SINCE THE START OF THE PANDEMIC, I BEGAN
JOURNALING
MY INNERMOST THOUGHTS.
BE BRAVE
September 25th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
Dear fuckin’ diary,
I write in a state I can only describe as complete and utter vitriol.
Yeah. There’s a fucking word.
Vitriol.
It’s what I feel. It’s like a poison within me. I can feel it rising. With every slight. With every bit of bad luck. And I can’t blame it all on luck. I know that.
But man, do I seem to have a rotten bunch of it as of late. I wonder if that will change?
I’ve been trying. So fucking hard.
But it seems like my meager efforts are up against insurmountable odds? Is my hole truly that deep? Is my despair to be bottomless? I know even as I write this that I will rise again in the morning and continue to try my hardest. And I know, I need this feeling.
I need to remember how it tastes(bitter). How it sounds(pathetic). How it feels(like a slow death).
I don’t want to die. I want to live. So, I vent, but hear me, dear heart, and hear me well.
Keep. Moving Forward. Be brave.
Be brave.
BLINDING REVELATIONS
September 15th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I am here again. Here, being as much a state of mind, as it is a place. Similar thoughts invade. They squirm. Like worms made of ideas. Sharp, synaptic pulses, each begging for a morsel of my attention. Hundred. Millions. Billions of them. Squirming inside my head.
I am approaching a sort of addiction. I find myself needing the quiet, rather than simply wanting it. A sort of “fog” falls over my mind. But from within the fog, there are moments of such brilliant clarity that I often weep at their blinding revelations.
I need them. To quiet the noise. There is so much noise. The cacophony is sometimes so loud I ache with the pain of it. My ears bleed. My soul screams.
I fear I am a captive in the panopticon of my own mind. Trapped as both the subject and the observer.
What do I do?
THE END OF THE WORLD
August 31st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I dreamed about the end of the world. But the world isn’t ending. Maybe a world is ending, and I find myself wondering which. I continue to struggle with the daily affairs of my chosen profession. Though, I do find myself rejoicing(and being frustrated) by the human element.
Writing for things I do not care about continues to be impossible. I would like to finish one thing before moving on to another. Finishing the book is proving to be a taller task than I first imagined. But I am enjoying the process. And the support of one is all I need to keep going. So, I keep going.
I am worried for myself, but I cannot go through life worrying about everything.
Some things will just have to wait their turn. I’ll get to them soon enough.
August 24th, 2024 | San Mateo, CA
And I did get to them. See? -Future Gaël
A MAN WHOSE HONESTY REACHES THIS POINT
August 31st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
My notes on conformity from my readings by Ralph Waldo Emmerson:
“All goes well as long as you run with the conformists. But you, who are an honest man in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.”
“It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner.”
“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction… that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
-Ralph Waldo Emmerson
SURFACE RIPPLES
August 29th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
A semblance of normalcy returns. These last few weeks have been particularly grueling. But, with some support, I’ve managed to make it through. I do sense a larger detachment in myself towards things I’ve started classifying as “surface ripples”.
These ongoings- events that, though wide spanning, are only the most shallow, the most base, in terms of immediate perception. Or at least, how I perceive them.
I am… Unsure what is holding me back. I now have what I need. What more is there?
I should start.
I still feel so incredibly burdened. And I guess, in many ways, I still am. That hasn’t changed.
I am too apathetic towards these things. These surface ripples.
I have more than just myself to think about now though. Be better.
For her.
I AM FREE
August 21st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I’ve begun reading The Fall by Albert Camus.
He is clever. I like clever. I never actually realized how much humor plays a part in being clever.
You have to laugh at insurmountable circumstances sometimes.
And that’s what he does. He laughs. In such a oh-so-clever way. I like clever people because they are often sad. I think I will enjoy reading his work.
My chosen and I are fighting a great deal again…
A part of me turns toward logic, deducing that such consistently negative patterns spell doom. Another part of me sees this as a challenge. A challenge involving another can either be turned down or it can be accepted.
Let’s see whether or not she accepts as well. I know I can also be a challenge.
I sigh often. A sort of… weariness, has fallen over me. I fear I have aged beyond my years far too quickly. I feel the odd man out now. My proclivity to turn towards the deep, the existential, is far higher than that of my friends, family, and colleagues.
I am alone. In that which I value most. I am alone.
Something tells me that is how it should be. That is what lends solitude its depth.
It is difficult.
I must reckon with the demons. I hear them, pounding at the door. Do I cower? Do I flee? Or… do I open? Will I be devoured? Or will there be discourse? Will I bargain for my sanity, my freedom? Will they even let me have it?
