Life As Is. . .

no matter what happens now i won’t be afraid. i know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen..

Dear Self,

If there was ever a feeling that united humanity on a common thread, it is the feeling of loneliness and/or fear of being lonely. Think of religion, the internet, social technology, and the space program; the unifying motivation is to feel not-so-alone or to prove that we are not really alone/ that there is something out there to justify our existence.

So why does that matter? Because you will never escape loneliness- it is a part of our human make-up. Loneliness  inspires the pursuit of love, happiness, and creation to bridge the gap between your isolated thoughts and what exists outside of them. It is an important component in our emotional make-up. On a more philosophical level, loneliness breeds creation. Pause and let that sink in a little bit.

If you feel you need someone or something to make you feel less alone, you make yourself dependent on that person/thing. Since most situations in life are not static, you put yourself in a position to be hurt by pursuing happiness or completion from an external source.

No one will ever complete you. It can feel that way, sure, but if/when they leave your life, who will you be then?

On another note, you’re afraid of being the same. Being ordinary is being part of a group of people alike in mentality and action; being extraordinary is putting yourself in a position to pursue something no one has before by yourself. Subsequently speaking, if you want to stand out and be unique and grow vibrantly, get comfortable with being alone. You’ll get criticized a lot before you ever get praised, so the only person you have to believe in is you.

If you can’t believe in yourself, who else can you believe in?

As for confiding in others, you don’t need anything but a journal. So thanks, self, for being smart and honest with yourself in this journal. Get your feelings and thoughts out of your head and into the air or onto the paper or into a poem. Get them out of you because holding them in just makes you feel even lonelier. Face it, some people won’t care about you, so don’t rely on others to tell you if you’re attractive/skinny/smart/groovy. Evaluate that for yourself and know that you won’t ever be perfect. Ever.

You are someone. I am someone. You are an artist, a writer, a creator, a brother, a friend, a hilarious person to your friends, a lover of clouds and gloomy weather, and, most importantly, you ARE. You exist and you are unique. No one can ever or will ever be you. They can share your thoughts, your actions, your similar experience, your interests, but they will never see life through your eyes or your fingers or your words. You are your own person.

Embrace it.

Do you run away from your identity? No…mostly because you can’t. You can’t change the things you’ve done, only the things you do or will do. Focus on those instead.

Do you face it and try to battle it? Yes and no. Face your problems but don’t try to break yourself down and dissolve your feelings/who you are. It won’t work and your feelings will find a way to surface.  Can you fix it? You can fix the way you feel about yourself, yes. It takes a lot of honesty and identifying as many attributes as flaws that you have.

As far as personal identity goes, there are so many philosophies trying to define and redefine what constitutes “self” and “identity”. As a philosophical problem, there isn’t any clear definition of who you are or who you can be which means the possibilities are endless. You can be anything you want. Conceptually, you are a sum of your experiences and the interests and meaning you have assigned to various aspects of your life. You pick up pieces along the way, but your identity is like a collage.

Pick the scraps up that interest you or make you think or that talk to you. Leave the expectations aside, there is no “true identity”, there is only change and adaptation. Love it.

Love your aloneness— you’re living on a planet with 6 billion people all around you feeling the same thing.

Sincerely,

You