Our Souls Get So Far Apart, I Don’t Know How They Ever Knew One Another.

Have you ever found yourself trapped in a downcast loop because you made the mistake of asking yourself if everything is okay and you can’t find an answer? I am finding it increasingly difficult to see myself as a part of the world around me. Of course, it is possible to bend to its expectations, but there’s only so much contortionism I can do. It feels like my opinions on how we should live are growing further and further away from how people are living. What I consider indecent seems to be settling around the current norm. I cannot sleep. I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing or taken yet another chunk out of myself. There has come a point in which I am thinking a lot about how much of me there is going to be left if I continue as I am. It would all be easier if a doctor just pulled me to the side and announced to me that I was mad.

(Artwork by Müge Olçum)

I do not understand this place anymore. At first, you could talk about the way things could have been different and you might be listened to. But now… I feel like I am being looked at like one might consider a raving lunatic. As if somehow I am not seeing the world for what it really is. Am I full of so much distrust that I can only project it onto everything around me? Of course, I don’t want to ask you directly. I am musing. Brooding.

The last decade of my life has been one of increasing distance. There is no one I would consider a friend. Most of my true friends over the last few years have been people I have met for no longer than a few weeks. There has been no steady sounding board. Not in person. This is why, at points, I worry that I might be losing my mind. I lack the arrogance that my father had to not question myself, but I have enough of it to decide that people don’t interest me anymore. When was the last time you spoke to someone like a book speaks to its reader? This, I miss.

Truth be told. I am not sure where I am right now. Not regarding my well-being. There is a din all around me. It is inescapable. As if everyone needs to have something going on constantly. I wonder how it’s possible for the few of them who can still sleep to sleep. People have become increasingly uncomfortable around the quiet. That place where you sit, stand or walk along with who you are. That is the time when everyone is grabbing for something. People are unknowingly refusing to see themselves.

I remember when I used to work abroad. Hopping from one 5-star hotel to the next with sixty or so other human beings. I used to entertain myself with something I called the “breakfast experiment”. The people I worked with were inherently social. They would group together in clusters of five or more first thing in the morning to consume the buffet breakfast and discuss their evenings. The latest Netflix special or the ultraviolet karaoke bar. I would sit alone and watch. 

Eventually, at least one of the groups would disperse leaving all but a sole diner. That’s when I would start the clock. There was only one who I remember sitting there alone daydreaming. For the rest of them, it was only a matter of seconds. The smile that they had worn when they bid their comrades farewell quickly faded into something of discomfort. Then the phone came out. 

My concern is that this matter isn’t given anywhere near enough serious consideration. Just stop and think for a second exactly what this means. To not be able to sit quietly with yourself and be comfortable. You don’t have to be elated by the experience, but you should at least be comfortable. Everything has a snowball effect. We feel uncomfortable so we do what we can to escape it. But in doing so we learn nothing of the discomfort -the primary teacher in life when it comes to ourselves. We’re also somehow taught that we’re special, that we can do what we want, and that anyone can achieve anything. This breeds entitlement and laziness. So why would you want to do the hard work? The world is going to bow to your uniqueness anyway.

I don’t see a lot of special. I see a lot of copycat floundering. Perhaps there was once a time when everyone was unique and every human had some enriching quality to bestow upon society, but this is not that time. We even romanticize that lost character who doesn’t fit into the world. The occasionally suicidal. This world just doesn’t suit me. And this might be true of few eccentrics. But in general, I think it is this…

No human being is designed to exist harmoniously when their existence is distanced from their true self. No human being is designed to exist harmoniously when they don’t understand or are working towards an understanding of who they are. When one participates in escapism to this level. The scrolling, the intoxication, the constant noise, and the flashing lights. There is, somewhere a part of themselves that is aware of the crime against human nature. Those who have a bleak outlook just haven’t gotten quite far enough away from that threatening voice of reason yet. But they’ve got far enough away to be uncomfortable listening. 

I don’t know what to make of the din. I feel it just behind my eyebrows and as a sensation of hollowness somewhere between my chest and stomach. Sometimes it enrages me. I’ve been told to let it go and stop paying attention, but it accompanies almost everyone. So if I am to give in to my needs as a social creature then I inevitably invite it closer. And to get to know and care for someone. That is the hardest part of all. To see that gap. To hear it being defended. All of this was advertised as being harmless fun. A means of staying in touch with the world. Perhaps even learning. Naturally, we’re not that stupid as to invest in something marketed as a ‘forget yourself’ tool. Are we?

It is impossible to walk very far without seeing someone choosing their phone over the world around them. The fiction of ultimately useless characters over their place in existence. It slowly trickled down over the last few decades until eventually even the smartest of us are hooked. It is when I am laying in the bath that I think about this. I think about loneliness. About how it doesn’t come from not fitting in. It doesn’t come from pursuing your own ideals and then realizing you never stopped for anyone. It comes from having the world around you. It comes from watching and wishing that things were different. That people might still have productive conversations with the voices in their own heads instead of either shutting them down or being paralyzed by them. 

And it is not as scary as they might think. Sure, it takes some time. You can’t expect to meditate the first time you sit down in a quiet room. Expect some ebb and flow. But it is no different from learning to eat with chopsticks or playing the piano. Anyone can achieve it to some degree, and they will be better off for trying. But, there are now two generations of instant gratification culture ‘living’ on the planet. If something can’t be mastered in 5 minutes then it was never for us. So what does that leave us with? Drinking and taking photos of ourselves. Humanity’s most prevalent avocations for now. The knife has been trying to cut through granite for so long now that it barely functions as a spoon. All I’m saying is that, if you’re reading this there’s a large chance you’re no longer an individual. And that offends you because there’s a small part of you in there that knows just how far away you are getting.

It is not happy. It is terrified, confused, and malnourished.           

P.S.

Sorry, I came back.

Why do I sometimes feel like I need to explode, and I no longer care if I survive the blast or not? 

What does that mean?.