I am, more and more, blinking awake. Slowly. And I see a bit clearer, everyday.
I am light. I am warmth. I am all the things humans crave. In my mind.
I am free.
BECAUSE THOSE DEAR TO ME LOVE THE WORDS
August 21st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
An attempt is, perhaps, too half-hearted a thing.
Chipping away at something, until you notice a small crack feels… insufficient, to me.
I’ve been doing it all wrong. This hot-then-cold routine. Consistency doesn’t guarantee success, but it sure as hell won’t hurt my chances. I’m looking for a way out of despair, back into work ethic.
Knowing it requires discipline: my achilles heel.
But maybe, I need not think of it in such a way. As a chore, whose completion- nay, even attempt, must be an act of discipline.
Why not simply write because I wish to? Because those dear to me love the words, the worlds, and the characters I create. Why not write so as to break through a barrier long denied or ignored by those like me?
Is that not enough reason to tackle this? Must I be disciplined to do this? If the answer is yes, then so be it. If I must change, I will change for this.
THE MOB
August 11th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I have been in a mob.
If I had to describe the feeling… It’s like being caught in a river. Sometimes the current is strong. Sometimes it’s not. And sometimes you can’t fight it.
I remember how good it felt to let go. To be swept along by the flow. I remember how wrong and alien it felt to go against it.
How lonely.
There is a saying in a book I love:
“Only a fool fights the tide.”
And there is truth to it. But there is also the saying that fools tend to rush in.
And I firmly believe that one must relinquish one’s individuality to be part of a group.
WHEN A MAN SAYS SOMETHING ONCE
August 8th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
Of Blackened Crowns
By Gaël Samuel
Chapter 8: When A Man Says Something Once
Scene Exploration
Soon, we came upon a crowd. A big one.
It was mostly tan, sun-kissed men. The largest one was standing all the way at the front of the crowd, feet spread apart, thick bulging forearms crossed, glaring at the Ash speaker addressing the crowd.
“We should go,” Hersad said, glancing about at the gathering folk.
Ignoring him, I pushed forward, but felt a surprisingly strong arm grip me.
“We should go.” He repeated, this time with a sharper urgency.
I snatched my arm back, anger flaring, “what is the matter with you? They’re just a bunch of porters.” I spied the Ash speaker retreat as the burly man started to argue with him, veins in his temples showing. “Probably protesting the city’s shit guild wages again,” I said.
But Hersad stood rooted. It was then that I noticed it. The white-haired syph kept looking behind him, to the side, and his right hand held his left in a death grip.
“You alright, Hersad?”
He made a pained expression, then seemed to compose himself, breathing less shallow.
He puffed once. “I am fine. But we shouldn’t be here,” he said for a third time.
That time I heard him. My father had once told me that when a man says something once; he is unsure, twice and he is lying, three times and he is all those things, and afraid.
“Why not?” I prodded the white haired man.
He made the expression again, and this time I did not ignore it. It was a twisted thing, half anguish, half bad memory. All fear. And his right hand clutching his wrist… The body tended to remember pain a lot longer than the mind did.
His eyes, the color of an overcast sky, locked with mine.
“These men are afraid. And fear you can’t understand or do anything about makes people angry. The worst thing to be,” he said, still looking directly at me, “is angry in a place like this.” He jerked his chin toward the throng of people.
It was larger now. Passersby with nothing better to do kept getting drawn in by the commotion, the noise. Slowly but surely, the crowd was becoming a mob.
THE GRAND LIE
August 8th, 2023 | San Fransisco, CA
I am in debt to man, but he does not own me. I am indebted to him, but he does not dictate my actions. I shall work for myself, and he shall reap the fruits of my labor. For a time. I shall free myself from man, and thus from myself.
Stressed as I’ve been by the rising and falling of numbers on a screen…
As if those numbers were in direct correlation with my value to myself and society. I understand the need to play the part. For now.
I was born into it. Ill prepared for it. Enticed and seduced by it. Only up close did I see it for what it truly is.
The grand lie. The ultimate fallacy.
The belief that you, as you are, are not enough. That you must supplement. In a place where everything is supplementary.
I am done believing the lie.
QUESTIONS
July 30th, 2023 | Firenze, Italy
I don’t yet know what I’m chasing. Much less if it is “the right thing”. The right thing for whom? Me? Is that what I want to be? Morally righteous? Why? For my sake? Another’s? The more I explore it, the less morality appeals to me. There are too many shades of it. And I cannot pick just one, nor can I be bothered to sample them all. If I must choose, then I choose decency. It is easy and hard at the same time. It must be worth pursuing then, right?
See? Another question.
That is all I am full of these days. Questions.
