected but been too afraid to say myself.
I lie in this journal. Not that I tell untruths, for every word written here is true as I see it (after all, what is opinion but truth with a perspective), but I do not tell the whole truth. I hold back because I know that I am read.
I started out looking at this as a place to deposit those random and somewhat clever thoughts that were frequently thrown up by my over-worked, over-tired, over-bright mind. Ha ha, isn’t that dry and droll and if I make you laugh enough perhaps you won’t really look at me and see all the flaws that I see, or perhaps you’ll see them but forgive them as “quirks.” You’ll invite me out for coffee and spend your time with me and perhaps we’ll be friends.
Neat trick, eh?
The reality is that I don’t have confidence in myself, that I am more inclined to see my flaws than I am to see my strengths, and I do have strengths just the same as I have flaws.
External validation means way too much to me which is ironic given how little respect I have for my fellow man as a group. It’s also ironic given how much external validation I actually do have; my life is filled with love and support, albeit impassive, from my family and from The Girlfriend.
Do I really have anything to say or is this all sound and fury signifying nothing? A friend tells me that my perspective is unique and, ergo, valuable, but I’m not sure I believe her.
I suspect I am not worthy,
or special,
or unique,
or talented in any way.
I do know that I am frightened, scared of possibility, of taking advantage of it and being hurt, of not taking advantage and regretting it. And I have regrets, lots of them, and they aren’t the “damn, I wish I hadn’t done that” kind either. Is one kind better than the other? The commodification of cool that passes for American culture says yes, it is better to regret what you’ve done, to have taken the risk, except that you have to be damn careful who you take your risks with because if you aren’t you’ll get punished in some way like the degenerate pervert you really are. And if you aren’t careful enough, there’s always rehab, or the long, slow celebrity death, except most of us aren’t celebrities.
I learned a long time ago to embrace failure, to learn from my mistakes. Except, that’s really a lie. I secretly resent failing having been sent out into the world with the firmly implanted idea that I could do anything I set my mind to. This limitless possibility has made me not bold but cautious, afraid to disappoint, afraid that if I do fail then just maybe I can’t do anything at all and my whole life has been a lie.
So, I am unhappy, not to mention sleepless, and I’ve lately been contemplating playing in traffic, an easy thing to do when you are as aggressive a pedestrian as I am, because part of me is convinced that no one would really notice if I weren’t around any more.
And yet, I have plans, I have things I want to see and do and taste, people I want to meet, jokes I want to make and laugh at. I want kisses given and gotten and I want to feel grass poke up through my toes and warm winds caress my skin.
I feel so much, and want so much but my life is so pale in comparison that it makes me unhappy and paralyzed. If you asked me to define what it is I yearn for I wouldn’t know where to begin.
But feeling only gets me in trouble. It leaves me raw and tongue-tied, choking on the need to do something, to be something more, something better, something different, knowing that I need to make a change and not knowing what to change first.
Thinking just seems remote and dishonest and the more I work to craft these words into some acceptable shape and structure the more the truth leeches out of them.
Something has to give.
Something has to give very soon.
That something will not be me.
I do not want to get to the end of my life with nothing to show for it, with no friends, no memories, with simply time passed.
Now, I just need to figure out how to live. Now. I need to figure out how to play again, how to look at the world with an adult’s wisdom and a child’s delight.
My gift-from-the-cosmos mystery writer is quite correct: it is about passion.
It is about lust.
The lust for life. The lust for experience and laughter. The lust for learning even if it is through trial and error and not getting it perfect every single time.
It’s about answering that one simple question: what would make me happy?
Maybe I don’t have the answer to that now, maybe the meaning of my life is figuring out the answer to that question.
What I do know is that I have to find out, and I have to find out before I turn into someone I could hate rather than just being someone I dislike simply for not being perfect.
Hey I read your blog today and I have to agree that what you say hits a little to close to home. As for holding back in your blog I can total understand there are very few people that know how I really feel about my life how truly unhappy I really I am. If they did it would just push them away from me or worse they would try and change me or make me feel better. I don’t want to feel better I’ve felt bad for so long I wouldn’t even know how being happy felt anymore.
