I just looked back over my last few posts for this year. It's strange how the words I wrote in the past six months, though few, somehow seem to describe how I feel right now. But I don't remember ever feeling like I do now. I'm not sure if my memory is bad or if I was more hyperbolic a few months ago.
All I know is that a certain word came to mind recently that seems to sum up how I feel right now: autophobia - The fear of oneself, or of being alone.
Both of those definitions are pretty accurate right now. I am afraid of being alone. No, I am beyond afraid. I am broken from being alone, or if not yet, then I soon will be.
And I am more afraid of myself now some days than ever. But honestly, it doesn't feel like it's even me. It's more like there's a psychopath or an inhuman monster living in the backdrop of my mind, and sometimes his whispers seep through the cracks of my mind when I dream. And it's horrifying.
But a thought comes to mind...what if the antidote is simple, easily found?
Because the most soothing thing lately is...beauty. Strange.
As a favorite author of mine once wrote, beauty costs us nothing, and there is no desire within us to consume it or do anything about it but stare, and wonder, and simply take it in.
Which leads to another thought.
Maybe the deeper answer is worship.
But I haven't felt the desire to sing those songs filled with Christian clichés for a very long time. Why does beholding beauty do more for my soul than singing?
Maybe it's the fact that singing songs has become convoluted in my mind, and it no longer feels like worship. Maybe I need to go back to the fundamental essence of worship. Maybe I need to forget myself and simply let the beauty of every aspect of life lead me back to the one who created it. It's all just a reflection, after all.
Okay, but saying that it's "just a reflection" makes it feel wrong to admire anything else. It doesn't feel wrong, so...
Oh, of course. Reflection, not imitation. There's a difference between a fake that is the object of worship, and a mirror that allows us to see the real source when the mirror is the only thing our eyes are clear enough to see.
That's a good thing, because my heart hasn't known how to worship God sincerely for a very long time. It's comforting to know that the mirrors of pure and innocent beauty are lenses to see him.
Because sometimes, our minds are so frayed that we don't know how to worship God through the lens of descriptive terms. Sometimes singing about how holy and beautiful God is feels so empty; sometimes the only way we can worship is by admiring flowers.
Hah...this is feeling a bit rambling and taking a while to get to the point. But then again...maybe we don't always need to be so hasty about getting to the point.
Maybe...we have to stop and smell the flowers sometimes.
(...I swear I did not plan that...)
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Inner Darkness, Self-Addiction, and Loneliness
I haven't been here in a while.
A lot's happened since I last wrote.
I can't really get into it, partly because of how complicated it is, partly because it's not just my story to tell. But I can say that something's wrong with me. I'm not completely sure of what it is, but I have a good guess.
It's me.
There's a chapter in Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz called "Community", in which he describes his experience of living with a group of guys under one roof after living alone in the country for a while, and how difficult it was for him to get used to it.
Something about feeling alone creates a very odd thing in the human soul. On the one hand, we begin to crave contact, contact that is deep and meaningful and sincere, that gentle touch of two human souls truly acknowledging each other's existence, if only for a moment. Sometimes it's as simple as an honest, friendly smile, and sometimes it's as deep as a conversation that lasts for five hours and delves into the deep details of life, and all its pain and joy. It's a connection we need with at least moderate frequency to survive.
On the other hand, we become addicted to ourselves, to the silence of being the only soul within reach. In the company of ourselves there is no reason to look beyond our own mind, and the convenience and comfort of this is a very strong thing. We come to believe we are the only thing that truly exists, that the rest is just a background for our drifting consciousness while we keep ourselves company.
And it is so very poisonous.
I think long-term loneliness, the kind that has gone on for long enough to have a serious effect on the mind, is a kind of insanity, less severe and much more easily cured than a mental illness, but still powerful enough to be concerning.