I guess answers are typically hard-won. Real answers, anyway.
And I’ve found those only beget more questions.
HABITUDE
July 30th, 2023 | Firenze, Italy
I am in Firenze. And I find myself thinking of a word. Habitude.
I have not thought about this word before. There is nothing special about the word itself. Habitude.
I learned that it is so much easier to give in to feelings of despair. To let oneself be taken over by these feelings: anger, fear, jealousy.
From these stem so many others: anxiety, frustration, envy, and desolation.
How does one deal with so much bad, alone?
I am feeling many negative emotions. And again there is the word. Habitude.
I’ve seen, in my feelings, a tendency to give in, or at least, a proclivity to imagine myself acting out these bad feelings for a sense of catharsis. But, upon closer inspection, I notice it is not catharsis I seek.
It is transference.
And I’m writing about this phenomenon because even though I am also resisting the base impulse of giving in to my more negative tendencies, I do not exorcise my demons with the restraint. They are still there. Crowding my mind. Stifling my heart. They strain every smile. Weigh every word with the opposite emotion.
I am weary.
What I seek is true catharsis. Not transference, but release.
I wish to leave behind this habitude, of feeling negative things, which all of us do, and wanting to act out in anger, or frustration, or envy, or despair.
I wish to exorcise my demons.
But maybe all I can do is trap them.
Here in these pages.
IDLE HANDS
June 6th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I find myself pushing forward again. Inaction. Inaction seems to be my quicksand. Like the proverb says: "Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
That is especially true for a man.
I believe this is the case with me. I am a creature of ebb and flow, after all. I find nihilism intruding upon my thoughts and I know I must fight it off. I want them to see me, trying my hardest. If nothing else, that alone, will do them good. So try, I must. I will. For the alternative has yielded nothing but misery for me.
THE RIGHT THING
May 27th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
What kind of person do I actually want?
Who am I?
I am deeply flawed. I am such an overthinker. I am anxious. That I am, maybe, chasing the wrong thing…
What do I think is the right thing?
A NEW IMPRESSION OF REALITY
May 23rd, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
“This then, is the great illusion which Tolstoy sets himself to expose: that individuals can, by the use of their own resources, understand and control the course of events. Those who believe this turn out to be dreadfully mistaken. And side by side with these public faces- these hollow men, half-deluded, half aware of being fraudulent, talking, writing desperately and aimlessly in order to keep up appearances and avoid the bleak truths- side by side with all this elaborate machinery for concealing the spectacle of human impotence and irrelevance and blindness lies the real world, the stream of life which men understand, the attending to ordinary details of daily existence.”
- Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and The Fox. Pg. 21
“Utterly unlike her as he is in almost every other respect, Tolstoy is, perhaps the first to
propound the celebrated accusation which Virginia Woolf half a century later leveled against the public prophets of her own generation- Shaw and Wells and Arnold Bennett- as blind materialists who did not begin to understand what it is life consists of, who mistook its outer accidents, the unimportant aspects which lie outside the individual soul- the so called social, economic, political realities- for that which alone is genuine, the individual experience, the specific relation of individuals to one another, the colours, the smells, tastes, sounds and movements, the jealousies, loves, hatreds, the transforming moments, the ordinary day-to-day succession of private data which all there is- which are reality.”
-Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and The Fox
These are quotes from my reading of Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and The Fox that leave with me, a new impression of reality.
A NEW BEGINNING
November 21st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
May 7th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
NOTES ON The Power Of Now By Eckhart Tolle
CH. 1: You are Not Your Mind
In this chapter the author, Eckhart Tolle, encourages to “not listen with the mind only.”
To not dwell too much on words or their meaning. He addresses himself “-to the knower in you, that dwells behind the thinker.”
This book, perhaps, comes at the perfect time. Afflicted as I’ve become with compulsive thought. Even now, I worry about it. I worry it is robbing me of honesty. Robbing me of my life. I seek a way out, not back. I understand her question now.
And I… am unsure.
“The mind is a tool. To be used when needed, then put down. But ego, or unconscious self-identification with the mind has made this impossible. Led to the creation of a “false self,” One who can only think of happiness in terms of future accomplishments, or be in the present only with correlation to the past.”
-Eckhart Tolle, The Power Of Now
Were I to be brutally honest, I find myself at what I consider to be(if I’m being gracious), a new beginning.
The path I’ve been on, until now, has been a dishonest one. And what I mean by dishonest is simply: It hasn’t been true. I haven’t been true. To myself. To anyone. Or anything.
I have neither held myself accountable, nor truly strived for, anything. And at a stage where everyone I meet unconsciously judges me for my utter lack in things they perceive to be normally already attained at this point in life.
