smileyfish
Ex-Bluelighter
Not the key
I’m one of those people who did all the right things. I achieved well in school, well most of the time, anyway. I travelled – took off for a year in student exchange to a foreign land – and survived. Went to university and emerged, four years later with a Fist Class degree. Along the way my best friend became my lover, then my partner. A relationship strong and honest, beautiful. Through luck and a good impression, I was given a job others only dream of. I have it all, but it is not the key.
Contentment is an evasive beast and happiness is elusive. Not that I am unhappy or discontent, just that I’m never quite where I want to be – always reaching for something more, always aware of the fragility of this existence and the illusions we create for ourselves. Unable to shake off the cobwebs of childhood to fully embrace my current existence. And I never will.
People like us, we think too much. Always analysing, probing ourselves. Exploring the wilds of the subconscious mind on which most people choose to shut the door. Keeping it open because we value the knowledge more that the ease of ignorance. And once you have become aware, you can never forget. So you keep exploring, wandering, losing yourself amongst thoughts most would never investigate, learning, seeking, just to understand, but the mission is unending, for as you learn, you change the very things you seek to understand – always more questions, more strangeness unfolds.
And too frequent a companion on these journeys, faithful depression. A companion since childhood when, misunderstood, the retreat first began. Unloved, unwanted, but people like us, we can’t let it go, for there is security in its familiar embrace. At least in the company of our own darkness we can define ourselves. But how can you find the light while you cling to darkness?
I will never exist for the moment, incapable of “just living”. I will sit and observe from the comfort of the shadows within. I will search myself for some awakening, some particle of knowledge I’m yet to glean, relating it to the past and extrapolation to the future. I will take my mental notes on my companions, feeling into their existence. I always will – it is my nature, my circuitry; behaviour leaned by the age of five, when it was essential to my survival in the treacherous waters of school.
But I take what I can: moments of joy, fragments of contentment, and yes, I am happy, in my own confused style. And I’m proud of my life, my endless quest to know myself and the people who’ve chosen to accompany me on my journey. I love them fiercely. And I would be lost without my noisy, complicated head, my near-neurotic over-analyses. And I would be so much poorer without the knowledge I have gained. I do not hold the answers, for I have learned they don’t exist.
I’m one of those people who did all the right things. I achieved well in school, well most of the time, anyway. I travelled – took off for a year in student exchange to a foreign land – and survived. Went to university and emerged, four years later with a Fist Class degree. Along the way my best friend became my lover, then my partner. A relationship strong and honest, beautiful. Through luck and a good impression, I was given a job others only dream of. I have it all, but it is not the key.
Contentment is an evasive beast and happiness is elusive. Not that I am unhappy or discontent, just that I’m never quite where I want to be – always reaching for something more, always aware of the fragility of this existence and the illusions we create for ourselves. Unable to shake off the cobwebs of childhood to fully embrace my current existence. And I never will.
People like us, we think too much. Always analysing, probing ourselves. Exploring the wilds of the subconscious mind on which most people choose to shut the door. Keeping it open because we value the knowledge more that the ease of ignorance. And once you have become aware, you can never forget. So you keep exploring, wandering, losing yourself amongst thoughts most would never investigate, learning, seeking, just to understand, but the mission is unending, for as you learn, you change the very things you seek to understand – always more questions, more strangeness unfolds.
And too frequent a companion on these journeys, faithful depression. A companion since childhood when, misunderstood, the retreat first began. Unloved, unwanted, but people like us, we can’t let it go, for there is security in its familiar embrace. At least in the company of our own darkness we can define ourselves. But how can you find the light while you cling to darkness?
I will never exist for the moment, incapable of “just living”. I will sit and observe from the comfort of the shadows within. I will search myself for some awakening, some particle of knowledge I’m yet to glean, relating it to the past and extrapolation to the future. I will take my mental notes on my companions, feeling into their existence. I always will – it is my nature, my circuitry; behaviour leaned by the age of five, when it was essential to my survival in the treacherous waters of school.
But I take what I can: moments of joy, fragments of contentment, and yes, I am happy, in my own confused style. And I’m proud of my life, my endless quest to know myself and the people who’ve chosen to accompany me on my journey. I love them fiercely. And I would be lost without my noisy, complicated head, my near-neurotic over-analyses. And I would be so much poorer without the knowledge I have gained. I do not hold the answers, for I have learned they don’t exist.
