Sweet Disease

It's funny how emotions disappear-

if you fear them.

It's funny how the world ignores the truth,

but you were supposed to be the exception

to my rule.

Still I crave this sweet disease

of being lonely

in your company.

But go ahead and leave,

because I know this won't survive.

---

I think I like being sad.

It's strange. Or is it?

Sometimes I have this sort of urge to achieve things. I think they call it ambition or whatever. But it makes me want to do things, to be more than good- to be great.

One of the greats.

And sometimes I think that if I'm not sad, then I'm not working hard enough, or not thinking hard enough because all the things that I've realized or learned or created that were truly great came from pain. And I don't know why the world works like that, and I don't know if it's always true, but you can notice it if you look. Tons of people have noticed it.

Especially at Minerva, it feels like every student has some tragic backstory. Some comedian that I was watching recently who was talking about the "struggles" of growing up with an strict mom said something like: "Batman wouldn't be Batman if his parents weren't dead. Same with any superhero."

And I can't help but feel like it's true.

I just finished watching "Theory of Everything," the Stephen Hawking biopic and it feels like every Great who ever truly was a Great had some tragic something. Life dealt them an awful hand and since that hand was so exceptionally awful, it forced them to stop, think, and choose to do something creative enough to survive. And once in a while, those people don't just survive, but they thrive. They transcend the mediocrity of the rest of us and become something exceptionally unique.

Do you think it could come from anything other than pain? Or maybe simply being born with some certain structure that makes you different? Well I guess some are actually hardwired to be more introspective, but is everybody? Can people not learn to want to hurt? Can they not learn empathy or self reflection or curiosity?

The more people I talk to at Minerva, the more I realize how uncannily similar we are. I don't know how they did it, but somehow they managed to find almost 160 kids from all over the bloody planet who have that same exact ache in their heart to want to overanalyze and cry and learn and feel things that some people -I think most people- are just too unwilling to force themselves to do.

Maybe it's just me thinking that I'm the center of the universe, and trying to project my thoughts onto the world, but in a way, isn't that what we all do? Always?

Somehow. Through the nonsense that we wrote in our applications. They found. No. They chose students who have that (non-sexual) masochism in them. Maybe they call them overachievers. Perfectionists. The people who recognize that long term satisfaction > short term pain/happiness. Or those who were forced into that understanding without a choice.

I used to think that I was special. But I don't know if I truly believe it all the time. Or at all. I used to think that growing up in an unideal familial environment just increased my range of emotion in the negative direction, which inherently increased that range's upper bound as well, and thus, I just felt more than other people. And this feeling made me more introspective. It made me think things that other people who didn't feel that level of pain didn't have to think because why would they choose to be uncomfortable when they didn't have to? If you can't see the peak of a mountain, why would you keep climbing? Unless a part of you accepts the worst possible outcome, chooses to be okay with it and then sacrifices themself to curiosity in the name of expanding their range of emotion- with that assumption that if the range expands in one direction, it must expand in the other as well?

I don't know. I'm just writing weird things and I might wake up and read this and wonder what crazy pills I was on, but tonight is the first night in a while that I forced myself to write instead of just going to bed. And that's something.

Recently I've been feeling happy. Which, I know I know, should not be a strange feeling, but it is. It's weird to feel happy. Not just happy, but peaceful. Accepting that things will never be in perfect harmony is just...new.

I think a part of me is scared that the happiness that results from this acceptance is merely me numbing the hard parts of life, and thus, just feeling that numb happiness because the edges of my range are now being ignored. I want to think that there is a difference between numbing your feelings and accepting your feelings, but really is there? Isn't numb a feeling? Isn't choosing to accept that some things cannot be changed a form of surrender and defeat and numbing in itself?

That's why I forced myself to get up and turn on the light and I chose to write into the dark weird hours of night instead of sleeping in preparation for my 6:00am flight tomorrow morning. It's because I'm scared that if I'm not sad then I won't be happy. It's because I'm scared that if I don't feel pain then I won't feel pleasure, I won't self-reflect, I won't realize things that are worth realizing and I'll just be numb and happy and stupidly okay with the world and the universe and the vastness of all the things that we have the potential to feel. It's why for a long time I didn't know how to interact with my sister and help her because a part of me thought that if she didn't feel that same pain that I felt, that she wouldn't be intelligent or emotionally curious or I don't know maybe I think that she won't understand what I feel? Or that nobody will, but if she goes through it too then she'll be the closest who could?

But that's freaking wrong. IT"S TWISTED, I tell myself. And I know. But then again, it's just easier to not have to watch myself grow up again through her. It's easier to feel nothing than to feel too much. And that's exactly what I've been telling myself I can't feel if I want to be great. If I want to be one of the Greats.

But is it true?

Why does it feel true?

Do you ever feel reeeeeeeeeaaallly mortal? Like that feeling of being excruciatingly hyper-aware of how infinitesimally and catastrophically insignificant you are in the scope of whatever the hell is bigger than the universe?

I used to feel that. Right in my chest. And it hurt. And in that moment, I wanted. it. to. end.

But.

After. I stood up again. Straightened myself. And told my self: wow. You felt that. You are alive. Besides the fact that all that pain and feeling and emotion and sheer anguish exists, I'm over it now and I can be a little happier. And that, to me, is how I defined happiness. It's how I still define happiness I think. And I don't know if it's wrong or right or I'm messed up or that's how everybody thinks or just a few think- but I know that it makes sense. To me.

That there would be no happy without sad, no light without dark, and no life without contrast.

I guess my question is just whether the amount of life you get is directly proportional to the amount of contrast that you push for. Whether the amount of light you can see, is directly proportional to the amount of dark that you put it up against. That whether the amount of true pure quintessential happiness you can reach, is only attainable if you force yourself to endure the same amount of deeply painful suffering in your soul.

It's funny because I met someone like me. His name is Austin and right now the emotional equivalent of me when I chose to put myself through some difficult thoughts.

I was talking to him the other day because he was dreading having some tough conversations and some tough thoughts and some really tough painful feelings. And at the end of all of it, I told him that he'd be okay no matter what, and he said something like: "I know. It's because I kind of enjoy this."

Happy feels nice, but I want my mess back.