And we all judge.
It is human nature to do so. But man, am I tired of being measured up, and found wanting, for one reason or another. And it is their prerogative to judge, just as it is mine to not care about being judged anymore.
And man, how free would such an existence prove to be?
I WANT TO LIVE
November 16th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
May 5th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I am delving into multiple sources of wisdom. Acknowledging there are many, many more who know far more than I.
In doing so, I’ve found myself lost. Adrift in an ocean of all I do not know. While this presents a fascinating new challenge and adventure… It is a little frightening.
Seems my life hasn’t really had a trajectory since… I’ve lost track, really. Did it ever have one? I laugh now. Thinking that even the AAU game design degree I pursued was just an excuse. No wonder I didn’t stick with it. It was me running away. From my problems, from the disappointed looks of my parents asking themselves what, or why their son wasn’t amounting to anything. I think I’ve never cared about anything, and have a natural aversion to things people say/tell me I should care about.
Hence, the aimlessness.
But now, I am(almost) fully conscious. I feel an intense need. A pull- towards what? I do not know.
But it’s there. At the edges of my mind, whispering. I can almost hear it. I just need quiet, so I can listen to what my heart is telling me.
Because I think the reason I can’t hear is, I'm using my ears. And something tells me I am using the wrong tool for the job. Will delve deeper into this, maybe my vision quest in Italy will yield answers. Being more present and mindful(and drugs) have given me perspective.
I hope this isn’t my natural proclivity towards escapism rearing its ugly head again, disguised as faux enlightenment.
I’m regulating my emotions as best as I can, but they often come up unexpectedly and quite suddenly. I welcome this, but it has made it hard to be around others. I don’t need an unexpected breakdown during a group lunch.
But overall, once I’ve shaken some chains, I’ll be alright, I hope… No, I will.
Done creating problems for myself. Life is for living.
I want to live. And I understand the immense responsibility that comes with this choice. Not just to myself, but to those around me. I am still learning. I feel like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life. Me, never the driver, rather the backseat observer, watching as things happen to me.
No more.
Today, we make things happen for ourselves.
THE PATH TO BEING BETTER
Friday, April 1st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
Friday, April 1st, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
I am at Dolores. It brings back unpleasant memories now that I think on it. I think the woman I have chosen to be with isn’t all the way honest with me. In the past I would begin to shut down, reach out to other women, I typically have one or two waiting in the wings. And if not, society has made the search for a new romantic partner easier than ever…
But not this time. This time, I’ve simply felt an odd feeling nagging at me. I tend to trust my gut, but more than that, I trust my eyes. My ears.
I’m learning to think of love, and relationships, in deeper terms. I don’t want to react anymore. I want to be someone I’d want to love, someone I’d want to be in a relationship with.
It’s proving difficult.
But I now know, that even should this fail, I am on the path to being better.
THE UNFORMED NATURE OF THIS PARTICULAR THOUGHT
Sunday March 19th, 2023 | San Francisco, CA
“It’s not sexuality that has to be liberated. It’s love.” - Slavov Žižek
Slavov talks about the ruinous nature of Eros, or “erotic love”. Versus Agape, communal (group)love.
He describes eros as being “not a great thing,” because it is seen as a positive force. Sans consequence of psychoanalytic influence. Essentially because people are often unaware of what they desire, so they revert to the idea of passionate love, without acknowledging its pitfalls.
NOTE:
I am keeping in my mind the un-formed nature of this particular thought:
This idea of Slavov’s that “the only ultimate proof of love is betrayal” intrigues me. Why? What does that mean?
THE SLIGHTEST CRACKS
January 2nd, 2023 | Fredericksburg, VA
January 2nd, 2023 | Fredericksburg, VA
It’s spilling out again. My temper. The emotions I try so hard to bottle. Guess I’ve reached my cap. I’ll be sure to keep in mind that prolonged stays with my damaged family aren’t really worth the already tenuous grasp on my mental health. Still, justified or not, I know better than to lose myself to anger. It’s never come even remotely close to solving anything.
So, I will mend the tear as best I can and be on my way.
It bears mentioning that other than journaling I haven’t written a single word. Not on the book, the blog, nothing- And I know why.
This place is charged for me. It isn’t home. It isn’t familiar. It is a place rife with conflict, unspoken errors, and vast disappointments. But it is also a place of hope, and healing. If we let it be.
My exhaustion has reached its peak. As it inevitably was meant to. These aren’t meant to be prolonged affairs. But as this installment draws to a close, I feel sorrow again. The slightest cracks before a break. And I weep. Because I am losing.
In my ability to continue.