So often… i have so many thoughts i feel compelled to express, but so little energy to spend on articulating and verbalizing them. Even that first line was difficult.
But then i start doing math, and think: who would see? of those, who would listen? of those, who would understand? of those, who would care?
And even if i could share every one of my most meaningful thoughts, with, say, 100 people who would see, read, listen, understand, and care… what good would it really do?
And even if it would do a little bit of good… it wouldn’t be enough… for Me.
So, often, i have all these thoughts and ideas about ways to make this horrible world a better place… but even in the best case scenario, for me, it’s already too late. I’ve already lost my chance to live. I’ve already lost my chance to have “a life.” I’ve already lost my chance to do anything but strive to survive for its own sake, in the face of sheer futility… just to maintain a sub-minimal and ever-declining state of existence… just to exist… in a life i don’t even want.
It’s… surreal. It’s astonishing, incredible, unbelievable… and it keeps me just broken. And so much of my time is spent just trying to stay empty and relax, and let the time pass… except for when i get restless and anxious and want to do something, anything, so badly, that i just can’t stand to sit still and let things be the way they are… with all the haunting words and images rattling around inside my brainstorm. But there are too many obstacles, and too many things i can’t change, and i inevitably return to embracing letting go… because it seems like the only way to not feel terrible or worse, is to strive for numb neutrality.
So i don’t know. Everything is tragic irony or paradox. I feel upside-down, backwards, inside-out… and so often, all i can think about is how i can’t even use any of the valuable parts of me, to do anything worth doing, in this world… and that someday, after all this miserable impossibility, i will face the pain of death, and then cease to be. I know i will feel both cheated, and a sense of release, in my final moment. I don’t know how i’ll be able to avoid dying in the middle of the most uselessly impossible question: “Why?” I’ll spend much of my time and energy between now and then, dissecting and analyzing and trying to invalidate that question, because i know it has as many answers as there were events that preceded me and occurred during my lifetime. And even if i can find a suitable answer, or even if i manage to completely invalidate the question… i’ll still die wondering. There are just too many things; i’ll never figure it out, completely.
Sometimes i like to tell myself utterly absurd things like: “i don’t exist.”
Sometimes i like to imagine that none of this is real; perhaps a simulation or a dream.
Sometimes i wonder if maybe we all have the same consciousness, experiencing life separately, individually, through billions of different sets of circumstances and genetic parameters.
Maybe i am you, and you are me… but we just don’t realize it, because such a concept is so counter-intuitive, according to what most people observe, and the way observation is experienced, as determined by the human condition.
One thing i do know, is that i need a better way to find… what i need. Too much of my life has already transpired, without such things. I am convinced no way, for me, exists… or at least, no way that i can actually use. Maybe it’s not “the way” that is absent, but the things themselves. Maybe it doesn’t matter where i go or what i do… because what doesn’t exist cannot be found anywhere, through any method or approach.
There are so many things i don’t know… but i look around at this world and realize that so incredibly few have even come as far as i have. I just don’t have time to wait for everyone else to catch up. So many of them don’t even want to know how wrong they are, or that they are wrong at all, despite the copious evidence available to show them, and all the ways humans have developed and evolved to better understand things.
I know i tried, and gave the best i could give, as well as i could, for every task and situation that mattered, throughout my life. It wasn’t enough, and i didn’t get to live… and now i have nothing to live for, no method to try, and no time to figure it out.
So all you young’uns out there, listen up: No matter how terrible your problems may seem right now… if you don’t make a choice to make it better, it will only get worse. If you have to piss off your parents and get stuck in a mental hospital for 6 weeks, in order to get the help you need, DO IT, Now, while you’re young, while you still have time to recover and move on. The last thing you want is to make it into adulthood broken, unstable, lonely, desperate, with no one to understand, and without the right help. Don’t let anyone tell you anger is wrong. Don’t let your anger slip away; use it for fuel for your fire, and don’t let your fire go out, until you have what you want. Get through your problems while you’re young, so you can have a life worth living, as an adult. Don’t worry about stupid highschool bullshit. Life does get better, once you’re out. Work hard, starting today, to put yourself in the position to be independent, so you can do whatever you want with your life, so that you don’t have to be miserable. Go to school, learn all you can, and try your best to understand the world, yourself, others… and how it all connects.
And please, stop hurting yourselves. You want “pain” to numb the sadness? Run. Pushups. Sit-ups. Weights. Martial Arts. Learn to use tools and build something. Get a job doing manual labor and work hard until your muscles burn and your body feels like a giant bruise. Learn a bit about nutrition, and starting eating the right foods. Don’t let shitty parents poison you with junk. Don’t like your parents? Be better than them. You’ll be 18 soon enough.
Cutting won’t cut it as an effective coping skill, once you’re in the real world. It’s better to spend your energy on making yourself stronger, smarter, faster, and more determined to achieve your goals.
I see some of you thinking “it’s hard to stop.”
You know what? No, it isn’t. It takes zero energy to simply not do something. And if you absolutely must exert energy in action, then do something constructive like exercising until you’re ready to drop.
