Wanting to want. Wanting for not. I’m consumed now not by longing, but by nothing. A nothing made from all the wants that died off, or got killed along the way.

I used to want to do a lot. I wanted to be a professor. I wanted to teach. I wanted to affect the lives of other human beings in a positive (at least in the long run) way. But I fear this period of want has passed. Either, it was the chronic exposure to negativity and self doubt-spewing characters throughout my life–my parents, my family, always criticizing everything and everyone. The air seems to suffocate them unless they can level an attack on someone, something, somewhere. Or, that and its combined effect on my psyche and thus my self esteem, the way I stop myself from attempting a task for fear it is less than perfection demands. Or, these and the world shattering experience of my abusive graduate advisor, abusive ex partners, and friends who, in their own trauma, became cold, self-involved, and dismissive. My disillusionment with the world, with my idealism, has faded gradually.

The more exposed I became to ulterior motives, the lack of recompense. Innate selfishness or self-centered behavior driving each brain I came across, the less idealistic I became. Holding on to idealism in the face of incessant jaded dispositions.. Who among us is strong enough to? How could someone, unless they found a community to help lift them up out of this pool?

At the crux of it, I guess this is the biggest factor. I know this to be true. Whenever I am around people who are inspired, creative, who breathe and act with intention, the rest of this crap doesn’t even matter.

“Letting you alone is easy. But how can I leave myself alone?” —Ray Bradbury

It’s funny.

I’ve been writing about this same idea since the beginning of my first journal back in 2020. This yearning, this lack of meaning, always comes from a severe lack of character. The present reality is austerely bleak. I find myself muting the words I might choose. Holding back turns of phrases, conversational directions that might veer into the too personal, too meta. Don’t want anyone to feel insecure because I bring up a deeper topic that they hadn’t thought about! God. This is the worst kind of loneliness.

My spirit has eroded. Or, at least part of it has. Too many attempts to express something meaningful being met with blank stares, bad-faith deflections. My hope and idealism weren’t inane or naive, unaware of the cruelty of the world and its sufferings. Rather, I held onto idealism out of spite, out of exasperation, out of longing. On the off chance that one person, somewhere, would be able, and interested in meeting me.

I am entirely too lucid and it’s eating me alive. My dreams have decayed under hostility and mediocrity. I am isolated, afraid I’m not going to be met with realness. Not a withheld personality, not a judgmental and sardonic one. But a person who sees authenticity, and feels excited. Who feels enlivened by the presence of a person who others might feel intimidated by. Intimidation! How useless a feeling in this context. True engagement and connection melts it away. Any momentary intimidation I feel surrounded by people more intelligent, experienced, worldly than I, vanishes as soon as we engage with each other.

Meanwhile, my reality is filled with half baked attempts at understanding the world. Ignorant, antiquated views of gender, society, profession, meaning, that are so utterly devoid of empathy it renders challenging the assertion moot. A kind of self-satisfied ignorance and brittle ego whose voiced opinions make me want to scream! IF not for their reductive propositions, then for the small minded arrogance with which they display on their self-contented face. Completely satisfied with themselves and their take.

Blegh.

What is the point of debating someone who is so clearly convinced of themselves and their world view? The way they present their position alludes to their bad faith. A conversation that dug a bit deeper, tried to expand their perspective, would (and often does) end in a “agree to disagree” stance. What a fucking joke. What a stupid and useless phrase. Please, show the class that you are unable to keep a discussion going when the topic is something you obviously tied too closely to your identity.

Why must we agree to disagree? Can’t we disagree, and FOLLOW that dissonance with continued curiosity? Why does it have to stop there. Bad faith centerings, intellectual laziness, or the self absorbed delusion we all possess that our one view of the world is the utmost holy. An exhausting failure of the human tendency.

My reality is only allowing 50% of my personality into a space, and then getting groped by a self-congratulatory asshole all the same. God. These fucking children, these pricks. They transcend age group.

I’ve gone dormant to stave off insanity. I miss who I was, who I know I can be. These communities punish awareness, punish sensitivity. Mock, misunderstand, shut down. The slow rot of my personality.. Is something I still refuse. That’s the whole reason I’ve been in power-save mode. I wonder if perhaps the fact that it hasn’t completely faded since 2020 is a good sign. Perhaps it is. I’m still banking on the idea of New York City and what it could offer. A vibrant city where I’m free to be myself. No fake smiling and platitudinous responses. I feel clear headed there. Like I don’t have to hold back how I feel for the sake of offense and being pushed out of the one group in the small town I inhabit.

I’m trying to get there.

I will crawl if I have to.

It’s all I have left. For now, at least.