My dad told me he was worried about me. And as that question hit the air, I was suddenly very afraid. I had been lying to myself about how I was doing, whether I was going crazy. The haunting dreams of relationships with my friends and family gone wrong, usually focused on one person in particular in each dream, have been shaking me for a while now. They're not all that frequent, maybe once a week. But in them I am confronted with either the monstrosity of my narcissism in its full force, or the soul-crushing weight of being left alone, so very alone. Both of them leave my mind flailing for reality for at least a couple of hours after my eyes are pried open, and for those first waking moments I wonder if this is what it's like to go insane.
The bitter thing is that the only thing I really need is human interaction, something that is always present in too small a quantity and too shallow a depth, with the curing potency always out of reach.
And I wonder to myself, where do I belong?
I don't belong with the other homeschoolers. I'm too broken down and too much of a stranger to fit in with them at this point.
I definitely don't belong with public schoolers. They scare me, because I feel like their whole world is based around evaluating others, and I will certainly fall short of their standards. They're well-established in groups by now too, anyway.
The people who care the most about me, who I feel I could really deeply connect with, are either adults with busy lives or people living so far away that I barely have a hope of ever even seeing their face without the aid of a wireless signal.
So where do I belong, really?
I think searching for the answer is the only way to climb out of this ever-worsening dream I feel like I'm living in. I long to live in reality for longer than a day, to breathe the air of the living world through the darkest hours of the night and never slip back into the nightmare of my lonely mind.
I have had enough of being alone. It's time to start the search.
A lot's happened since I last wrote.
I can't really get into it, partly because of how complicated it is, partly because it's not just my story to tell. But I can say that something's wrong with me. I'm not completely sure of what it is, but I have a good guess.
It's me.
There's a chapter in Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz called "Community", in which he describes his experience of living with a group of guys under one roof after living alone in the country for a while, and how difficult it was for him to get used to it.
Something about feeling alone creates a very odd thing in the human soul. On the one hand, we begin to crave contact, contact that is deep and meaningful and sincere, that gentle touch of two human souls truly acknowledging each other's existence, if only for a moment. Sometimes it's as simple as an honest, friendly smile, and sometimes it's as deep as a conversation that lasts for five hours and delves into the deep details of life, and all its pain and joy. It's a connection we need with at least moderate frequency to survive.
On the other hand, we become addicted to ourselves, to the silence of being the only soul within reach. In the company of ourselves there is no reason to look beyond our own mind, and the convenience and comfort of this is a very strong thing. We come to believe we are the only thing that truly exists, that the rest is just a background for our drifting consciousness while we keep ourselves company.
And it is so very poisonous.
I think long-term loneliness, the kind that has gone on for long enough to have a serious effect on the mind, is a kind of insanity, less severe and much more easily cured than a mental illness, but still powerful enough to be concerning.
My dad told me he was worried about me. And as that question hit the air, I was suddenly very afraid. I had been lying to myself about how I was doing, whether I was going crazy. The haunting dreams of relationships with my friends and family gone wrong, usually focused on one person in particular in each dream, have been shaking me for a while now. They're not all that frequent, maybe once a week. But in them I am confronted with either the monstrosity of my narcissism in its full force, or the soul-crushing weight of being left alone, so very alone. Both of them leave my mind flailing for reality for at least a couple of hours after my eyes are pried open, and for those first waking moments I wonder if this is what it's like to go insane.
The bitter thing is that the only thing I really need is human interaction, something that is always present in too small a quantity and too shallow a depth, with the curing potency always out of reach.
And I wonder to myself, where do I belong?
I don't belong with the other homeschoolers. I'm too broken down and too much of a stranger to fit in with them at this point.
I definitely don't belong with public schoolers. They scare me, because I feel like their whole world is based around evaluating others, and I will certainly fall short of their standards. They're well-established in groups by now too, anyway.
The people who care the most about me, who I feel I could really deeply connect with, are either adults with busy lives or people living so far away that I barely have a hope of ever even seeing their face without the aid of a wireless signal.
So where do I belong, really?
I think searching for the answer is the only way to climb out of this ever-worsening dream I feel like I'm living in. I long to live in reality for longer than a day, to breathe the air of the living world through the darkest hours of the night and never slip back into the nightmare of my lonely mind.
I have had enough of being alone. It's time to start the search.
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