the examined life

“I never talk about feelings with anyone but you…because you think about these things…and you’re so wise about them.”

This is one of the most flattering things I’ve heard about myself, because well, the main struggle in my life is my overthinking, so it’s nice to know there’s some sort of an up side to that. However, this doesn’t change the fact that this approach to emotions (thinking rather than feeling them) probably prevents me from experiencing them in the right capacity. But this is perhaps the price I’m willing to pay in order to note happiness felt, that I might preserve it for later, instead of simply being present in the moment, perhaps made greater and more magnificent, unsaddled by concurrent mental analysis, only to be left with fleeting shadows afterwards. Or perhaps it is the price I pay for a kind of insurance premium, against the risk of not knowing where feelings come from, or horror of horrors, feeling wrongly. Feeling content when I should be indignant, jealous when I should be grateful, etc etc.

Ignorance is bliss, how I loathe those words! I’d trade it a thousand times over for knowledge of what is true. Happiness is never the end goal, only truth. And somewhere in the unilluminated shadows, there lurks the fear that the truth will not turn out to be beautiful, nor simple, nor happy at all. Every path, whether the destination be happiness or otherwise, has a burden to bear, though for the truth-obsessed, the seeker is made all the more painfully aware of it.

**

circus animal

This house is full of poison.

I think this unfailingly at some point every time I come home. Temper Temper. What a beast it is! I used to revel in its shiny scales and feathers, but now it seems more like a tired creature of the circus, too bored to turn more tricks and too proud to retire behind the frayed, faded ropes.

Rearing its head, one inch off the ground and then two inches, circle once over the tent taunting its masters, one foot above them all and then two feet, raucous peal of laughter, a smirk and then

flight.

You know what the best thing about flight is? Pure, unrestrained freedom. The moment you unleash anger. That is what it feels like. Untethered by any sort of rationality or pretenses, it's the most joyous destruction. The sweep upwards. The uncontainable glide. The noiseless dive. All this I know very well, because I'm forced to watch it from the hopelessly mundane perspective of the ground. Every single time, I watch with a slight fascination and overwhelming repulsion.

The culminated crash back to me is always the most thrilling. Twenty feet away now, and then ten feet, the momentum it carries is like that of a freight train's, two feet and then one foot and then two inches and then one. The soundless spectacle finishes with a much too loud note from the crash cymbals. Whatever else Temper has going for it, nothing beats its theatrics.

**

struggles of dorian gray

I haven't written in here for a while, mainly because...I don't know. There isn't much turmoil in my life right now. And my writing preys on diseased emotions best, is that a little twisted? Happiness, contentment, guilt, they all breed a lot of silence, though the last is easiest to spell out.

So let's talk about guilt. Let's talk about all the times you swore you'd never be a certain way. That's for the shallow and the ones who believe in fairy tales. But you know so much better, and you are much much superior, and you'd be above it all, you swore and swore and swore to yourself, wearing that half invisible sandwich board of self-righteousness proudly.

It's like when you watch a movie and the moment before the hero shows up, no one stands up to do the brave thing at all, and you think, I would do that. I would stand up from behind that chair. I would beat that guy in the red cape to it. But then, if you take a little longer to think about it instead of getting caught up in the sweeping entrance of Clark Kent, you begin to doubt you'd ever straighten your spine at all.

This is what most guilt-ridden things boil down to. Bravery, none of it, not enough of it, not the right kind of it. Breathe, Pause, Exhale, Drop the second person mask now.

I am not brave enough to do it, I fear how it would look, how the silent judgments of each and every stranger would gush out from their eyes, how the monstrosity of the shallow masses would tower over me. I'm too afraid to face it all. And here's the truly twisted thing. I know with certainty this cowering will age into a regret, because hey, I don't believe in fairy tales like them, and I know Clark ain't coming. But I stay behind that chair anyway. Regret is a much more familiar enemy than the masses. And so a much more tolerable one.

