Pretending there’s more
There’s something this world seems to be running away from. And we do this by pretending.
By pretending and hoping there’s something more, than this.
We do it with false emotions; by pretending to care about that which we do not. By pretending to be “better” than we are; to be a “good” person, so that we may feel good. By pretending, or genuinely feeling excited about that which, in a perfect world, we’d know by now can only leave us empty.
It bothers me when I see the disingenuousness in people. The sprawling and pathetic attempts to feel good.
And even though I most certainly do this myself, in ways both known and unknown to me, I seem to take pride in the laser-like accuracy to detect the essence of the situation. To see the game being played.
Perhaps it would be best if I reserved the application of this “skill” for myself, and only myself.
There’s a darkness and despair swimming around me and I’m tired of looking for a way out.
For even if I exit this self-indulgent state, I feel there’s nothing else there for me.
Perhaps “nothing” is the best we can hope for.
Perhaps it’s all there is.
I apologize if these words get you down, friend. But I trust my honesty will create an understanding.
I can’t help but ask myself why I seek a way “out” when perhaps there isn’t one. Perhaps self-dissolution is all there is. And I suppose I’ll have to live with that.
Perhaps what I’m doing here, is squashing the little hope that remains. The hope that gets in the way.
I know this contains truth, as I can feel the dark cloud lift as I write these very words.
How insane is it that to truly discover freedom requires one to experience the hellish experience of the alternative, again and again.
It really is hope that creates misery.
I usually have nothing to say to people when they recite their “petty” grievances to me. But perhaps it is the “lauded” ones that cause us the most pain.
For these are that which have the power to truly fool us. These are that which create the clinging to hope.
Perhaps the greatest lie in existence is that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
There may be a light, but it’s not at the end of anything: it’s the realization that there’s nothing at the end of this tunnel but death.
Does this make life “worth it”?
I don’t know. My gut says it’s better to experience the roller coaster than not.
This may come as a surprise, but I often have a love-hate relationship with writing, as all too often it feels like pulling teeth.
In many ways, I prefer the ambiguous wisdom of music. It’s far less self-indulgent, and dramatic only when need be. It doesn’t require one to say a thing, if one so chooses.
I just recalled an interesting thought. A memory.
I used to “look down upon” the emotional. Perhaps look down upon isn’t the right phrasing, but I think it was a judging of people for being what I perceived as, emotional for the sake of being emotional.
But perhaps the truth is that in becoming partially numb to life in my younger years, I was simply no longer able to acknowledge it. Or didn’t want to.
I don’t know. I wasn’t always like this. Certainly not all of the time. But the feeling rings true.
Perhaps I’m simply unable to recall the time and place. It’s possible this pervaded most of my teenage years. I never realized the turmoil of my life until much later.
Surely I felt things in the moment. But I knew of nothing else. This had become my new normal.
It wasn’t until my early to mid-twenties that I began to realize how fucked up “normal” can be.
I don’t know if I did it for myself or others, but a large part of my life was spent pretending things were alright.
And this is perhaps why most of my rebellion was unconscious and “natural”. It was never thought out.
I began to close off and reject the world because the unseen wisdom within me knew it to be sick.
Of course, I was made to believe that even this was “wrong”.
But “wrong” never held much sway with me.
I’m honestly surprised I didn’t grow more bitter than I did. Perhaps it was the knowing that things could have been far worse. And that for many, it was, and is.
At the same time, it’s this type of thinking that prevents one from acknowledging what ails them.
In this world, nobody is spared. Everyone is lost. Everyone is clutching onto their hope of a way out, or the longing to discover one.
But if “the way” is one of self-dissolution, even if only temporarily, perhaps the way to Heaven is through Hell.
The temporary hell of walking through the dark truth.
The temporary hell of discovering that, perhaps there is no heaven.
Perhaps there’s only dark at the end of the tunnel.
Perhaps all you really have in this life, is your little box of matches.