Existential pain, the journey to proper living, art and love
The last post I made on here sucked. And for a long time I’ve had no desire to write anything with more insight or honesty at all. I often want to write on here after I’ve had my fits of desperate crying. This is just a ramble of thougths I’m having these last few days. I can’t structure them properly.
Long ass, depressing text (be careful exposing yourself to such negativity, haha):
I think I have been depressed for months. I always intuitively understood depression as a reaction to life circumstances that denied your true self. I’m not at all convinced it is a medical condition. It comes when you have no proof of the parts of you that redeem the pain of being you. It comes when life doesn’t validate your worth. And I think that is mostly due to a lack of social belonging, especially in our digital, individualistic time. No tribe.
To me, we seem to be split in two. One part of us that holds the eternal, spiritual, connected and secure us, and one that holds the conscious, animal, isolated ego us. I don’t think either of these are more “true”. I don’t subscribe to any philosophy that puts one over the other. I had a tragedy happen to me, and it blocked me from living in the animal ego world. To overcome it I had to sacrifice, and I had to face everything I was most afraid of. I did it to be able to live in the natural world. I know that is why I did it. I did it because that was the only way I could manifest in that world. I didn’t do it because I thought it would make me happy, really. I did it just to make myself possible.
We all have loads to carry. And we all know with outselves that we are deeply flawed. I know about myself that I’m scared, perverted, spiteful, jealous, limited, ugly, stinking. We all know this about ourselves. It makes it hard to love ourselves. I’m not sure loving yourself is even possible. I’ve tried so much self-help in attempts to reach that, I’ve tried strengthening my ego, I’ve tried deconstructing it, I’ve tried to examine my unconscious, I’ve tried grounding myself in my body, I’ve tried alone, I’ve tried with others, I’ve tried to be stoic, I’ve tried reprogramming my unconscious. But I still can’t reach the conclusion: I am worthy. In fact I think I’m totally unworthy. And I also think that about almost every other person. Because when I look around, I see despair, dysfunction, fear - but in that I see what is beautiful, too. I love others because they are limited, scared, voulnerable. And I can appretiate that in myself, but I still don’t see worthyness.
It remains to me a total mystery that someone can just know they are worthy. Worthy of love, connection, recognition. It’s a mystery to me that someone can know that about themselves. I can’t comprehend ever living like that. Like I’m a man someone I like could want. Or that I’m someone anybody could want to live with. In fact, when people who have initially liked me, and invited me to them, I’ve always seemed to massively dissapoint them. Too shy to open up. Too scared to stand sexual tension. Too self-hating to be patient with. Too quiet to be entertained with. Too passive to excite. I dissapoint, disgust and bore.
I didn’t think I would find myself crying myself to sleep at this point. I’m 23, I’ve gotten my life somewhat in order. Seen from the outside I have every reason to smile now, compared to before. I’ve grown a beautiful beard, I’m built and slim. I look better than I ever have. I sometimes think I’m sexy. I dress well. I paint better than I ever have before, I’m in better shape than ever. I know more now than ever. I’ve taken responsability for my own life and earn my own living doing something I enjoy. I have enough money now to spend on things that should inspire me. But I look around at my paintings, and all I see is failed attempts. I found myself thinking exactly that. “Fucking ugly failed attempts”. It’s harder than ever for me to paint, because I know I will end up hating every single painting. There are two paintings I’ve ever made that I love, and those are exactly the ones I’m ashamed to show anyone because they are kitschy clishes. I’m a clishe.
I tried as good as I could manage, where I was at, to live, but I always end up looking back at failed attempts. And as long as I can go back and somehow attempt to correct them, I still have hope, but it rarely helps. As long as there is progress, right? But if the progress never gets you there anyways? When has progress ever gotten us anywhere good? “I’m making progress”, well, isn’t that just an empty hope? Isn’t hope just a reason to prolong suffering?
