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Have I lost my mind?
9 years ago
Within my body, there is written a journey. Where does it begin? Where does it end? Is it my choice? Does choice exist at all? Or do we simply believe in choice because some things are too complicated for us to predict?
Within my mind, there is a message, a message beyond the words which I have been taught to use. I want to share it with others. I want to bring relief to all this suffering I see. I see it more than most. I see it because I am suffering on the inside, in a way that is only evident to me, in a way that only I can understand. That is why I care so much.
People ask me how I am. I say I'm fine and smile convincingly. I am lying almost every time. I don't think anyone dwells on whether or not they believe me. Am I right?
I was chased from my home by someone who I needed to care for me, I went with anxiety and fear to another, where I was loved and accepted.
I made friends, I lost friends. I fell in love, and I lost those I loved. Others fell in love with me, and I turned them away, because I couldn't love them in return. Guilt lingers within me, because I wonder if it is all my doing.
Terrible mistakes brought detriment to a dear friend of mine. An inability to understand each other tore us all apart. Soon after, fire tore through what I called my home. I walked among the ashes, and somehow, just for a moment, it all seemed so beautiful to me, so unworldly, so profound. I felt not grief, but awe instead. Even in devastation, beauty can be found, if only you can find a way to see it.
I built a new home, I brought those I call "family" with me. One day, that which I have built will also vanish. This family too, will also change.
I made brave moves, I made the moves which were cowardly. I made changes, and fought others.
I look at my old drawings. They still smell of smoke, and somehow I understand why I made them, better than when I was making them. Somehow, I understand the mystery of who and what I really am greater than I did before. I am a naturally occurring machine, an equation trying to solve itself. I am an artist, and not everything I do can be quantified in logic and language. So much of what I know lies beneath my conscious self. I know which pencil strokes to make, but not how I know it. So much of what torments me lies there as well.
I saw inside my own body, I saw masses that shouldn't be there. What I knew was possible, but never worried about, had found me in my own reality. My intellect always knew, my heart never acknowledged. For a moment, they had to cooperate.
I saw my friend's name on a jail roster. I saw his charges. I heard his sentence. I forgive him. I want to help him change, but don't know how to do it.
I went through surgery, I recovered. I took painkillers. They shut down whole parts of my brain that suddenly made me realize what I can be if only I can free myself from fear, hatred, resentment, selfishness, pride, ignorance, and delusion.
I can be an artist, one who creates whatever he wants. I can be a musician, one who knows how to free the beauty trapped in his imagination. I can be a dancer. I can be educated. I can be grateful for all that I have. I can be a kind person, who knows how to help others, and does. I can be in love, and be loved in return. I can control myself, and teach others the same. I can have conversations with people. I can take an interest in them. I can be interesting myself. I can learn, I can grow, I can change, I can adapt, I can bring love to a world that is starved of it, desperate for honesty, deprived of wisdom. I can be Silver, not this human that I am. I can be what I want to be, and not what I am, but first, I must be at peace with what I am. Paradoxical, but true.
The drugs rattled the machinery of my mind, withdrawal led me through a surreal fog. I felt like I was in a dream, a real dream I couldn't wake up from. I went to work, but it didn't feel real. I went home, but it didn't feel the same. I don't feel the same. I rode the waves of new and thrilling music, I rode the waves of joy and exhilaration. I rode them and then I crashed again, crashed like I hadn't in years. I became desperate. I became terrified. I reached out, I laid myself bare before someone I had always been afraid would never accept me. He listened, he advised, I wept, and I thanked him. When you let go, and choose simply to be honest, truly honest, you will find liberty you never believed possible.
I read 58 pages of completely new thinking, and suddenly, from the darkest depths I rose to the highest heights. I suddenly understood more than I ever had before, how to be free, how to see the pain all around me, but not let it stain me, how to be at peace, how to let go. How to look at death itself and welcome it with an embrace, and a sense of awe.
And I knew I would lose this moment, as all things are eventually lost, as all things fluctuate, as all things change. Nothing is permanent, but this is no cause for despair. It is cause for joy, if only you can see it. If only you can be aware of what the world really is, what you really are.
I touched enlightenment. I have not obtained it. I have a long way to go before I even draw near it, but I have touched it, for the very first time, for only a day two, and now I know what I have to do, but not how to do it.
Will despair find me yet again? Yes. I know this without a doubt. Can I survive this? The deeper question that I asked, and answered, was the following:
What is this thing that I call "me"?
