Thursday, July 28, 2011

We'll carry on

I'm terribly lonely. All the time. When I'm by myself. When I'm with friends. When I'm out partying. When I'm watching movies. All the time. I've only felt connected twice in my life. With two women. Every other woman I've dated, friend I've had, job or class I've taken...they've all failed to satisfy.

And the thing about it is, I've realized that I'm most driven when I don't have anybody to look forward to seeing. Anybody to look forward to talking to. Or getting that text in the morning. Not because I finally have time to focus on myself, but because my loneliness drives me to push myself. I push myself because in the back of my mind, somewhere, I am still convinced that if I achieve, if I succeed, if I conquer...maybe I won't be lonely anymore. Maybe if I climb to greater heights, I'll finally meet somebody who'll be able to stand beside me with no fear. I push myself to prove to myself, and in some fucked up way, to prove to others (though I doubt anyone actually cares or notices in the same way) that I can do more. That I can be better. That I am worth something. The two times I've felt connected have left me even worse off. I was cheated on. I was lied to. I wasn't good enough, yet somehow too much at the same time. I sat by and watched as mere children toyed with my life. I failed to stand up for myself properly in both cases. Not because I didn't have self respect or because I had no confidence. It was because I remembered how lonely it was before this person, and I was terrified of returning to that. Even if it meant having to slowly die on the inside day by day and pretend like I was socially inept and couldn't read basic clues and signs.

I don't do well on my own. I grew up in a loving family environment. I grew up in a background where love actually meant something. And not romantic love. But love in general. It meant affection, caring, listening, being there for somebody. The older I've become, however, the only thing I've found are broken, twisted versions of this. Maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places. I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I'm looking for something that doesn't exist at this age in today's societal context. Maybe I'm asking for too much. But is asking for respect too much to ask for? Is asking to have somebody to just be there after a long day too much to ask for?

I realized recently a profound difference between me and every partner I've ever had when it comes to dating or relationships or both. I will sit and listen, and comfort day in and day out, no matter how many times the same issues get rehashed. Because to me, it's the only thing I can do. But whenever I have a bad day, I get looked at as if I've done something wrong. As if I'm not being a man. As if I'm being too difficult to deal with. Maybe it's all about choices. Maybe I'm so desperate to find anyone to fit in with that I let myself be walked all over emotionally. Maybe I'm only looking at it all from one side. Maybe I come off as needy at times. Or not needy enough at others.

I just want to feel like I belong. I don't care about careers. Or money. Or power. I just don't want to wake up when I'm 40 and realize I'm alone. I have terrible, crippling depression every day. Not all day long. But large chunks of day at a time.

Isn't it funny how we're always the most vocal and opposed about the things which we ourselves oppose the most. Or fear the most. I am quick to criticize people who jump into relationships to fill their own personal voids...they that's exactly what I do.

Why do I let others tell me that what I want is unrealistic? Unachievable? Naive? When I tell them of my future plans, they say I'm an egomaniac. That I'm cold. But why should I settle for the ordinary when I feel like I'm destined for so much more just because friends and family cannot conceive the things I'm talking about? They say "why not just live a simple and happy life?" My question is, why live a simple and happy life? Why not live an extraordinary and happy life? I'm in constant turmoil between what I want and what others want from me, and for me. What my parents expect and want from me. Why my significant others expect and want from me. What my friends expect and want from me. Employees. Extended family. Teachers...the list goes on. And then there is what I want.

I don't know what I want for the most part. But I am not afraid of this as I'm constantly told by society that I should be. I'm not afraid because the one thing I know I want cannot be found in society. The thing I want, whatever it may be, transcends the currently-existing norms. I don't want the ordinary. I need the extraordinary to feel alive. The reason I like taking drives when I'm down is because when I'm driving at 100mph, in the middle of the night, down an open road...anything is possible. I'm not constrained by societal norms and expectations. But maybe that's the whole problem.

Maybe part of the reason I've always idolized Superman is because despite everything...he's the loneliest person in the Universe. Yet he still does what is right and necessary.

