Connection. Resilience. Isolation. Strength. Rationality against or aligned with reason? Self-evaluation in the near absence of external input. Purpose and motivation. Contentment in despair. The freeing influence of meaninglessness on one’s ability to be authentic and real. I hope to explore these topics here, perhaps along with some tangential considerations if my body is up to the task of some extensive typing.
I don’t believe I see myself with the clarity that an audience would any more than I would claim to deserve an audience for evaluation. I can be certain such an experience would be rife with pain. But among it might lie a tinge of truth so as to make the suffering worthwhile. The crushing cruelty may yet be endured if the strength of hope is provided from the same source, as it seems to be the only source because the potential others seem to me to be silent.
I claim no worthiness of reverance but nor do I accept vitriolic condemnation. Hate me for difference if you want, but there are many accusations that could be levied against me, for which I would suffer as a result, that have no truth in them at all. If I am accused of rape, I am imprisoned, unpersoned, cancelled, alienated, charged, fined, all without a shred of evidence beyond the claim of another. I would not violate like that, but a man’s principles and his dedication to upholding them are not so readily ascertained.
I accept that I am a pariah with the understanding of the socially unacceptable nature of the questions I pose. I wish to tread where others utterly refuse. I am an offense for where I permit my thoughts to venture. I am labeled defective for the mechanisms which drive me. Not for criminality or perversion, but for failure to fit the mold. I cannot cease my thought. I cannot erase my memory. Are these disabilities or superpowers? They make me different, but I do not uphold myself as a righteous judge that I should pronounce any declaration.
And so I seek connection, a kindred soul who could elucidate that which I am blind to by virtue of my limited perspective. But I see this world. I see the claws, pincers, fangs, venom, and toxins of nature and the many other evils of it which tell me how dangerous is my pursuit. I see the risk and accept it with little to lose but things upon which I place only a bittersweet value. What merit is there to living if I abandon it’s potential for some substitution? But when so many have chosen the substitutions, my desires render me the outcast.
But I am strong. My god, if I had one, I am strong. I have survived untenable tragedy. I have endured struggles not often matched or exceeded with a frequency that implies I was complicit to some degree in bringing about these horrors based on the pattern alone. If I am so often surrounded by fire, I would think it reasonable to assume I may somehow be failing to recall having started some of them. My memory is despicable in it’s breadth and depth while yet granting me a view of my life that few seem to express relation to by virtue of their actions and behaviors.
Is what I see from others truly indicative of life? Are the patterns they operate among validated by the expanse of representation? Is their defiance of reason and logic merited by the benefits of their forgetfulness or are they early symptoms of a profoundly insidious plot failing to conceal to me it’s intended outcome? I refuse to elevate myself. I will not consider myself above my peers because I know no good thing comes from such illogical fallacies and magical thinking. I may argue my perspective, but a lack of retort does not fortify my position so much as highlight my isolation.
If there is anyone I admired from their story alone, it is Socrates. No more modern thinker has my admiration as he does, and my exposure to more recent philosophers has only disappointed me. As comparing a banana duct taped to a wall to the statue of David, I find much of history so insipid. Despite this, archeology still fascinates me intensely, with the entire community apt to be swayed entirely by a single conclusive discovery.
That, to me, is the appeal of archeology. A community accepting the best guesses based on available evidence, always ready to find more and reformulate their thoughts in light of new and unexpected information. A community can consider with far greater accuracy the evidence evaluated by any individual. So am I rational? Does my reason stand against debate? How can I know in isolation? It makes sense to me, but how can evaluate my own senses without external input?
Thus my purpose reoriented to connection. My motivation to seek connection grew in accordance with my own acceptance of the individual shortcomings of which I had no hope of overcoming. But in coming to that new plateau, I found new challenge. I am utterly lacking in the skill of connection from a place of genuineness. I could connect as a sociopath, feigning to live the ideals of the individual with whom I conversed, but without my own personal satisfaction. I lived lies I could not maintain because I did not know any other way. But now I do.
Now I am me. I am my honest and genuine self as I have never been before, and I refuse to return to the methods which only provided a temporary and insufficient relief from my pain. I accept that I am different, that the entirety of my vision is difficult to communicate in words, and that so much of what I am sounds like utmost despair to a mind based on common foundations. I am content with what I stand upon and I stand behind my words. What I say today, I mean like never before, and I will defend my words against all accusation if only to show I am not as different from you as I might seem.
Our commonalities and shared sensations are opportunities. I know fear like few seem to, but I would not contest that from my ignorance of your personal experience. But with that fear I have come to know the opposite, a degree of triumph I see few operating with. My greatest victory has been coming to accept who I am and the validity thereof. Abandoning the judgements of the world and society has allowed me to express myself as I am, and I am not ashamed as the world so long told me I should be.
I am real. Regardless of who you are, somewhere deep down, I believe you are too. So I seek the one who would be real with me, despising the paths laid out by power to forge their own authentic meaning in a world of distraction. Someone willing to dive into the depths of metaphor, engage in uncomfortable thought for the rewards offered by such risk, and evaluate with the intent of seeking their own highest potential. I don’t seek someone “great,” only someone real and authentic. That is a form of greatness for which I feel the world forbids recognition.
I like to think I explained sufficiently what I am after, so what do you seek?
Lo and behold, my wrists held for this exercise, hopefully not one in futility. Thank you for reading and even more so for response.
