It’s raining. It’s always been raining. I accept the rain. I walk in the rain. I have always walked in the rain. I see people playing in the sun. I walk over to join them in the sun. I am burned by the sun. I walk back towards the rain. I invite them to join me in the rain. Unfortunately, they don’t like the rain.
I seek out to find those who also walk in the rain because those are the only people who can play in the rain with me. In that sense, I do not have friends. I have never had friends. I will never have friends. The mere concept of friends bothers me. What does it mean to have someone in your life to share experiences with? What does it mean to genuinely trust someone with your life? What does it mean to have someone who takes an active part in your life?
I used to think that it was important to have friends. I used to convince myself that I had friends, or at least, I used to call some people in my life my friends. But it seems that the more I used the word friends, the more foreign it becomes. The more I think about the concept of friendship, the more unrealistic my thought pattern becomes. And it seems the more I try to conceptualize the concept of friendship, the more I am convinced that such a concept does not exist.
I am listening to Lana Del Rey like I have thousands of times before. I’ve never met Lana Del Rey in person; I’ve never even been to one of her concerts before, but her music is one of the few certainties that I have in my life. While friends come and go depending on a series of arbitrary circumstantial conditions, I can still fall back to the same couple of songs in the same couple of albums for some sort of stable grounding in my life. And as I continue to create and destroy more and more relationships with other people, I still have Lana Del Rey to fall back on.
Friends are supposedly a source of relatability, so why can’t I relate to anyone in my life? What does it mean when the only living people whose presence are directly accessible to me only have the ability conceptualize but never understand my experiences? It feels that I don’t exist in the same world that they do. There must be something profoundly wrong with me. Or, there must be something profoundly wrong with everyone else. Or, there must be something profoundly wrong with both. Through existing, I feel as if I have profoundly wronged the universe.
I walk on a country path. There’s nothing shining like a fiery beacon. I am walking alone, like I have for all those years in the past. It’s quiet. I can take for granted the vivacious sounds of thousands of bugs trying to find their sexual partners. I can take for granted the cleansing smell of mist at night that smears on my face when I walk past tree branches. I can take for granted the crunching of grass below my feet as I continue to walk forwards. Alone.
I am living. “Living,” and wishing that I could articulate my sentiments in a way that would contribute to some sort of conception of the universe that could be accessed by others. But I cannot even articulate my own ideas to myself, so why should I believe that I could articulate it to others?
That’s just on a philosophical level. I can’t even bring myself to think about the countless people that have passed through my life, leaving only a remnant of experience for me to hopeless cling onto as the progression of time continues to wash me forwards. Those experiences I have shared. Those experiences I have not shared. I can observe all those happenings that occur throughout my life, except for those experiences that I will never have a chance to experience. Those experiences that could potentially alleviate the vacant cavern — would it be too much to ask to explore?
My loneliness overwhelms me and leaves me questioning my place in society itself. If we are social creatures, as Aristotle put it, then am I considered a social outcast? Is my ostracization a self-imposed source of self-destructive behavior? Should I be grateful for the various social opportunities that I have been afforded instead of creating suffering through wanting more? Probably. I create positive feedback loops of sadness by lusting for some sort of connection that would resolve my existential solitude. Is that wrong of me?
Through art, I have taken off all of my clothes. There are only a few parts of my life that I have deliberately chosen not to express through writing. Most of those sentiments can be assessed by anyone who wants to know. Some just exist through invisible sandcastles I create through conversations with people that come and go in my life. I have vulnerabilities, of course, but those vulnerabilities create my identity. I articulate those vulnerabilities through words on a page, and I patiently wait for someone to read beyond those words on a page.
More than to conceptualize: to understand my experience.
shades of gwei 