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Eating Through Ruts & Despondence
Screw it.
I’m tired of feeling like it’s my fault. I cannot and will no longer accept that there is something so deeply wrong with me that it requires me to constantly question myself. To question who I am, how I speak, what I think, and the way I create. Its nauseating and delusional to perform under the guise of cookie cutter perfect metrics. More importantly, it bores me, and I think the conditioning shields all of us from our true interest. Which is where these closeted desires lay dormant, filling us with conflictions and inevitably settling for consistency…. monotony.
“…unless I am myself, I am nobody” - Virgina Woolf
Regardless of these incorrect assessments I am self-aware. And I believe that to be the case with most people. That self-criticism has already held back most of the potential that dies on arrival, due to the aversion to rejection and microscopic analysis. Everything about life has become the same… there’s no amount of good I can do to be good enough to change the destined rejections. And that of course would be natural as I don’t expect guaranteed access to everything. But life has now been filled with prerequisites. And for that we have devolved into a global society full of shame.
It’s like being punished for not having lived longer than my current age. And to question why that lack of “experience” is so villainized, comes down to assumptions based on knowledge that hasn’t been tested. Just to then reference the numbers in order to remove the humanity from within, leaving a husk of whatever adjective that I didn’t get a chance to fulfill. I am not less than because someone else hasn’t told you how to feel about me already.
This surpasses any damnations I can make against the economy, dating culture, or nepotism. I and the rest of you who lay eyes on this essay have already stressed that through our words and actions over the years. I’ve already laid the coins over my eyes with that. There’s no air in a smoke room for those that haven’t lit a cigarette. And I refuse to lose my lungs at the cost of trying to play it cool. There’s no reason to continue to try to be something I’m not when it isn’t beneficial, to me, the one that has to make the sacrifices.
In blaming myself, I have received scraps that have been thrown my way as retribution for all the time and efforts that has been lost on these “consolation prizes”. And for so long I yearned and longed as a cope. Turning my desperations into obsessions. Pulling apart every original thing about myself to appease traditions. I can’t change everything about me and still be unique. It hurts less now that I’ve accepted that it isn’t personal. However, I refuse to run through the obstacle course when the winner had already been chosen and was seated in the audience.
I can’t and won’t care about going above and beyond for anything that ISN’T personal. There’s so much advice about taking every opportunity to prove yourself, and it’s wasteless when society is already plagued with too many options and overconsumption making everything a burden. Essentially, I refuse to have my worth be tied to the ability for other people to see it. There already wasn’t much power there before. My accomplishments have been my own, of course, but they don’t satisfy much when I’m chasing the next thrill to be seen and validated by that approval. In turn, they’ll never truly feel like my own.
And If I am to be a star, and destined to burn so bright that I may die then I should have the privilege to burn for a reason that is my glory alone. Not the pursuit to achieve something for someone else’s dreams. In this world, dishonesty gives you offerings by the handfuls but leaves you deprived of all you are internally. And to me, that smells like a cowardice fool.