Maybe I want something that doesn't exist.

"when you grow up,
would you be the saviour of the broken, 
the beaten and the damned?...Will you defeat them,
your demons, and all the non-believers, 
the plans that they have made?"

Monday, May 30, 2011

I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.

The answer to the seemingly-unanswerable questions I constantly find myself going back to seems very simple: To save the world of man, one has to become more than man.

Is the world really so gray as we seem to want to think? To chose a side makes one 'ignorant' and 'close minded' for denying other options. But to sit around and forever contemplate which action, if any, is truly "more valid" than another in an attempt to find one that would produce the desired, positive results without altering this very fragile system of "freedom" and "equally-valid" choice is absurd.

I wish I had the answers. I wish I had just an answer. To something. Anything. But every time I think I have one I find ten more unanswerable questions. And I find that one answer does not fit all. But what does that mean? That we are meant to go through life endlessly searching for non-existent solutions to problems of the human condition? I don't know the answer. But I refuse to accept this as a fact of our condition. I refuse to believe that we are meant to walk around this planet merely moving from one distraction to another, each in different direction, with no end in sigh to our plight as a rational being. How can reason exist in the world yet be used in such self-destructive ways? How do you affect true change in the world? How do you break the cycle of pain and ignorance that has existed since mankind's inception without having to resort to the tactics of the very system to do so?

But perhaps I've been refusing reality for too long now. Perhaps I am the one who is blind, not society. How do you reconcile the needs of the one, with the needs of the many? Much the same, how do you do it for desires? For dreams. Hopes. Aspirations. How do you create true understanding among beings seemingly incapable of such a thing? How do we transcend the limitations of language?

"I just want to know what blurs and what is clear to see."


I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes somebody great. For me personally...for society...from any perspective really. I desire greatness. I covet it. I covet the power it brings. Not the power to be recognizable as a celebrity, but rather the power to enact real change. To mold the world in the image I perceive as being most beneficial to it. But how selfish of me is this dream? Why should my desires and ideas be any more valid than another person's. At the same time, why should I, as an individual, even care about the opinions and desires of others. If I could be so lucky to make this dream a reality, then does that not simply speak to the extent of my skill and luck in relation to others who have less power?

How do you create a world with equal opportunity for all, yet with consequences for each action we take? And how different would this world really be from the one we currently live in? For all the talk of government totalitarianism, money-oriented class disparity, and education gaps, who is the real captor of our spirits? We are. Ultimately, I believe each choice we make is ours, and ours alone. Thought we may have a number of biological and environmental predispositions, ultimately, we are fully in control of our destiny.

And what of family? I think about my grandmother who is now in her seventies. She lives alone. No family anywhere near. Her two children are thousands of miles away with no way of visiting her. She is in bad health. When she gets sick, she has nobody to even bring her a cup of water to her bedside. And these kinds of thoughts seem to bring a glimmer of clarity. Perhaps I am just as lost as the masses I espouse these empty platitudes against. Though I ask of society why it is so polarized in one direction or the other, I myself am seemingly fixated on "fixing the world." But how polarized is this view? I know that I am no wiser or better than any other human being, philosophically speaking. But pragmatically, I can't help but see myself as such. But maybe this is not a bad thing.

I am only a man. I accept this. I accept the limitations of this condition. Yet I refuse to accept that this condition will remain in this state forever. I refuse to accept that I will never be greater than this.

I am awake. I am unburdened. I know who I am.

Friday, February 4, 2011

And yet here I am...

This whole blogging generation is fucking insane. All it's done is create a world of socially inept, emotionally crippled, grammar-challenged half-wits and insanely unrealistic expectations. And Facebook is the worst one of all.

It's a horribly cold disconnect.

I'm fucking terrified of the real world man. I would give anything to be six again. I'm fucking lost man, and it's...just terrifying.

It's been a long time man. Been a long time.

But the best thing in all of this is the fact that none of it fucking matters. Not a single bit of it.