it’s safe to say that making yourself think, really think, about things is work.
i suppose some manner of context is needed or this is going to just seem entirely off the wall and perhaps even insane. of course, i’m not sure context will make it any less so. or why i care if you think i am or not. hrm. anyway.
i’ve said here and there that humans have more in common than they do differences. and that our ego is usually the thing that wants to think we’re ‘different’ or somehow, our experiences are ‘unique’, or there’s just no one else who really ‘understands’ who we are, where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, or how it’s cut so deep that we just never will completely be the same again.
and, of course, it’s all bullshit. completely and utterly arrogant crap. but we need it, don’t we? or at least, we think we do.
something about the ‘long sufferer’ is attractive to humans. i think it’s masochism. and perhaps a perverse passive-aggression. what would be unconditional love twisted upon itself and warped in ways as such twisting is prone to render.
i’ve met several folks wearing this saddle in my life. at a few points, i honestly wondered if i did, too. i suppose at a few points, i actually did. we all do here and there, i reckon. well, except those blessed souls who seem to be born with as much natural sunshine as some of us are with shadows.
hah. no, actually, even the sunny ones did here and there, didn’t they? it’s the assumption that they did not, could not, that underlays the matter. insidious, isn’t it?
sigh.
i’m sitting here, sipping my coffee and picking my way slowly through the thought field. what got me started on this was the thought that i am always sad. no matter how happy i am, i am, quite literally, forever, only moments from the sadness.
i don’t mean that saudade kind. that’s bearable and normal and balanced with things. this… this is different. hard to explain. words. meh. sometimes they just don’t work. but since this is ‘the blog’ i reckon i’ll try.
imagine feeling like every moment of rest, peace, or delight you ever find slips out from under your fingertips before you can ever, really touch it. feel it. know it. experience it. or that no matter how hard you push, how hard you work, how hard you try, things just fall apart. tanthalus and sisyphus combined.
imagine that you never make it to the point of feeling the pain of impermanence, because nothing lasts long enough to support such illusion.
i suppose that is a blessing. but it sure feels like a curse. but perhaps that’s just it… ego, that is. i wonder how you learn to stop missing things you’ve never had? or how to stop wanting to experience them so you can lose them, too? stars. doesn’t that just sound twisted?
but you know exactly what i’m talking about, don’t you? that’s kind of the point. remembering that i’m not the only one. never have been. there’s comfort in it. which is, of course, why i put myself though it all.
i met someone a while back that was in love with the vanishing point. i think i understand why, but it took me a bit to do so. of course, they were very angry with me for saying it, but that only meant it was true. they didn’t know that, either. sometimes it’s hard to see things clearly. mostly because people hate you for it. but also because, sometimes, it makes you hate yourself.
i am rambling, obviously. odd and unremembered dreams and a call that woke me from someone who wishes things could be different… but not enough to actually make them so. sigh. thinking about long drives and trying to remind myself that being untethered and completely dandelioness is ‘a good thing’.
but i still haven’t managed to convince myself. mostly because there are so many people in the world who are smiling and i’m not… and they all have the things i can’t seem to manage… and most times, i cannot help but think that’s the difference between their smiles and my sighs.
from there, it’s all about wrestling with the difference between knowing i’ve been busting my ass and wondering if i really have. self-doubt. pondering possibilities like cognitive dissonance. i feel sorry for microbes, now that i know how it feels to push and prod and pull and poke at things under a microscope.
sigh.
there’s a lot more running under the surface that i won’t say. but i reckon anyone could know it, seeing as it’s common to humanity. heh. so maybe i manage to avert the horror of dissonance after all. if i can say i know i’m not alone, and really know it, maybe it saves me from being insane.
or maybe it makes me insane. i don’t know how to tell the difference just yet. which is kind of frightening.