Sweeter than Solitude

What is your measure of progress in life? For me, the most recent metric has been being able to listen to Mr. Blue without spiralling into the turmoil of solitary darkness. It's waking up on a Saturday with some mild sense of purpose instead of waking up at 4pm like it was the last time I was here on this blog. It's owning up on some of your responsibilities, instead of choosing to ignore them all. It's finding the will to wake up one morning and actually do that work-out for thirty minutes, and then suffering three days of not knowing how to move your body without it aching. It's finding the will to live with yourself again. It's like riding a bicycle -- You never really forget how to do it. You just forget you know.

So... progress is going back to the same things you used to do to keep yourself sane? So then, progress must be sitting alone in your room staring at some kind of screen, dying slowly as you breathe. Progress must be the trash you don't clean out. Progress must be the bed not made in the morning. Progress must be the curtains and windows you don't open. Progress is the world moving, but not you. You just stay still, space-time passing you by, consuming your mortal existence.

Where's your progress? Can we take a walk please?

Solitude is your bubble. my bubble. Solitude is what taught you to be reliant on yourself. You view people and situations from the perspective of an observer; a wallflower. One that talks a lot of shit though. Solitude is why nothing can hurt you. Solitude, is your armour out in the world. Solitude in a bubble implicitly implies the lack of movement. Moving around would mean people. And we don't like people, do we? Solitude is the fortress you have built your empire in. Your empire -- the trash around you. Your financial independence is measured by the trash you can gather in your room from staying and ordering in. Solitude is the food you don't cook. Solitude is the friends you don't make. Solitude is the work you still don't do when working from home because so much of your time is spent wasting away.

Washed out brain, dirty mind; I need new ways to waste my time.

What could be sweeter than gluttonous solitude? The next high. Something or someone else to intoxicate yourself in. Something that consumes you, just slow enough to make you like it. Withdrawl? We don't plan for those here. Your solitude continues. The world comes to you in the form of things you want, and food you don't need. You've forgotten how to get high. Your vices don't get you not-sober. You simply phase out. Your mind somehow turning into more of a recluse. The thoughts don't come. Only the other voice.

"You're a piece of shit." "How are you still incapable of listening to what I am saying?" "You're not even high but you keep doing this." "You don't do anything for yourself." "You should be working." "You should be taking care of yourself." "You need to get that meal service." "You need to work out." What's sweeter than solitude? It's realising that the voice inside isn't saying that you "can't" do it anymore. It does not tell you that you will never change. You look at the voice sitting in the backseat. When did you switch? Last you remember, the voice was at the wheel, plunging you down a never-ending spiral of self-destruction with you sitting in the back, screaming to be let in charge. Having yourself to count on seems sweeter than your solitude.

What's sweeter than solitude? It's having people around you to share smokes, code, responsibilities and food with. Having a place where you forget who is driving this car. You spend your time in the company of people you've found who too are hurtling through space-time in their own separate orbits but somehow their orbits and yours keep crossing paths. They must be space-cars. That means you are a space-car. Sexy. These people seem to enjoy your company although you are still difficult to be around. They all seem to be delights in their own ways. You've seen them cook for you, have your back, bring you weed, ask you to hang out, get sad when you don't, source vapes for you, send you songs and voices notes of them singing, and annoy you just enough to make sure you do not spiral down your solitary hell-hole again.

What's sweeter than solitude? Having someone to take a walk with. You remember what it feels like to not walk alone. To have your legs hit someone else's bag as they walk beside you. Having to keep pace with someone. Listening to them crib about how slow you are while you smile because you wish the walk never ended. That spot where you part ways. Walking is nice. The last time you did this, you were trying to withdraw cash at 7am in the morning so that you could pay your dealer. Walking makes you feel flustered. Walking makes you feel high, as you huff more oxygen in. You feel alive. Yes. This is also what a high feels like. You're walking, and you're not alone. Is this progress?

What's sweeter than solitude? The rarest of the six forms of intimacy. It is the overwhelming mass weighing down onto your chest, like you're pulling Gs in a jet doing a 360. You say your knees feel weak after vaping, but really, all the blood currently resides in your heart, pushing back against that mass bearing down, trying to keep you alive, and feeling. Yes. You, are feeling. And suddenly that bubble does not exist anymore. You see everything you have ignored, everything you have not cared for. You see things you should be sad about. Things that you should change. Things you should be sad about for not changing. But for once, you don't feel alone. You feel heard. The void inside you satiated by a cup that pours but does not empty itself. And while serotonin surges through your bloodstream, you realise that you are in a different kind of high. You want more. It lights up your morbid life. It makes you want to go to work so you can see someone sitting on the opposite end of the room, It makes you want to walk, It makes you want to open up, draw your curtains open and open your windows, let more of It in -- Let more of them in. You wish your heart had an imprint of everything you have ever felt in your life, and you could take it out, and show it to them, like that diary they showed you, and play matchsies on which of those feelings they have felt too. Yes. This is what a high feels like. Fuck.

What's sweeter than solitude? Looking at yourself and realising how love-mad you are. You're so busy having your void filled with a never-ending pour of feelings that you are drowning again, sparing no moment to breathe. The lack of oxygen makes you forget that this chase to fill the void inside will never let you sustain the pour in the first place -- that in doing so, you will smother out what little acceptance you have found in the company of another human being. You hear they will move to another city soon, because the powers that be have a sense of humour; because life demands it; because you can only have things you cannot keep. You realise how temporary everything always is. Temporary. This void that is being filled, is temporary. Your feet touch the ground. You realise how high you were flying. Momentary grief settles in, and in that moment, you realise that you did not need to be intoxicated in order to be happy. That you need not project your loneliness onto another unsuspecting soul simply because they were nice enough to listen. That you've been happy all along either way -- you've just felt nothing for so long that when you did, you felt it all together, at once. The burden on your chest lifts. You look at yourself, laughing at the emotional drunk you have been, like a recovered alcoholic tasting whiskey again. What's sweeter than solitude? Appreciation replacing grief. You feel happy that you've found someone to mentally resonate with. The second hardest intimacy you can find. And that is enough, however temporary. Of course there is no blood south of your torso. It's not just in your heart, your brain has been thriving, constantly stimulated by banter you wish never stops. Of course you were going to to go on an emotional bender, trying to cram in an infinity in the small span of time knowing someone until they leave, or you fuck up. Of course you were wishing that the walk would never end. Boy, everything ends. Don't you remember teaching yourself that? What's sweeter than solitude? Understanding, that this is happiness. One of its many temporary forms. This too shall pass. Until then, you just let it marinate.