I remember a time when I used to feel things. There are a few memories I have, that flow in and drop out, of when I felt things so deeply that I would be moved to tears. Today, I remembered a day in autumn when I was lying down in the back of my mother's car. I was about 16 years old and my perspective on life was simple, my worries were few. We drove past some trees that were beginning to turn red, they were glistening in the sunlight. I began to cry. I saw so much beauty in those trees. I must be a fucking lunatic for crying at trees. I remember that moment but I can't recall the feeling. I am, at this moment in time, an empty box. I feel nothing. I've been here before. Although, something is different about this time, something feels endless about this emptiness. So I am writing this in the hope that it will help to draw out some of the nothingness and replace it with possibly a sense of acheivement or even better, a good laugh.
This is a documentation of my journey back to, dare I say, a life of feeling.
I have been interested in philosophy and spirituality for a long time now. I discovered eastern philosophy when I was 18 and this helped me to make sense of my naive, forgiving nature. None of it is true. Nothing that anyone told me and that I then continued to tell myself - that the way I see the world is wrong and I will get hurt by many people for being the way that I am. Or at least, the way that I was. I could say that some of that is true, I did get hurt by many people, but only because I half expected them to hurt me because that's what society told me they would do (and what I reminded myself would happen). The best advice I could have gotten would have been something along the lines of: "You have a forgiving nature and an empathetic heart, this is a gift but only some people are worthy of exploring these gifts that you have been blessed with. Protect them and nuture them, for you will need them when you grow into an adult and discover that most of the people around you have forgotten forgiveness and it will be your spiritual rite to remind them." That would have been fucking peachy. What I got instead was: "Your naivity will get you into trouble. Don't trust anyone." In turn, I trusted no one including myself, because there is no separation between me and another person, but still allowed in the nastiest of them all. I gave my gifts away and wasted my energy. I have no one but myself to blame, for I tirelessly worked against myself to change my nature. I sit here realising that nothing can be changed, but everything is change. That is nature: change. It cannot be forced. It's like pulling a flower at the stem and hoping it will grow. All that will happen, is that the stem will stretch and the fibres will begin to tear and the poor plant tissue will cry and eventually break. I can't believe I tried to convince other people that I am not me. It sounds so silly now. A pointless mission with no end.
In this moment, I feel I could be mute forever, I swear. Haha. I could spend the rest of my life in a silent retreat, except not a retreat, still my life but just silent. An observer with no interference in how things go, with my limited language and my knack for detroying my self esteem in a minute. All I need is a wall to talk to and I could break myself down in a flash. What a monster I have become. I can even do it to other people if I wish to be so cruel. I do it to my father sometimes because he reflects me the most and when I hate me, I hate him double and then I come back to hate myself again, making it triple the destruction. If we're going into destruction, let's talk about my skin. My beautiful skin, splashed with freckles or sun tattoos, as I prefer to call them. Now riddled with scabs and scars, I've destroyed it. Oh, that could move me to tears... almost. It's curious that my mind and my consciousness watch but can't stop my fingers from going wild as they pick and scratch and squeeze the little love I have left for myself. Lost through the pores that are now blocked with blood, plasma, dirt and hatred.
Let's dive a little deeper.
Part of me is considering that maybe this lack of feeling is actually a rest from feeling itself, a numbness. I'd like to think it's not a negative thing. It could be part of the ebb and flow of life, the cycle, the mobius strip. Another part of me knows that I hate working in an office and the passive-aggressiveness and competition that encompasses me there. A toxic environment for anyone who was sensitive once upon a time. The trick is, everyone there is beautiful. They are incredible, kind people. They reflect aspects of myself that I respect and dislike. So acurately that it's a little scary. That's not a problem. Something is missing. Something is off. My purpose, maybe. I don't think I want to be an animator - a terrifying thought which might end up in a truth I don't want to face. I do know this. I've known it for a long time. I become disinterested and unmotivated every time. I found a glint of joy when I was teaching myself how to rig characters but the momentum was lost in the monotony of waking up and pretending to be alive. Pretending to care about something that does nothing. That gives nothing. Showing up to a place to gain approval I don't need and an income that is modest and most people in my third world would kill to receive but hardly sustains me because no amount of money can. This kind of life is one I never saw myself in. Somewhere in that process of trying hopelessly to change myself, I remember desiring to be "normal", to be regular. To keep a stable job and fit in with other humans. This has never been me, and it wasn't just my juvenile, anarchist, piece-of-shit self that was screaming it. I have been whispering it to anyone willing to listen. Gently. Desperately wanting someone to hear me. It's me who needed to hear, to listen. I haven't, I have ignored my distress calls and my psyche's physical manifestation in a stiff neck and a pimpled chin. I'm a problem solver so I wonder, what do I want to be instead of an animator? Scratch that, I don't have to be anything. What do I want to do? What do I want to do every day for a month, maybe a year, perhaps five? Where are these answers? I remember a time when I would think of owning a cupcake shop, and that was it. I would think of designing stickers and writing children's books and my heart would skip with elation. That's how I know that this time is different. I feel nothing.
Contrary to popular bullshit on the internet, happiness is not a choice. The choice lies in whether to be content or not with exactly the way your life is and what you have (because you always have exactly what you need at any given moment, no more and certainly no less), all the time - and by all the time, I mean the present because that's all there is, that's eternity (according to Alan Watts, the beautiful, genius with the foxiest wit and the meanest logic). Be content with all of it, the "ups" and the "downs" - that is true freedom. That is where the "happiness" lies. Not that you must paste a paper smile on your face and tell yourself that everything is fine while you're hanging from a cliff by your shoelace. So I guess it's just okay where I am. Is it okay to feel nothing? In the acceptance of it, I almost feel a smudge of relief. Maybe I really should do nothing. Perhaps writing about this won't help, because again, I'm trying to change my state of being. Trying to control the uncontrollable.
So I still feel nothing but I accept that now. I'll take a step back. Give myself space. Nurture the real me. Hope for nothing, not even the best. Be the tragedy that I think I am until I've had enough and something will change on its own, because it always does, I can count on that. Not exactly the happy ending either of us were hoping for but it's not the end, there's still time.
