03.29.09
Trapped inside my own sense of unreality
I wonder how many things my mind’s dissected, taken apart, been inside. I’ve got this maddening drive to see every angle of every concept. Sometimes that means getting into the very core of it, and sometimes that means finding a remote vantage point from which to see the whole. I pride myself in acquiring pieces of knowledge to tie together to form some monstrous web of ideas and relations. It’s part of me. That web is a piece of who I am, and I love how it catches most every morsel of the world flitting by.
Sometimes though, it’s utterly draining. I see interconnected layers and unifying principles every I go. I can never give a complex question a simple answer. I can always give a simple question a complicated answer. Nothing is straightforward — there are useful simplifications, but always a deeper truth that no one has time to hear.
I wish there were easier ways to turn off this relentless searching, combining, analyzing, memorizing. Restless speculation has kept me awake at night for as long as I can remember. As a simple survival strategy, I’ve had to structure my life and my time around exhausting myself before it’s time to sleep. I don’t always succeed, but alcohol helps a lot. I suspect there’s some existential masochism in there as well. What is a vodka tonic, ultimately, but an attempt to put away the most lucid part of yourself? What is a white russian, really, but a blanket with which to smother one’s own humanity?