But here’s a point I have been thinking about lately what if some of us, if not all human kind was purposely made to feel incomplete. Like there was something that you always wanted of need just out of reach… forever. A thirst you can never quench, hunger that can’t be sated or a hole in your soul that can never be filled. My pastor use to tell me that you (ie me) were built to worship god and that’s why we are so unhappy only god can fill the void in our hearts. Hmmm I don’t think that’s it do to the fact that there are just as many suicides and divorces in church going families as there are in the rest of the population. So if god built that void in our heart I don’t think we are finding a good way for him to fill it.
Now look at it from a biological stand point this feeling of emptiness and self loathing may be part of our genetic code. Why? Well maybe it takes that hunger and passion to standout and make up able to go above and beyond what normal people are capable of doing. This behavior attracts potential mates and furthers the goal of reproducing and spreading our genetic material into the world. After all what is the purpose of DNA if not to keep reproducing itself as much as possible. This may not be the case either due to the fact that not everyone in the world seems to want to make babies their whole life. I for one will most likely not have children myself for reasons that I’d rather not get into.
So if this emptiness isn’t from god or biology where does it come from. I believe it comes from the media and the people around you. The tv in front of you has been spewing out images of what life is like outside your 4 walled room for over 60 years now, evoking all kinds of emotions, worries, wants and false needs from the audience in front of this screen. But in the last 10-20 years the media has gotten good at filtering the image you see to make you feel exactly how they want you to feel. They make movies, music books, and tv ads meant to make you feel a certain way, and after you see those thing over and over again they refine your normal emotions and feelings into one pure sensation. Then before you know it if you don’t have what they are selling whether it be a product or way of life you feel this profound sense of lost that you have missed out on something in life.
Well if there is a movement out there trying to control us through what we see would everyone feel the same way alone, empty and depressed?
I think most people don’t feel the effects of all this media bombardment that acutely, but there are some of us that are more vulnerable to this kind of manipulation, like me. These people are observant and are aware of there surroundings and their place in the world. They spend a lot of their time in thought just thinking about everything. They may or may not spend a lot of time alone or isolated from others. But most of all I think we recognize potential in themselves and others. When a person realizes what one person can do it’s hard not to say “why can’t I do that? What is holding me back? If I can’t be all that I can be I must be a bad person…” I say this to myself all the time.
________________________________________________________________________
I do not want to get to the end of my life with nothing to show for it, with no friends, no memories, with simply time passed.
I can understand that quote but you kind of need some point of reference to gauge all these things by. What do you what to have to show for your life something that people will remember you for, for 10 years? a hundred years? maybe a thousand years? What kind of friends do you want to have 100 casual friends or just four really good ones? And if you have a lot of them you just have to turn around and watch them all die off one by one as you get older. And what kinds of memories we all have memories but do you want grand vacations or just you and a loved one sitting on the couch shooting the breeze? (one of my favorite memories of a friend of mine was once he was jogging on a treadmill to see how fast he could run he got up to 10 miles an hour and pulled the stop cord and stopped running but the treadmill didn’t stop and he got thrown up against the wall upside down it was the funniest thing you ever saw)
As for a reference point who set that you or someone else? And if so how did you determine that point from what other people told you or showed you?
As for being happy I don’t think it’s possible (for me) not with so many other influence surrounding me telling me what I should think or want…
Ignorance is bliss they say,
_______________________________________________________________________
Thinking just seems remote and dishonest and the more I work to craft these words into some acceptable shape and structure the more the truth leeches out of them.
I total agree I wish I could elaborate on the feelings that I want to convey but the more I try and write them down them more they slip away until I stare blankly at the keyboard wondering why I wanted to express these feelings in the first place. Everything I write just seems barrowed and half-assed by the time I write it all down. I just want to delete it…
Take care
—lwp
ps sorry for the rant I am just have a hard time trying to express myself lately edit this if you need to