Sep 27, 2014

Other people will not heal you

"All I need is a girl" you say. You have that deep pit in your soul, people call it chronic depression but you just call it chronic loneliness; we were made to be with another, and that's all you need to solve yourself.

Listen to me: she will not heal you. If you are not enough for yourself, no one will be. For the longest time I latched on to people, clung to them because I thought they were what I needed, but then I needed more and more until I squeezed them dry while I was still left thirsting.

I never understood it when people said they needed alone time. Alone time is lonely. Restless. Purposeless. But over the week I became addicted to the tranquility that comes with being with myself. Invited my thoughts to a little tea party. And slowly I will learn to listen to them again, not shut them out with other people's voices and the noise of work. Slowly I will learn to be enough for myself. Only then can I let other people in.

Sep 26, 2014

final act

The day you died I didn't cry.

People were shocked. Nobody expected it from you - you were always full of cheer and loud infectious laughter. But I knew better. Sure, you kept up your radiant exterior, groomed and scrutinised it in front of the mirror; but your soul was a black hole, a growing mass of darkness, and I knew suicide was the only way you would go. Couldn't imagine you dying any other way. You shot yourself in the head - finally gave in. No long letter to loved ones or notes of thanks to friends; only a short post that said something about the actor taking his final bow.

That's how it had always been. A one-man show, no co-hosts, no audience participation. You refused help because that's the kind of steely independence you forced on yourself the day you realised that's all there would really ever be. But I don't think you ever accepted that, that we are all fundamentally alone, because if you did you wouldn't be bitter about it. You had been acting for as long as you could remember. You decided one day that the world was a play, and no one really wanted the truth, so you played along. You had to retire someday. (Of course you had to shoot yourself - you had to go out with a bang.) There was no other way to cope with that massive black hole, sucking everything into its path and crushing it to bits under your oppressive tyrannic philosophy that everything was a lie.

I tried pulling you out of it many times. Sat with you and pleaded and cried and wrote long letters. But you wouldn't budge. I was merely unenlightened, happily naïve, and you had built a fort to protect yourself against anyone who tried to convince you that we weren't all lonely. Your loneliness made you completely self-centered - if no one was there for you no one should matter. And what is one man worth? How much can one man hold? You looked only to yourself, a microcosm that refused to collide or share, and you would obviously run out of yourself someday. We feed on other people and feed them too. You cut yourself off from the social ecosystem, from the web of life, and of course humans can't survive on their own.

I gave up the day I realised nothing I say would convince you. It came as a relief to you, too; I had gotten annoying. So I left you to harvest the black hole until it devoured all of you. I wrote you a eulogy (a pleasant one - funerals aren't for the dead they're for the living) but the real message, the final long letter, i slipped into your grave. It would not have been right to cry.





(i'm sorry this is a bad piece very disjointed and just not good i took a few hours to write it because 90% of the time i was distracted by facebook sigh)
('final act' is a pretty damn good title though. don't you agree. like, act. heh)

Sep 19, 2014

you are not a reflection of those who can't love you


"When they don’t love you the way you want to, you mourn that for however long you need to. But then you get back up and you remind yourself. You are not a reflection of the people who can’t love you. You will love again. You will be loved again." 

Caitlyn Siehl

I look back at the ruins of three cities. I partook in empires. But they fell one by one, and all that we built gave way to tears like tsunamis and anger like fire and all that is left are the cold blackened walls, a hollow fort.

I wish I could rebuild the cities, I would do all I can, but it is irreparable now, pointless to try. Besides, the ruins have their own tragic charm. Now we leave the site as it is, a Delphi, lifeless remnants that once were. Grass will grow over the dull bricks, and tourists will come and explore. And nobody will know it like we did, and as much as you disregard the memories, I hope at least you don't resent.

Sep 16, 2014

lonelier

Maybe once, when we were naïve, we shared our lives with those around us. We let our happiness rise and fall with theirs, a tidal wave to remind us that we are intricately connected to other souls. But then we grew older, and our needs grew stronger, and we were lonely no matter how many people we had. So we poured ourselves out to others in desperation, expecting a reciprocation. But we never got back enough; people always disappoint, and the hole in your heart would always remain a hole.

Perhaps one day, for the last time, we gave ourselves away. Trembling hands presented all we had. He accidentally dropped it to the floor.

So we swept it up with cupped hands in a hurry, tears in a flood, and fled to a small dark cave. We drilled into ourselves the belief that we would always be alone. This world is full of empty bubbles of individuals, and we will never, ever fully combine. Protect ourselves. We learnt to grow our own strength, so that we needed no one else. Neediness was an abominable weakness.

We learnt to cut ourselves off, reject our nature of being sociable creatures, organisms that did need others to survive. We sealed off the hole in our hearts with layers and layers of silver duct tape. Locked it up in a freezing incubator, away from the hands of humans. We recited the mantra: dependency is death. We began to take pride in the fact that we could survive a whole night alone, then a week, then four years. Four whole years of keeping our heart in, a glorious achievement. We did it all on our own.

Then one day, someone walks alongside you on the beach and lies with you on the sand and puts his hand over your heart. No. Fear creeps up your back, but you keep yourself still. His words are a ray of warmth, and your heart begins to thaw, and you don't know what to do. You miss it so much, the feeling of having a heart of raw flesh, but you see, you know what is coming and you tremble at the thought. The waves are receding, receding, and if you didn't know any better you'd think oh this is so strange and beautiful but you have seen it before. In the blink of an eye the tsunami will sweep over you and devour everything you knew.

But you let him. You let him reach into your heart and hold it in his hands. You are a gaping crater in full display. He notices the duct tape over the hole. He picks at the tape to undo it, wanting to know what lies beneath. And when the wind rushes in you are aware again that you are emptier, hollower than ever.



(We have, in my view, created a society in which people find it harder and harder to show one another basic affection. In place of the sense of community and belonging...we find a high degree of loneliness and alienation. - dalai lama)