This thing that I call "me" is an illusion. "Me" has never existed, and it has always existed. "Me" is only a name created to identify the unfathomably complex configuration of atomic particles which make up my mind and body. Those particles are as old as time itself, and once were part of other beings, other animals, other worlds, other stars, the very beginning of everything, as they will be at the end of everything. "Me", is only an idea, a concept, a box to contain part of the whole into, only one sequence in an eternal dance, a single note played on an astronomical instrument, one tick in a clock we call the universe.
So will I survive? I have always survived, and I will never survive.
Would you believe me if I said I'm not on a single drug right now? It's true.
This isn't mathematics, this is life. Could I really explain to you the sum that I've discovered, from all that's happened in just the last few years? All I know is that it's time to be honest with myself. What I am, what I am not.
I am a major depressive.
I am an artist.
I am fortunate.
I am unfortunate.
I am compassionate.
I am selfish.
I am hard-working.
I am lazy.
I am responsible.
I am complacent.
I am wise.
I am stupid.
I am broken inside.
I am healing.
I am temporary. I am changing.
I am great, I am nothing.
I am jealous.
I am generous.
I create, and I destroy.
I am full of sadness, full of pain I can't describe, pain which I have never been truly honest about.
There is happiness imprisoned within me, waiting to be freed.
I am just a person, a little person, with an entire world surrounding me. I want to change, I need to change, and I will, somehow.
Why does it matter so much to me to do this? Because I love you. All of you out there, from those we call "evil" to those we call "good", I love you. Perhaps one day I can learn to love myself, and be liberated from all this suffering.
Have I lost my mind? Or am I getting saner? We will see, won't we?
The conclusion, my friends? I'll use a quote that you might recognize:
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday."
-Silver
Within my mind, there is a message, a message beyond the words which I have been taught to use. I want to share it with others. I want to bring relief to all this suffering I see. I see it more than most. I see it because I am suffering on the inside, in a way that is only evident to me, in a way that only I can understand. That is why I care so much.
People ask me how I am. I say I'm fine and smile convincingly. I am lying almost every time. I don't think anyone dwells on whether or not they believe me. Am I right?
I was chased from my home by someone who I needed to care for me, I went with anxiety and fear to another, where I was loved and accepted.
I made friends, I lost friends. I fell in love, and I lost those I loved. Others fell in love with me, and I turned them away, because I couldn't love them in return. Guilt lingers within me, because I wonder if it is all my doing.
Terrible mistakes brought detriment to a dear friend of mine. An inability to understand each other tore us all apart. Soon after, fire tore through what I called my home. I walked among the ashes, and somehow, just for a moment, it all seemed so beautiful to me, so unworldly, so profound. I felt not grief, but awe instead. Even in devastation, beauty can be found, if only you can find a way to see it.
I built a new home, I brought those I call "family" with me. One day, that which I have built will also vanish. This family too, will also change.
I made brave moves, I made the moves which were cowardly. I made changes, and fought others.
I look at my old drawings. They still smell of smoke, and somehow I understand why I made them, better than when I was making them. Somehow, I understand the mystery of who and what I really am greater than I did before. I am a naturally occurring machine, an equation trying to solve itself. I am an artist, and not everything I do can be quantified in logic and language. So much of what I know lies beneath my conscious self. I know which pencil strokes to make, but not how I know it. So much of what torments me lies there as well.
I saw inside my own body, I saw masses that shouldn't be there. What I knew was possible, but never worried about, had found me in my own reality. My intellect always knew, my heart never acknowledged. For a moment, they had to cooperate.
I saw my friend's name on a jail roster. I saw his charges. I heard his sentence. I forgive him. I want to help him change, but don't know how to do it.
I went through surgery, I recovered. I took painkillers. They shut down whole parts of my brain that suddenly made me realize what I can be if only I can free myself from fear, hatred, resentment, selfishness, pride, ignorance, and delusion.
I can be an artist, one who creates whatever he wants. I can be a musician, one who knows how to free the beauty trapped in his imagination. I can be a dancer. I can be educated. I can be grateful for all that I have. I can be a kind person, who knows how to help others, and does. I can be in love, and be loved in return. I can control myself, and teach others the same. I can have conversations with people. I can take an interest in them. I can be interesting myself. I can learn, I can grow, I can change, I can adapt, I can bring love to a world that is starved of it, desperate for honesty, deprived of wisdom. I can be Silver, not this human that I am. I can be what I want to be, and not what I am, but first, I must be at peace with what I am. Paradoxical, but true.
