Fucked if I know.

I know a lot of things about a lot of things. I either learn it or I deduce it and then I retain it in this ever-busy megabrain of mine.

But I don’t know jack shit about life. Or being happy. I have an endless supply of clever, compassionate, and wise things to say to others when needed, but the truth is that I on’t know shit about shit when it comes to truly living.

That’s because that sort of knowledge only comes from experience and I have had precious little. I have frittered my life away hiding behind a computer screen in order to completely avoid dealing with life and it’s the winning formula that got me to where I am today – dying having done nothing with the vast, vast potential I mistakenly possess.

If it was possible to give it to someone else when I die so that maybe somebody would do something with all my skill, talent, wit, empathy, and intellect, I totally would.

Hell, I might even let them murder me so they don’t have to wait.

Godspeed, my homicidal friend. Do all you can with it.

Back on topic. I don’t know a lot about life and how to live it because I have so little experience. The obvious and seemingly perfect but actually useless solution is for me to go out there and get the experience, ASAP.

Ha ha ha. Cute. Look, if it was that easy, I would have done it already. I am paralyzed by a killer combo of deep fear and option paralysis and that keeps me locked in place in front of this fucking computer until the day I die.

I mean, what does “go out and get experience” even mean? Where would I even start?

“Go do things you enjoy!”. I enjoy a lot of things. Still too many options. And it doesn’t make any of the fear disappear either.

To be brutally (and shamefully) honest, the only way I can imagine going out and exploring the world is in a thick, comforting cocoon of money.

If I had loads of cash to give me options and protection from the world’s harsh edges and cold climate, as well as some kind of status and standing in the world, I might be confident enough to go out there and splash around and figure things out.

But without something like that. the feeling of vulnerability and exposure runs far too deep and it feels like I would die from the sheer uncertainty of it all.

How can I be safe when I have so little control and there are so many variables and something horrible could happen at any second?

The prosaic answer, “however it is healthy people do it”, because these fears of mine do not represent any real threat.

They are just bad feedback loops amplifying nothing real. The fear feeds into itself and accelerates out of control as a way for my anxiety to keep me “safe”.

And my head got that message but my heart pushed the red button and sent it to voice-mail and I don’t even know my soul’s number.

I wish it was as simple as looking at myself in the mirror and very sternly and firmly telling my fear to GO AWAY because it’s NOT REAL.

But I know damned well it’s not real.

And it doesn’t help at all.

More after the break.

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A normal life

So I was on my way to the car after getting a chocolate Frosty at Wendy’s when I had the thought, “I deserve to live a normal life. Like normal people do. ” ^[1]

This thought surprised me, because like many other (in)voluntary freaks like myself grow up feeling like “normal” is a dirty word and one they certainly never want to be attributed to them.

Call it Freak Pride. If you’re one of the oddest of balls, you have no choice but to make that s virtue and a big part of your identity.

But I have done a lot of thinking about normalcy lately and what people get out of it, and I’ve decided that, at long last, I want in.

It’s not too late for me yet. I could still learn to sip the warm waters of the normal world.

Not so much that it robs me of my special spark, of course, Just enough to thaw out my frozen heart and free me from this icy intellectual gulag I am in.

i just need enough to bring me back to life, man.

To be honest, I need all the comfort of the herd I can stand I can get right now, Like many others who leave the herd behind, I have found that it is pretty fucking cold an lonely out here in the void.

Sure, I can go far beyond the walls of social reality. I see things you people wouldn’t believe. I move through the herd’s reality like I’m five dimensional. I can feel the patterns in things most people don’t even know are things.

But I do it all alone, in the cold and the dark and the aching screaming leeching void.

And I really need a break from being being a reality warping wizard. I don’t want to be a mighty wizard right now.

I just want to be a happy little animal, warm and safe and content. Cuddled together with the rest of the herd, knowing they watch out for me and care about me and want me to be well.

I don’t know what that’s like. I have felt totally abandoned since my first day of school.

I don’t even remember what being warm feels like.

I bet it’s nice,.

So somehow, I will learn to come in from the cold and be human for a while.

I can go back to being a shining stellar object once I feel better.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.