6/14/2003
my muse has deserted me. it's been a long time since i've written anything meaningful, if i ever wrote anything meaningful at all. i have a rant somewhere that i wrote out of pure disgust with things and stuff while sitting in this massive Barnes and Noble bookstore. although, i think it might make too much sense to really be a rant.
as always, life is one of those dreaded journeys of self-realization, and my most recent discovery is that i'm still a complete retard when it comes to emotionally pressured situations. i'm a lot more laid back than i used to be, so everything is generally better and more fun, but when shit happens, i still lose my cool. i don't get emotional as often as i used to, but when i do i think i have a tendency to fuck things up. i need to think a little about what i say before i actually say it, instead of afterwards.
but enough about me. my life isn't interesting unless you're a part of it; you have to be there, otherwise it doesn't make any sense.
of course, though, i have little else to talk about; my muse is gone. for anyone who's not familiar with my muse, it wasn't any fun, anyway. it was pain. or "pain," really; it wasn't any real kind of suffering, just stuff that hurt, but wasn't life-altering. well, everything is life-altering, if you think about it. everything that happens to you shapes part of who you are, even if in the most minute way. but the stuff i used to write about wasn't end-of-the-world kind of stuff, though it may have seemed like it at the time. but looking back at it now, it's "almost pathetic" (to quote myself). as i wrote when i first decided to find some new inspiration, "I cared about the most trivial things." I really did. i hope the things i care about now aren't trivial. of course, it's all a matter of perspective - what you value, what you want out of life, what you think life is about.
i think life is about being happy. no, i know that life is about being happy. well, my life, anyway; i'm not going to tell you what your life is about. that's for you to find out on your own. nobody can tell you how to live; you have to live for yourself. i almost started saying "you can't do this, you have to do that," but then that would be telling you how to live, wouldn't it? lucky i caught myself before i finished that thought.
i think i've found myself in something of a paradox, or a pickle, if you will. i don't want to write about myself, because it feels so self-centered. however, i can only write what i know, and "i only know about myself" (i'm not afraid of quoting myself; that's from my author project play). well, i think i'll de-pickle myself by saying that it's not self-centered if i don't expect people to care about what i have to say. how's that for facing down demons?
so my life is about having fun. what's the point in living if you're not enjoying it? perhaps that makes me somewhat existential, but i'm not about to call myself an existentialist. i'm not about to call myself anything. i don't like to identify with people or groups or any other such thing. it limits me. saying that i'm part of this group or that group means i have to be like those people, and i don't want to be like other people. and being like a certain kind of people often means i can't like the things that different people like. why restrict myself like that? identifying with a group makes me feel weaker, too. i don't need to be like other people to feel better about myself; i don't need to fit in or know that i'm not alone or anything like that. sure, i believe in having friends; i don't know what i'd do without mine. but we're not any certain kind of people. we don't all have the same tastes or the same beliefs or the same types of personalities. we can't be labeled.
however, i suppose my independence may be a weakness in itself. i go crazy when i actually have to depend on other people to do things for me. but i think i'd rather be too independent than too dependent.
so my life is about having fun, but it's also about not doing things i'll regret. i'm still kind of working on that one. i've been going pretty good since i completely overhauled my way of thinking but, as i said above, i still need to work on emotions a little. i'm learning.
my life is about being happy, and the things that make me happy. the negatives in life are only important because they remind me of how good the good things really are. and they teach me, of course. i'm a big believer in learning from your mistakes, because i think the world would be a much better place if people did that a little bit more often. it's not hard; i promise. generally, making a mistake doesn't make me happy, and since i try to avoid things that don't make me happy, i try not to make the same mistake again. it's just logical, really.
don't get me wrong though; i'm not striving for some ultimate happiness or anything like that. who wants enlightenment when you can be happy now? besides, ultimate happiness would mean never being sad and, like i said before, you can't be happy all the time; if i was, i wouldn't know what happiness is - i wouldn't be able to appreciate it. as John in Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) said, "The tears are necessary." that's something very profound, very simply stated.
so i don't live for God or the afterlife or even anybody. just for myself, and for happiness. maybe that sounds selfish, but think about it for a second. you live for someone else because they make you happy, so aren't you living for yourself anyway? i just do it more directly.
now just because i'm all about living life doesn't mean i don't want to die ever. i suppose if i could be eternally young, then maybe i'd want to live forever, but i won't be. so i've accepted that i'm going to die; i've come to terms with it. i'm not afraid of death. why fear something inevitable? what i am afraid of is getting old. aging takes everything from you. your body, your ability, your independence, even your mind.
"And don't tell
me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued... "There's
nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's
playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind
of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling,
brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can
you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such
phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation?
What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological
mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel
movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"
[Catch-22 by Joseph Heller]
it really scares me, and i suppose it does tie back to my abhorration for dependence. getting old would take away everything that makes me who i am; then who would i be? you might be thinking that old age is inevitable, too, but it really isn't. it can be avoided by dying. the only thing we ever really have to do is die. i want to die. not now, but before i start to fade.
i don't know if i would have ever said something like that before. i can't remember what i ever thought about death. i don't suppose i ever thought about it much. i think i was a pretty happy little kid. as i got less little (well, bigger, i guess) i went through that suicidal phase. that was around the same time i wrote so excessively about "pain." i probably thought about killing myself more than i should have, but i think i got it all out of my system then. i got a lot out of my system then. i got pain out of my system. i guess pain didn't desert me then. i just chose to shed my muse. i think i like that better - change by my own decision, instead of things happening to me. i'd like to be the cause for occurences in my life, for the most part; if something else is controlling them, it's too much like fate. i don't believe in fate; it, too, makes me feel weak. saying things were "meant to happen" is like avoiding responsibility for my actions. it limits me, too. it means i'm relying on somebody or something else to make my life, instead of making it myself; something else is deciding who i'm going to be. hell, it even ties back to my dislike for dependency. apparently everything i believe in goes against fate.
so now i've left my muse. it didn't leave me. something like "pain" doesn't leave, anyway. it latches onto you and sucks the life out of you. pain leaves, but pain is natural. "pain" is that hurt that comes from caring about trivial things, and it doesn't walk away on its own. feeling that hurt only causes unimportant things to seem more important, causing more hurt. it's a cycle.
i've broken away, and am left without a muse. now the quest to find a new one continues. but why should i depend on a muse for inspiration?
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