I woke up last night thinking of that cure song, pictures of you: I’ve been looking so long with these pictures of you, that I almost believed that they were real. I’ve been living so long with these pictures of you that I almost believed that pictures are all that I can feel”
I hate to be the angst posterchild or …well..quote the cure. Lord knows I’ve never done it before and will never do it again. But sometimes you are in the middle of a catharsis and you don’t even realize it. Not all changes are dramatic and produce a butterfly where a moth once stood. Sometimes its just a little change, a little clarity. And often you only feel the growing pains before you note the growth.
I awoke to the awareness of how much time and energy I waste on things I can either do nothing about, or not worth my time. Of the chase to make whispers yells. I’ve been unhappy lately and unable to suss out why. Of my desire to turn ease into comfort, and concession into joy.
I have many things of need and little of joy and I couldn’t put my finger on why. I awoke after a lucid dream to the awareness of how little time I have, as of late, put into the mechanics of what makes me happy. It has become a viscous cycle of devaluing my own time. Sort of an addiction to fruitlessness.
I share this because I think this is a pretty common revolving affliction in our society. We want. Lord we want. And desire. We see hints and teases and whispers of our needs in the surrounding world and we get used to these hints like they are the real thing. We invest in route habitual mechanics that give us glimpses. And we grow used to the frustration of not getting what we want, almost comforted by it.
What is even more frustrating about this cycle is that recognizing it does not inherently end it. The realization of how much time you waste doesn’t come with a new worker orientation packet to all of the things you need and want, and how to get them. There is “no life and how to live it, welcome!” brochure. There is simply a new kind of silence where the white noise resided. And a hope and a gentle kind of sadness.
But I think, for me, anyway, it is tantamount to a loss of fear. Because the peaked anxiety that accompanies fruitless behavior and useless effort if palpable. You keep feeling you should do more, have more…but more what.
Admitting you don’t really know what you want or what you should do to get it is sort of freeing.
And to be clear, I don’t mean to imply that I have spent years of my life doing things I hated. Or that I don’t have friends I love and am happy to put effort into, or “hobbies” or what mind you. I just mean I have grown lazy about my own satisfaction, and maybe a little disillusioned with my efforts, causing me gaze at pictures of past happiness instead of seek the reality, in all it’s occasional dirty ugly painful effort, of real satisfaction.
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