Oh No, Dean Winchester, Please, Go on About YOUR Problems

The one thing I tend to have problems with most is my apparent lack of purpose in the universe.

Yesterday was opening night for the show I'm in, After The Fall, by Arthur Miller. It's a very introspective play, one that I felt I related to too much. Then again, I think everyone related too much to it in some way. That's why it can shock us, that we yearn for it so much without even a hint of love on our faces. There is some kind of love that isn't the kind that is seen, it is the kind that is felt. It's the kind we refuse to acknowledge even when it's staring us in the face.

"Oh damn all these women! If only they could be more like my mother!"

I'm not that kind of person, thank god. I feel the ways I feel, and instead of letting them drown me in despair or anger, I chart them, find out where they go, and ask why. I've done a lot of asking why. In English I was assigned a project where I write a letter to myself 10 years in the past and 10 years in the future. The one to the past was easier, as I had a lot more to draw on. It led me to consider where my social anxiety comes from, what experiences in my life made me afraid. It was always the people I was forced to be with for lack of any betters, like in a small Montessori school. There were 13 kids in that school, with a roughly even gender divide, and all the boys were into sports and the boy scouts. That sound like me? Nope. Whenever I attempted to talk about nerdy things like Bionicle, I was silenced. I was without an audience, I was lost, and I was boo'd off the stage every time.

We always stick with our instincts. It's biological, the fact that even though later on I went to a middle school of hundreds, I still believed my crowd wasn't there. I had friends, and most of them were appropriate listeners on any topic, with a few black sheep (namely an ass with a black wool shirt) shutting me down anytime they felt like it. Just as prom solidified my belief of what my friend J had told me, middle school solidified the feelings of the small Montessori school that made me insecure. Sure, team sports are a great way for your child to make friends, so long as your child is into team sports.

It's had an effect on me my whole life. Even now, with my sociopathic optimism driving my confidence, I still feel my instincts tugging the other way. Sometimes I can resist with ease, but I'm only human. I still get the feeling that my new friends will shut me down, be disinterested, even Lukas. It's a horrible feeling, being pulled in two by yourself. You feel empty, you feel both the urge to put yourself out there and at the same time you realize the pointlessness of it all.

I think this play came at the right time, as it typically does (hmm...correlation doesn't imply what again?). I like acting and roleplaying. It allows me to step outside myself, have some clarity, see the world through a different lens. I'm being told who to be rather than simply being. My sister might use this to justify her own excessive roleplay online (and I do mean excessive), but I'll explain why she shouldn't. She's in middle school, she doesn't know who she is yet. She may have some idea, maybe only a little, but if she keeps stepping outside herself, she'll never figure out who she is. I'd advise acting for her, since it at least gets her out of the house. Acting, though, is different from roleplay in that there's an audience, and you're to tell a story to other people, who'll be pressed to understand your work as well as enjoy it.

A distraction is sometimes necessary from life. In all my high school life, I've internally embraced that philosophy. If we try to be serious all the time, then we're just fully objective people with sticks up our asses, hence my sense of humor. Everything is funny in the right context. Wit is the greatest tool we can use to alleviate the suffering of others. Who's suffering? Not just the guy with the broken leg, but the person right next to you, your dearest friend who's having the time of his life, we are all suffering every day. That's all life is, and the sooner we accept that, we can quit assigning blame to deities or ethnicity or economic status and get around to alleviating it.

Sorry Bernie

That being said, I was suffering last night until the show began. In that moment, I was stuck between Dirk and Ike. When the show started, I was alright, as I knew who to be, but before then I suffered. In whose name do you turn your back...but your own? Is it possible to break character when your character is defined by breaking character? I'm different every day, parts of me dying or coming to life with every passing moment. I'm surrounded by people who suffer, they just are good at hiding it. I'm good at hiding it too, don't get me wrong. This isn't a justification for my breaking down, because I haven't, not yet. This is me denying my escapism as best I can. It's impossible to do so fully, with literally everything in our lives there to distract us.

When you escape too long, and you finally get back to the real world in the form of a solid silent second, it crushes you, because it's too much to handle and you've rejected this pain by turning away from it, but that doesn't mean your pain can't grip you by the shoulders and turn you back around again.

Too depressing for you? Good.

Whenever I post a depressing blog post, people act like I am depressed, too depressed to function, and might even commit suicide within a day. Don't get me wrong, I like attention, but this isn't just for me. This is for you, a gift to help you acknowledge the same darkness that lives within you. It hurts me and burns me, but I simply look it in it's cold black eyes with impassivity. You? Could you handle your inner darkness to the extent that I do, alone as I am? Or perhaps, maybe my darkness is significant in that it would destroy anyone...except me?

I accept my pain. It is a part of me, and no amount of anything will get rid of it. I can only keep moving, and maybe I'll drop some of it along the way.

We all suffer, that is undeniable. The difference is whether you carry your personalized darkness on your back or in a wagon. Which is easier? Whichever one you feed That would be up to you, because everyone's darkness is different, and you're the one that knows yours best.