subterranean lovesick blogs

not defined in merriam webster.

What does it mean when you feel loneliest in the company of others? What does it mean when all of your dreams involve being chased by some looming, dooming natural disaster? What does it mean when it hurts to laugh, to smile, to show a glimpse of happiness; not because you don’t want to, but because it involves voluntarily constricting your muscles to forms they are not used to? What does it mean when you find solace and comfort in depressing, heart-wrenching music? What does it mean when your best friend is a pack of smokes and a bottle of wine? What does it mean when you can’t remember what your dreams were; not those that you experienced in the previous night’s REM cycle, but those that piqued your interest and motivated you and drove you towards some lofty, long distance goal? What does it mean to be nothing but a speck on a gargantuan planet in an unfathomably large universe? 

Why do I seek answers to questions that have none, knowing that no answer will arrive, but desperately chasing one anyway?

how to fight loneliness

Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy…

… I know what it’s like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can’t. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside. 

…Maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid, and ignorant. But I’d rather be in it…

…When you don’t want to feel, death can seem like a dream. But seeing death, really seeing it, makes dreaming about it fucking ridiculous. Maybe, there’s a moment growing up when something peels back… Maybe, maybe, we look for secrets because we can’t believe our minds… 

...You know, I can take a lot of crazy shit from a lot of crazy people. But you - you’re not crazy. 

 Oh yeah? Then what’s wrong with me? What the fuck is going on inside my head? Tell me, Dr. Val, what’s your diag-nonsense?

 You are a lazy, self-indulgent, little girl, who is making herself crazy. And you’re just throwing it away.

…Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends and by the ’70s most of them were out living lives. Some I’ve seen, some never again, but there isn’t a day my heart doesn’t find them. 

just smile all the time. just smile all the time.

a poem.

Preface: I once met a schizophrenic who changed the way I see the world forever. This is some loose verse that came from this encounter, which can’t exactly be called a friendship but which I hold dear.

Kenneth

As I twiddle my thumbs

And whittle some words with a pen

A man sits to my left

A furrowed brow of worry on his face

A plaid button-up, misaligned and distraught

His eyes follow things that aren’t there

Why does he move in fear?

Trepidation haunts his face

It’s worn and tired and timid

He speaks with caution and concern

He struggles to stay on subject

I can see the gears grinding in his head

If he passed me on the street

I’d recoil in temerity

Afraid of the crazy man

Who talks to himself

Even though all he was doing

Was trying to give a warm welcome

His mind doesn’t work the way mine does

Though mine troubles me as well.

I hear wandering words from his mouth

Longing to form a phrase or a thought.

My words are discernable and concrete

My tongue teems with powerful precision.

Some say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

What do they make of this man?

A man whose will would have him

Dispel the cloudy fog of distraction

That vexes him nightly and daily?

That binds him to these four walls?

He laughs and he sings and he eats,

As my mind, troubled with demons

Envies his spirit and ardor for life

He watches my calculated movement

My dexterity and my comprehension

Which his mind yearns to possess

How I wish I could bequeath him

With the serenity of lucidity

For a day, to be free in my mind.

This is a power I have not

No magic miraculous medicine

To let his soul pour out like a river.

How I wish I could repay him

For the gift he’s given me

The kindness and compassion that’s rubbed off

On a girl who saw only darkness

Who now longs for the light on her skin.

It’s a gift I can’t reciprocate.

Oh, humanity! How you puzzle me so!

Oh, the judges of sanity!

Oh, the minds that can’t grow!

-written by me, 12/17/2011

“find your passions,” says the self-help book.

We live in a world, an age, of people in limbo.

Floaters, transient beings in between jobs, cultures, mid-life crises, and drowning in the overwhelming presence of everyday stimuli. Every other person has a therapist, and those who don’t are either keen, in denial, or too busy to be self-aware.

So how do you save yourself? Even the most financially well-off and privileged of us face the threat of disappearing in a world that is progressing faster than its people can keep up. Well, according to your modern day guides to life, you must “find your passion.” Great; so what does that mean? What is passion?

Immediately we think of romantic passion, being caught in the throes of love and feeling like nothing could be so powerful. Passion has ironically become such a banal, overused word that its meaning has dulled and withered. People use it in place of “interest” or “infatuation”. We have passion fruit this-and-that, Passion Pit, things that are “wildly passionate”, amongst everything else.

A passion is not just a fleeting interest or emotion, though. It’s not really liking the trendy Thai dish you had on Monday night. It’s a love for something with an attachment to your soul. It may manifest itself in the first thoughts that pop up in your brain upon waking. It may give you the chills when you immerse yourself in it. It gives you drive, purpose, and motivation.

If you were to be stripped of everything, trapped in a barren room with nothing but a white wall to look at, what would you yearn for the most? Well, I discovered recently that this is one way to discern what the greatest passions you have are.

I have determined that mine are:

-communication: making a meaningful connection with people around me and being able to have a dialogue and generate new ideas and discuss and debate.

-writing: i write to live & live to write.

-music: between captivating lyrics and enchanting melodies, music is human explanation of feelings and situations in life in a beautiful poetic manner. you can find a song that captures the catharsis of any possible circumstance. it transcends time, culture, generations, race, and everything else that divides us from our fellow h. sapiens (sapiens).

-learning: it sounds really cheesy and trite to say this is a passion of mine. however, some people are settled with the information they have acquired and that is currently recognized as truth, and others spend their lives constantly itching to know more, trying to expand their brain and their comprehension of the world and existence. i never want a career in which my learning stagnates.

These are a few things that stand out to me. I guess naming your passions isn’t nearly as difficult as figuring out how to incorporate them into something that keeps you living a life fulfilled.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

the silliest and most poignant mmj song i’ve heard.