Hope has been such a defining word in my life. It’s has been the reason I bothered to go on. I’ve never seriously contemplated taking my own life, but I’ve had fantasies of dying. On a plane for example, I’d imagine being relieved if it crashed. Don’t think I could ever sit in a moment with myself and decide to die, but maybe accepting it with a sigh of relief if death came to me.
The way I can most accurately describe how it feels to live right now, is swimming in the ocean. I’m just keeping my head over water, if I constantly swim. And it’s not that I see anywhere to swim to, I’m merely motivated by my absolute fear of sinking into despair underneath me. The ocean is made up of resignation from life. It’s where I came from. I swam up so that I could give myself a chance to experience life. And around me, I see others doing the same, but they all seem to have something to hold onto. A piece of wood, a direction, another person, an island even. Something to give them some relief.
I was told you could choose in life. You could choose to pursue what made you happy. Isn’t that the great narrative of this era. “Become the best version of yourself, be true to yourself and become happy at last”. Well, for one it seems to me that we have almost no control over our own choices. I’m sceptical to free will. Because how can I choose my desires? How can I choose my temperament? How can I choose my choices? What leads me to act as I do seems to me to be totally beyond me. Those are forces that are ancient, mysterious and so much stronger than me. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to reprogram myself. I’ve tried that by constructing a life that would demonstrate to me who I could be. I’ve tried to narrate my own story. I’ve asked myself “What do you want to experience?”, and I’ve tried to pursue that.
And you could ask, why force it? Why outline expectations of a life experience? Why seek out experience? Well, what other reason would there be to come to this life, than to experience? I WANT to exerience. I deeply want to. I want to experience connection, love, sex, friendship, passion. I want to fuck a woman like a man. I want to smile and look at her tenderly. I want to be a father to a child. I want to travel somwhere with a family. I want to go on hikes. I want to paint good paintings. I want to drive a car to my house. I want to have a garden and see my wife work in it while she sings to herself. I want to walk out of the shower with her in the room. I’m willing to pay for these things with years of pain. That is another life lesson I’ve learned. You have to pay for everything that is good, with pain. But I don’t see myself getting closer to it. “Progress”. Aren’t these the things that matter in life? If I died now, I know I’d think about my moments of greatest intimate connection and intimacy. I would think of smiles, glances, touch, voulnerable words shared. So, that is what I want to experience, because I think this IS what truly matters. I think it is what almost every person alive is mostly concerned with. Connection.
What upsets me most, lately, is my constant ruminations on my failed romance. Again and again and endlessly I blame myself for it all. I think back on all the oppertunities that presented themselves to me. She forgave my foolish mistakes again and again. I did everything wrong in the book, and still she came back. I said self-defeating things, I teased her too much, I was unclear in my communication, I was weak and afraid, endlessly insecure, I talked to much, I self-pitied, I over-shared. Did everything wrong. When I looked at her, alone in a room, when the atmosphere was tender and I melted inside because she was so oddly familiar and curious and beautiful. I looked away and acted cold because I was afraid of rejection. And I ended up making her reject me because I rejected myself. And I hate myself more for doing that. I never learned to stop, I just learned to hate myself more. Now when I see her I can see how she wants away from me. She is awkward. Maybe she’s ashamed too. I can’t do anything about it. But it makes me cry every time. I think I still love her. Stupid me, I love her. I love how she is. I saw a promise in her when I first met her. I found something that felt like I could belong to. I connected. I attatched myself. I thought she could nurture me, like people who matter nurture each other. It’s no shame in that, is there? Is there shame in needing validation and nurturing? Isn’t that what we all do?
Then why did I fail? If I fail again and again, in sexual, romantic encounters, then surely it’s me, and I should understand it personally, right? It’s not constant bad luck. I take it personally because it demonstrates how I can’t be who I wanted to experience life as, no matter how hard I try. And it’s a total mystery to me how someone can just accept love. They don’t know how lucky they are. Every person who has ever had someone knew that they were worthy, loveable, no matter how dysfunctional the relationship.
I don’t know that, and life demonstrates to me that I’m not.















