I’m trying to shut it out, the real world, the whole ball of wax….. there’s nothing there for me right now anyway.
I keep getting sucked back in, into the drama, into the dopamine high of watching others hurt….. how sick is that? If there’s anything that makes me doubt intelligent design, it’s how humans handle dopamine. We like pain, mostly causing it but some sick folks like feeling it too…. I’ve been in both positions.
So why can’t I just drop it, all the dirt, all the agony and wailing, why isn’t it easier to look away? I’m trying, for what that’s worth. I’ve closed all my social media, even my email…… it isn’t enough. I need to step further away, and it’s hard, the hardest thing I’ve tried to do.
I just want it to be simple; a switch to flick off and it doesn’t nag at me…. taking apart conditioning is so much harder than setting it up.
2 comments
if you find that magic button tell us where it is. I always loved those movies, mostly from the late 70s & 80s when mental health wasn’t understood, where the main character hits a breaking point and sinks into a blissful catatonic trance at the end. Final scene in an insane asylum, camera slowly backs away on our hero sporting a goofy smile. It’s the ultimate cynical fairytale ending.
But I don’t think that ever happens in the real world. Sure people snap and sink into delusional states, but if you stroll by a homeless camp you’ll see how it really works, They may be oblivious to the real world but they’re trapped in a hell far worse than we could imagine. It’s as if that ‘switch’ cuts off the senses but leaves them trapped inside with all the voices, demons and paranoia. As much as I want to escape reality any way I can (drugs mostly) I never want to be that far gone.
so if you follow my thinking, I think it may benefit us to keep that narrow corridor leading to the real world, ugly as it is. Maybe your subconscious knows this and that’s why you keep finding yourself interacting with the drama. At least that’s the case with me. I read the news every day, probably the dumbest thing a depressed person can do, but I do it almost like a therapy to keep myself from getting sealed off with the demons in my head. those fuckers will eat me alive
which gets into a whole other thing; prior to the 80s if you snapped completely you’d be taken care of, housed, fed at least. Now, as you observed, many people end up homeless. Hell I’ve been through though, unreality and homelessness gets a lot less scary when the real world shows how cruel it can be.
there’s still an instinctive moral repulsiveness to losing track of reality, to dropping out, to building walls so high nothing can get in. Perhaps it is as you say, there’s an instinctive fear of complete oblivion of the mind. I’ve spent so much time in my head over the years though, the worst it has to offer is such comfort that I no longer desire outside input.
But my demons are abnormally tame. I don’t know how to run from the way I feel for longer than a few months, so the secrets I’ve managed to keep from myself, they don’t land hard. Lacking that shame, self loathing, why punish myself? I’m aware of the mistakes I’ve made, but I’ve also taken steps to try and fix them. If it is as I see it, there aren’t the resources there for me to pull back up……
I was thinking about Tree Beard in Lord of the Rings, when the hobbits ask him who’s side he’s on, and he says; “I’m on nobody’s side, because no one is on my side.” Which seems like a burnt out version of the Lorax…. makes sense considering how much the world wars damaged the planet and hearts of those who lived through it.
My point though, I get sick of cheering for teams that won’t help me even if they win. I get sick of booing villains who show no intention of stopping, who seem to actually feed on my disgust towards them. It’s an almost manic tumble, trying to collect more data, desperately hoping that it will bring some good news….
there’s no good news out there. The mass of humanity is stupid and shallow, unwilling to change, gleefully skipping to their graves. I’m tired of seeking out the exceptions, let them find me, if they are there to do any finding. Hmmm, sounds as if I think less of humanity than I do…. but that’s the problem; I know what humans could achieve, could be, if they were open to the idea.
So when I’m looking at all the agony, all the chaos, what I see most is how unnecessary it all is.
I don’t know why this is the thing that comes to mind, that there are two ways to create; you can chase the market, build a road to where commerce is already happening. The other option, you can stay where you are and try and make something so good people cut a path to you. That’s where I’m at now, I’ve chased the approval of others most of my life. Screw em’, maybe I don’t have anything of value to give, but I don’t have to spend my life chasing crumbs.