The drugs rattled the machinery of my mind, withdrawal led me through a surreal fog. I felt like I was in a dream, a real dream I couldn't wake up from. I went to work, but it didn't feel real. I went home, but it didn't feel the same. I don't feel the same. I rode the waves of new and thrilling music, I rode the waves of joy and exhilaration. I rode them and then I crashed again, crashed like I hadn't in years. I became desperate. I became terrified. I reached out, I laid myself bare before someone I had always been afraid would never accept me. He listened, he advised, I wept, and I thanked him. When you let go, and choose simply to be honest, truly honest, you will find liberty you never believed possible.
I read 58 pages of completely new thinking, and suddenly, from the darkest depths I rose to the highest heights. I suddenly understood more than I ever had before, how to be free, how to see the pain all around me, but not let it stain me, how to be at peace, how to let go. How to look at death itself and welcome it with an embrace, and a sense of awe.
And I knew I would lose this moment, as all things are eventually lost, as all things fluctuate, as all things change. Nothing is permanent, but this is no cause for despair. It is cause for joy, if only you can see it. If only you can be aware of what the world really is, what you really are.
I touched enlightenment. I have not obtained it. I have a long way to go before I even draw near it, but I have touched it, for the very first time, for only a day two, and now I know what I have to do, but not how to do it.
Will despair find me yet again? Yes. I know this without a doubt. Can I survive this? The deeper question that I asked, and answered, was the following:
What is this thing that I call "me"?
This thing that I call "me" is an illusion. "Me" has never existed, and it has always existed. "Me" is only a name created to identify the unfathomably complex configuration of atomic particles which make up my mind and body. Those particles are as old as time itself, and once were part of other beings, other animals, other worlds, other stars, the very beginning of everything, as they will be at the end of everything. "Me", is only an idea, a concept, a box to contain part of the whole into, only one sequence in an eternal dance, a single note played on an astronomical instrument, one tick in a clock we call the universe.
So will I survive? I have always survived, and I will never survive.
Would you believe me if I said I'm not on a single drug right now? It's true.
This isn't mathematics, this is life. Could I really explain to you the sum that I've discovered, from all that's happened in just the last few years? All I know is that it's time to be honest with myself. What I am, what I am not.
I am a major depressive.
I am an artist.
I am fortunate.
I am unfortunate.
I am compassionate.
I am selfish.
I am hard-working.
I am lazy.
I am responsible.
I am complacent.
I am wise.
I am stupid.
I am broken inside.
I am healing.
I am temporary. I am changing.
I am great, I am nothing.
I am jealous.
I am generous.
I create, and I destroy.
I am full of sadness, full of pain I can't describe, pain which I have never been truly honest about.
There is happiness imprisoned within me, waiting to be freed.
I am just a person, a little person, with an entire world surrounding me. I want to change, I need to change, and I will, somehow.
Why does it matter so much to me to do this? Because I love you. All of you out there, from those we call "evil" to those we call "good", I love you. Perhaps one day I can learn to love myself, and be liberated from all this suffering.
Have I lost my mind? Or am I getting saner? We will see, won't we?
The conclusion, my friends? I'll use a quote that you might recognize:
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday."
-Silver
Such a journey may unsurface pain, regrets or those realizations and events you can't "unsee", but... to forego all the risks of what you might learn and discover is to quite limit oneself. I can only hope you retain those around you who shall be at your side, those who have the meaning of family to you... those who are there and care about you no matter what.
Perhaps you are better than a dragon, you can forgive the deepest wrongs and wish to aid a world I've for a long while now lost pretty much all hope for... if you can muster the emotional fortitude, do not lose the strive of those attributes; they are good traits that are rare in this world.
I do hope those drugs you were taking were but temporary and not intended to be a permanent fixture... many do not believe so, but one can master the state of their own minds without altering it chemically, though it takes work, a change on how you view the world in general, and what life is by its core definition to you. As I'm sure you are aware, who we are... internally/spiritually/mentally/emotionally is the true world, whereas all the flashy lights and rat race and conveniences of modern life are but a façade layer, and not the core root of what existence is.
Though I only know you a little, I do consider you friend... and... though I cannot guarantee to be the most encouraging or upbeat one in the world... I'm open if you ever feel to talk.