—a café in Berlin Mitte, 2023
My best friend once asked me, 'Why did you write so many songs about him? Do you think you're romanticizing things in life that hurt?'
Another person asked me after I told them I have feelings for them and I don't expect anything in return, 'So you just want to suffer?'
Since then, I've been questioning my writing and the reasons behind it—my songs, my poetry, my essays. I had to put them all under a microscope.
I suppose nobody wants to suffer, but I've learned the hard way that you cannot love someone into loving you. And it hurts like hell. It feels as if you're standing at a door to which you don't have the keys. You're fumbling through your pockets, desperately trying to find a way in. Your insecurity is devouring you with certainty, screaming that you're never going to be good enough for them.
According to Schopenhauer, human will—desire, craving, etc.—is the root of suffering. A temporary escape from this pain is through aesthetic contemplation. Essentially, this dude suggests that escaping pain can occur through appreciating beauty. During this experience, you shift from focusing on everyday objects to perceiving timeless and ideal concepts. In this state, you don't feel separate from what you observe; it's as if the object exists on its own, and you and the perception become one. Subject and object blend, and you grasp the fundamental Idea. This type of understanding doesn't concern itself with how objects relate in terms of time, space, or cause and effect; it's all about being fully absorbed in the object. Art is the practical result of this brief encounter with aesthetic contemplation, as it aims to portray the fundamental Ideas of the world. So I wondered, is this what I've been doing?
A few weeks ago, I sat in the same seat where Hemingway wrote 'A Farewell to Arms.' I imagined how he brought Frederic and Catherine to life. For a moment, I envied them for their idyllic quiet life in the mountains, their deep love, and their willingness to risk everything for it, until I remembered how tragically it all ended. I started laughing. I knew I had circled back to square one—life, death, Eros, Logos. (Sorry, Freud!)
This isn't just a story about someone who crawled inside my head and set a fire there. It's also a story about how I love him, something he couldn't (and took me a while to) understand. Right now, I'm still standing at a door to which I don't have the keys. Sometimes I'm fumbling through my pockets, trying to find a way in. I haven't desperately banged my fists against the door, asking to be invited in, but I might do it one day. I don't know a lot of things, but I do know that you're not supposed to run from love. Really looking forward to the day when you can read this one. XO, D.
