| The inner life is what I'm interested in. Not merely my own - others' as well. But often it seems people are so blind to themselves and to what goes on beneath the surface layer of their day-to-day thoughts that being in the company of others is worse than being alone.
Why are we so inarticulate as to our thoughts and feelings? We slap on these broad, sweeping categories and turn a willfully blind eye on anything that fails to fit them. We refuse to admit that anything lacking a word can exist.
Maybe my interests are mostly idiosyncratic. I've never met anyone with the same hunger and passion for sharing internal thought and perception - that is, perception of uncertainty within one's self. Perception of the possibility that the only knowable truth may be the subjective, individual one. True, there's no escaping the shackles of language and culture. We require those very limitations to communicate, to even identify each other as human. But so few are even willing to admit to those limitations - the very acknowledgment of that inherent uncertainty seems to provoke a subconscious terror, as though one has breached upon the ultimate taboo.
(Or maybe I'm reading into things? Maybe it's just boredom? Distaste?)
I realize that there are branches of philosophy that deal with these thoughts, and I've looked into them from time to time, but there's something missing. Maybe it's another idiosyncrasy on my part, perhaps a problem with authority, especially in academia, that makes it hard to go further. I feel that when it comes to expressing the truths of one's inner life, the playing field should always be a level one. After all, who knows more about one's inner life than the person expressing it? And how can the expression ever be meaningful unless that meaning is a shared and mutually acknowledged one? There's an arbitrariness to academic jargon that seems, in my limited experience, to merely stifle honest expression, rather than giving the subtler tools required to move beyond the limitations of "lay" language.
Maybe it's my own impatience with the years required to enter those rarefied fields that limits me. Or maybe the understanding is simply beyond my capacity. Still, I'm skeptical. I think it's the responsibility of academia to bring their knowledge down from on high and at least attempt to make it widely available, no matter how difficult the subject. A few succeed at doing this, and I'd like to see more. Maybe the problem isn't so much a lack of willingness on the part of academics as a lack of demand from the rest of us.
Perhaps my own personal flaws prevent me from opening up to people in an effective way, and discourage others from trying to do the same. Maybe I'm too demanding, too extreme. I have a tendency to stay quiet and reserved, and then to suddenly overflow with emotion and information. I try to behave with good will, to give others the benefit of the doubt, but the years of subtle disappointments have made it very difficult, and I stand in awe of those capable of putting others at ease.
I suppose the point, if there is one, is that I'm constantly torn between wanting to extend an open hand, and wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? WAKE THE FUCK UP!" And sometimes merely, "FUCK YOU ALL," while feeling guilty and childish even at the thought. So instead I vent here, where I know it's relatively safe, and where I feel I have a right to be as childish and as petulant as I want, damn the consequences.
I want, but I'm at peace with wanting, at least as far as it's possible, as far as I've learned how to be at peace with anything. Sometimes wanting in vain is better than having, or even better than the possibility dangled in front of your face, only to be snatched away at the last minute, or as soon as you've gotten used to the illusion.
I feel pretty okay, at least compared to anyone I know, despite all the ruckus here. I suppose I'm not alone in these feelings, even though they can make me feel very much alone. I'm just always, somewhere in the back of my head, hoping for something more. |
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