And once again, i’m tired, so i’ll just trail off, after writing randomly…
15 comments
Great stream-of-consciousness post. I don’t have the energy for that kind of thing though. I just want my hellish existence to end. But would death bring me what I want? Probably not considering how unlucky I am.
It’s too bad i can’t just “live-stream” my consciousness. I bet that shit would go viral.
It’s funny you mention not having the energy for that kind of thing… because that’s the origin idea, from which this post began. I don’t have the energy for this type of thing, either. I just started trying to say something, but just let it flow out naturally. What i actually don’t have the energy for, is focus. That’s why everything i do seems to manifest as a “stream of consciousness.”
I don’t think it’s your existence itself that you want to end, but rather the aspects of hellishness. The only thing i can suggest is that you have to basically go “apeshit mode,” and then maintain that as sustained fury, in whatever ways, for however long it takes, to get the problems solved.
I don’t think death truly brings anyone what they actually want. Instead, it takes away everything, for the sake of taking away the unbearable parts.
Instead of throwing oneself away to eliminate agony, we should consider dedicating our final acts toward influencing changes. I think it’s wrong to let the things that cause such suffering, to stay the way they are, unchallenged… especially if those things are causing enough suffering that people are voluntarily ending their own lives over them.
Idk. It’s… a somewhat frightening mindspace and topic realm.
I’m personally contemplating how to re-enrage my eternal inferno.
I’ve lost the ability to remain indefinitely usefully angry at anything… while retaining only enough anger to be passively bitter.
For a while, now, i’ve known that i’d rather be mad than sad. I just got to a point where i couldn’t carry the anger anymore.
~”I don’t say half of what I think — I wonder what I’m thinkin’ for”~
Heh. 🙂
trying to recall where i’ve read that before…
I think you articulate and verbalize alot lol .. how old are you btw man? .. Stopping doing things isnt always that easy as we are naturally creatures of habbit, it takes zero energy for me to stop smoking but its still something I’ll probably never do. You’ve got to truly want to stop doing something to actually ever stop, I think thats the key thing, and while I don’t really get all this ‘cutting’ stuff they obviously do it for a reason and yes that reason might not be practical but its like alot of things. bad habbits are bad habbits but bad habbits usually have a good side and its cutting (mind the pun!) the good side out of your life that you usually don’t want to do and thats what keeps the habbit. Smoking isnt practical to me but i still do it because I value the good side too much to stop, Fuck it!
this is the most insightful and interesting post that i have ever read. I always wondering why we are here and why things are the way they are. I never get it.
I do agree on the part that says you only have once chance to make your life better while you are young. I wish I did something because now i am 26 and my life seems crippled. I can’t even connect with people like i should.
One of my favorite song lyrics 🙂 from a song no one’s ever heard (“Imaginary Friend”) by an artist no one’s ever heard of, Chantal Kreviazuk.
i also think the part about living a sub minimal existence is very true. I have no idea why I continue forward . It’s like this is all we got and we just have to sit back and live with it
Or you could think about something that you want that will change your life and work towards it, there isnt always much you can change I agree but I think if you were to put your mind to it and act theres probably a wealth of opportunities you could create for yourself. Its a shame that police have such a grip IMO otherwise you could do a scar face lol.. The same logic applys to most things though, think big about your future and work in ways to make it happen, its the only real way out of a cesspit.
Wow… Chantal Kreviazuk… that voice…
I listened to about a verse of that song, and decided i can’t listen to her again, or i’ll risk falling in love (which would be terrible since she’s utterly unreachable for me).
@Painman-
Okay so, every time i read your name, for whatever reason, i replace the word “spoonman” in the soundgarden song. This is a mere drop in the bucket of my ocean of fluid consciousness. I’m almost 33. And i don’t think cutting and smoking are a fair comparison. Mild and controlled physical pain doesn’t produce nicotine… so you could still do some other activity to produce the pain endorphins. Smoking, on the other hand, is tied to both nicotine chemical addiction, as well as the physical feeling of inhaling/exhaling smoke. Pain isn’t the goal. But what is true for both, is that one must decide they no longer want to continue doing those things, and be sure enough to bridge the initial withdrawals period. I’ve quit smoking before, and after the first 2 weeks it’s “easy.” However, all it takes is a series of misfortunes to make you feel self-destructive and weak, and allow yourself to smoke just one… and you’re back on it again. I personally enjoy the physical part. I hate feeling like i need it. I would like to quit again, but… i just don’t see it being possible, with the amount of unavoidable and perpetual stressors in my immediate environment… not to mention those inside me.
@FTW0990-
Thanks for acknowledging some of the insights i attempted to share. It’s actually not so much that i “don’t get it,” but rather that there are just so damn many pieces that i DO get, that it just seems impossible to put it all together in a communicable form that enough others would be able to appreciate. I see lots of “reasons why” things are the way they are… but that doesn’t mean i agree with things being these ways. I see plenty of people asking “why x?” and i often feel like i know the answers, but can’t verbalize them in a useful way… because there’s just too much to explain, and most people have not reached a place where they would be able to understand my attempted answers. It seems like lots of time and energy gets wasted on things that should be easy. Meanwhile, people who have it easy, seem astonished that anyone ever has a hard time doing anything.
