Overwhelmed

Life explodes and explodes again, sometimes like a firework, sometimes like a nuclear bomb. I learned someone isn’t who I thought they were — perhaps not a close friend, but apparently they were no friend at all. I was elected to the board I ran for, and it looks like I’ll have the position of my dreams to do everything I have ever wanted to. Though this is volunteer work. I was accepted to a new artist office building, I went on Monday and selected a beautiful office for myself and my partner. But that’s another expense. I’m working tirelessly on my apartment, but that’s yet more expenses and never feels like enough. I’m in the position to do literally anything and everything I have ever wanted, but I don’t have the funds. The best thing going on right now is this project workshop ending in a fundraiser. We started on Friday, and that was very nice.

I don’t care about the money. There’s nothing else I want than the opportunity to live. That’s what I’m trying my very best to do. However, with another person in the equation, everything I’ve fought so hard to come to terms with is being turned on its head. Right now, I’m feeling overwhelmed. All the blood I’ve poured into this living space feels wasted. There’s so much more yet to do, but I’ll need to sell it so I can buy a space for two and then some. In a way, it feels unfair, because I’ve done quite well for myself. I am proud of myself and all I’ve accomplished by the age of 26.

I’m tired of writing about money and the cruelty of the world. I’m tired of repeating myself over and over again. I’m tired of going through the same experiences on a cycle that never seems to end. But what else am I supposed to say, think, or feel? When I bought this apartment, I had to sell many of my investments. By pure luck, I sold them at their all-time peak immediately before they all plummeted. Then, I traded all my dollars for Icelandic krónur. By pure luck (again), I made the trade at the absolute peak before the dollar plummeted in value. It was dumb luck that got me a peaceful home. A home for one.

I’m getting an official office. I’m getting an education. I’m in an official community position. I’m accepted to show at a gallery. I’m building a world. Why does it never feel like enough? I even started reaching out to friends and organizing things again. I have events planned nearly every day, and when I’m not with friends or attending events, I’m spending time with my girlfriend.

In the back of my mind is this voice telling me that none of it is enough because there is more I could be doing. I could be writing poetry, studying Icelandic, making more time for reading, restarting the writing group, organizing other groups or community events, going out and doing things. Reason would say to take things slow — I am doing things, after all. It’s hard for me to relax into that. The deep longing for life and humanity propels me to act, turning every minute of rest into what feels like wasted time. Even though I know that time is not wasted.

Currently, I’m reading my favorite philosopher, Emil Cioran. In A Short History of Decay, he writes these lines about artists:

There is only the artist whose lie is not a total one.

Only the poet takes responsibility for 'I,' he alone speaks in his own name, he alone is entitled to do so. Poetry is bastardized when it becomes permeable to prophecy or to doctrine: 'mission' smothers music, idea shackles inspiration.

Typical of Cioran, there’s also the mix of, “Why doesn’t everyone just kill themselves already?” but his writing always makes me think about the human condition and the modern world. The world we live in is yet worse than the one he bemoans. Ironically, one of his final statements before his death was that he regretted writing about life as being such a terrible thing. Another topic he wrote about often was the very act of writing, and that inspired me to write Between My Lines.

When other philosophers were going through something deep or intense, they wrote. Not only philosophers, even some of my favorite authors such as Anna Kavan did the very same. They turned thoughts and feelings into written works. When they were overwhelmed, their output increased.

Compared to these writers I look up to, I feel like I’m falling behind. While they were more productive, they didn’t live in a world of constant distraction via smartphones and the internet. I blame myself sometimes for getting distracted by such. Then I compare myself to these writers and feel worse. Though I know that’s not fair to do. I suppose the whole point is, again, that I’m overwhelmed. So much going on. So much that still needs to be done. Then something pops into my mind and drags me down, like the fact that my spaceship camera is sitting in a cubby, collecting dust or the beautiful book my friend sent from Hungary hasn’t seen a page turned in over a year.

I attempted nine blog posts before this one. Some I finished, some were halfway, some were only outlines. Every time I try to write, something happens, and I feel completely different or want to express something else. Posts like this feel too disorganized and rambly for me to want to publish, but I’m going to publish this anyway. Otherwise, I won’t publish anything. Consistency is so hard to find. Hopefully, having an office will help me build some routine. The project workshop should do the same.

I’ll end with a quote from Cioran that is inspiring me at the moment to write about moving on from such depressive ideology:

Since it is difficult to approve the reasons people invoke, each time we leave one of our fellow men, the question which comes to mind is invariably the same: how does he keep from killing himself? For nothing is more natural than to imagine other people’s suicide. When we have glimpsed, by an overwhelming and readily renewable intuition, anyone’s own uselessness, it is incomprehensible that everyone has not done the same. To do away with oneself seems such a clear and simple action! Why is it so rare, why does everyone avoid it? Because, if reason disavows the appetite for life, the nothing which extends our acts is nonetheless of a power superior to all absolutes; it explains the tacit coalition of mortals against death; it is not only the symbol of existence, but existence itself; it is everything. And this nothing, this everything, cannot give life a meaning, but it nonetheless makes life persevere in what it is: a state of non-suicide.