I have been told that if I were selling beer people would buy it, I don’t need any more testosterone, I should be a rich socialite, I was the most masculine in high-school, I ask the questions no one else would, I’m a student of life, I’m unique, I make people feel stupid, I’m a burly backwoods type hipster, my cars suit me, I dress like I’m from Back to the Future, I’m too educated, I’m the ideal white person, I have a unique way of walking, I should be in movies, I should be a radio announcer, I’m smooth, I have very nice teeth, I have high cheek bones, and above all else that I am a Grecian god. It’s funny how these comments hint at my life being much more interesting and glamorous than reality is currently willing to permit.
It’s days like today. I miss wandering, I really have to do more wandering, it’s one of the few times I feel comfortable, where the fear of collapse is the farthest from my mind.
I read a quote earlier today, it was regarding the nature of pain and people’s fear of pain. It said that we should be proud of pain and wear it like some sort of badge, be proud of strength it has provided us.
I feel that he is only partially correct, he states that we should not hide our pain because that’s simply allowing ourselves to conform to society’s reality. I’ve always felt that displaying your pain to people only gives them leverage, it empowers them to assert themselves over you and thus in a sense you’re inviting society’s manipulation into your life.
I’m not afraid of pain for pain’s sake, and I’m not afraid of pain because society has taught me to be afraid of pain, I want pain out of my life because I’m well aware of how it affects me, the long nights, the paranoia, the distraction. I feel like real pain just obliterates sections of my life, all I can remember is this negative void when I’m sure there was some beauty there somewhere.
I think pain trades one sort of strength for another. I feel like pain eliminates cautious security and replaces it with a sort of brash adventurousness. It encourages people to risk in the hopes of achieving something better. I guess it depends on the person. I feel like pain has an ability to twist someone, break them, make them complacent, sicken them with their own hurt. It follow people around like a curse, or maybe it can be thought of as being similar to a bum leg. Just imagine, you’re going about your day, conversing with your friends and finishing up your business when you get up to move and you feel that tightness… that burning. It’s always there nagging at you, pulling at your personality trying to make you into something that’s just a little bit uglier, one tug at a time. I don’t know if I can call that strength.
I guess in my case it has made me more aggressive, but not exclusively in the violent sense, it’s almost as though part of me has stopped caring about the consequences. It has me considering living a sort of life and treating people a certain way which I would have previously never considered. It has made me a little bit shallower in some ways and has added depth to me in others. It’s exciting, I feel as though this new set of values has opened me to a sort of life I had previously excluded myself from. It has made me work on myself, made me reassess my values, my way of life, which certainly is something.
I find myself becoming increasingly absorbed by the minutia of life. The rust on a car, the natural patterns of the denim in my jeans and the flannel in my shirt, the sway of an attractive woman’s hips, the grain of wooden shelves, the way the velvet fibers on my couch reflect the light, the creases in the leather of my shoes, the intonations of a voice, the faded sections of wallpaper, the grime on my records, the sheen of my tan polyester blend shirt. I find myself getting lost in all these details, and I haven’t the slightest idea of what it means.
I find the very beginning of this video gorgeous. Something about those colors on the lower end of the spectrum in the early afternoon that arouse a sense of adventure in me. I do love adventure. I find myself wanting to get lost in that scene to explore every facet of that reality, of that point in time… if only I were so lucky.