**

outgrowing

I stumbled upon some saved conversations of what started past trysts, and promptly closed them after twenty-some lines. Oddly, a huge smile was bubbling up inside me as I read, which is a weird reaction to embarrassment. I can only attribute this to the fact that I have grown sufficiently out of that version of myself that I no longer feel affiliated with her, and thus I can laugh at these mistakes with a wise shake of the head. Or maybe it's because the partner-in-crime is no longer in my life, nor was he ever in any significant way, which means, among other things, not only no unexpected reminders from sightings in day-to-day life, but also no sudden recollections that make me squeeze my eyes shut against my will.

I spent a lot of blog posts about this particular incident, partly due to timing and partly due to the above-mentioned lack of knowledge, which made room for idealization. I spent a lot of time fantasizing how the story's extensions might play out, but reading the ignition of the whole thing, I realize that it might be best left as a full movement in itself. If he came back, he'd come back with these memories of the nonsensical and silly things I've said, and though I just said I have no problems recounting such things, I have no desire to know that there's someone else who could recount them as well.

**

perspectives of the militia

Regarding my last post, I can't tell if it was crafted with an underhanded move of denial or not. But that's not my main concern right now, if weightier feelings were to surface later, they'd, of course, be dissected with the due obsession I give everything. But "right now" is dominated with a slight frustration at the too-familiar sine curve I've found myself on.

"Bad Luck", that's how someone identified it to me. For general conversations in the generic bubbly air of coffee shops, "bad luck" suits just fine. But I get the feeling it's not just fine, not for the person who coined the term and not for me, who nodded in consensus. I think we feel like we should take responsibility for it. I think agency is bursting to charge forth in front of us, plant its stance resolutely, and announce: "this is somehow because of you."

"Because of your ways", it'll say, with the kind of tough love a general reserves for his fleet, "because of how you look, because of what you think." I think it'll say this with sharply clipped syllables, no mincing of the words spared. I think it'll march away with too loud clicks of its heel. I think it'll leave behind a trail of dust and shame hovering over my face, taking the veil of the "bad luck" argument with it. I think it'll do all of this if I let myself slip into the crutch of excuses. So I don't. I think it'll show no mercy regardless. And I'm right.

**

re-education

I feel like I haven't written in here for a while, at least not personal things. Even though I really wanted to record them somewhere, I'd stopped myself for fear of whom my audience might constitute. However, I think my desire to pour memories into words is outweighing the apprehension.

There were, of course, escapades that made great material for lighthearted gossip. They provide great release but evoke very little emotional unveiling for me. Then came the major plotline of the week, which, at this point, has become such a familiar pattern I hardly think it deserves yet another rehashing. My mind seems to feel the same way, as it has mostly vacillated between the realms of indifference and fatigue since. I sort of just feel...exhausted, not at the specific situation but the fact that an encore was not something I was looking for.

On a practical level, the timing is impeccable. The let down came at the tailwind of a letting go, molding my reaction into one of almost detached interest rather than a melodramatic internal affair. On the other hand, I almost miss the exquisite pangs that accompany struggling for something I care about. It's being a really long time since I really felt anything of such magnitude. Maybe not even in three years. And while the fluffy stories are fun enough, I can't help but feel like I have missed something crucial in my reformed education.

**

nostalgia

“Ah, no nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed!”
—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

I don't know if this is true. On one hand, does it even count as nostalgia if you've never had it? On the other hand, I certainly know what Pessoa might be gesturing towards. I too, had glimpses and ghosts of things and people I could have "had", yet they could not quite make it into the definitive realm called existence. These things I indeed have great nostalgia about, if it can be called as such. But I personally do not count them so. They are usually too diluted with fantasy and falsity to qualify for true, grounded nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a gritty thing. Not light on its feet nor painted over with too-bright colors. Everything is as is. All the unpleasant details. The smoke in the room the first time you poured your heart out. The chilling raindrops that fuzzed your vision after a homecoming. The melting makeup at the end of the night when you get your heart's desires. All of these you remember, and here's where nostalgia's sucker punch's going to get you: despite all that, all the smoke and the messiness and the imperfections, you still want those moments back, blemishes and all.

**