You should totally listen to her again and have yourself a little fantasy romance.
@sadbk
while i appreciate the sentiment, it would be reckless and self-destructive of me, to entertain an impossible fantasy.
I dislike taunting myself with triggers… and with but a few short syllables, her siren-like vocals have already etched a small groove into my psyche.
Part of my despair is that i must actively disallow myself from even thinking of romance, at all, lest i trigger my lament for lost love, which will never be recovered or replaced.
I was always musically-inclined, but in the last year or so, i’ve realized that even thinking of music, not to mention actually hearing it, is a volatile trigger for me.
I’ve lost any chance at love, any chance at a relationship… i’ve lost my fire, my fight, and even my music.
I find myself wondering “wtf is the point?” even though i know that’s not even really a valid question. There doesn’t have to be a point. And of all that remains, i just don’t see much of a point worth making.
Sure, i could try to tell people things and plant seeds of thought, hoping that someone could eventually benefit from reaping what once was sowed… but isn’t it really up to each person, to figure out what they need to know, on their own?
By “helping” each other, aren’t we really just perpetuating weakness among ourselves? Aren’t we just making it worse? Aren’t the weak and unwanted, the broken and bereft, really supposed to fail and fall and not live on? Isn’t our whole world built to support and sustain the strong, while eliminating the hangers-on?
Idk. Something about being “that guy” who sits around fantasizing about unattainable partners, just doesn’t sit well with me… not to mention (though i already did) the fact that it reminds me of what i’ll never have: the love, the life, the living, the fire, the fight, the music… or even my own special place in this cruel world, to which i’m not even sure i want to belong. And it’s not even about “wanting to belong.” I just wanted to be compatible and efficient, so that i could accomplish attainment of goals. I don’t care if anyone wants me here. I care if i’m getting what i want out of being here… or if it’s even possible to do any of that.
At this point, i’m reluctant to allow myself to enjoy anything at all, because anything “good” will only encourage the attachment to this broken life, from which i need to sever. I need to detach, to resolve to desire nothing… to shun any and all enjoyment of anything but silence and emptiness, peace and calm. I need to prepare to cross over into the nothingness… not find more things to make me want to hang on to something i can’t keep. According to almost everyone, holding on to what is gone, is wrong. When things don’t work out, we’re supposed to just let go, and move on. So, i’ll apply that logic to myself, my own life. It isn’t working out. I should let go. I should move on. I should prepare myself to accept my fate, and face the unknown, according to the same principles with which i lived my life: i should confront the problems head-on, right away… instead of avoiding them, wasting time, and pretending that they’ll go away, if i just pretend they don’t exist.
It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t take any of this personally. This is part of my damage. I can’t even allow myself to imagine certain things, because i’ve done so enough times to know that i can’t handle how it affects me. I guess that’s just how being broken works.
Ahhhh I’m sorry. I don’t “take it personally” but I certainly didn’t mean to be triggery. I should probably try to adopt some of your coping mechanisms myself… I’ve tried to do the opposite because it’s worked in my past — most of my life, actually — but for some reason things that used to work for me don’t anymore.
To offer a bit of context:
I started learning/playing guitar at ~11yrs, which is now over 20 years ago. I had breaks here and there, but it was always one of my special things. I haven’t touched it in almost a year. I used to sing, but stopped a few years ago. There was a girl… and she “devolved” to a point where she would only communicate via vague song quotes, would refuse to explain what i was supposed to interpret from it, and left me hanging with unresolved questions echoing throughout my life. The last thing she ever said to me in person was “your love isn’t doing me any good anymore.”
So, now, just about every song reminds me of the events leading up to, and all that has occurred, since that moment.
And it’s not even just her… but my own sense of failure in being unable to stay focused on my music well enough and long enough to actually record anything, and eventually losing my ability to do so.
As someone who used to live for music… i never want to hear another song, another line, another note, ever again. And yet, music echoes throughout the entire world, except where i am far away from anyone.
But yeah… Chantal Kreviazuk has a beautiful voice.
It would be nice if you could find a way to enjoy guitar again. Feels like too much to hope for? I’m sorry for that heartache of yours… that is the most gutwrenching pain…
I can relate to some extent. I actually have issues with music now too, because HE loved it more than anyone I’ve ever met. He was so passionate. It was one thing that brought us together. And before he came along I’d been feeling complacent about music in general, where I used to have more feeling… he ignited that interest again. He took great pleasure in making CDs/playlists for me, songs for “us.” Now that he’s gone, music is just too fucking painful and I will never listen to any of those songs again, they’re ruined forever. I limit myself to one (sad) song in the car on repeat, for months at a time. (except for longer trips, where I am allowed to play only CDs from one band that I fucking decided he couldn’t taint for me because it was more mine than his, and the songs are melancholy enough for my taste) I used to listen to the radio in the car a lot… haven’t turned it on now in 10 months. I just can’t. So I’m officially old: I don’t know any new songs anymore.