... By Far The Most Isolated Person I Know
There are times - many times - when the only person you've really talked to in days - perhaps even weeks - is yourself. Of course, you still attend classes and go grocery shopping and do all those routine, everyday stuff, but you do all that by yourself.
Sometimes, especially during the extended periods of being all by yourself, you start to wonder if you mightn't have become invisible; so that when you walk down the street, brush pass with the crowd surrounding you, nobody actually sees you or feels it when your shoulder glances theirs.
Or like Adrian Healey in The Liar, you muse: "Either they’ve got a life and I am imaginary … or I’ve got a life and they’re imaginary.”
Some other times, you wonder if you have not only become invisible and/or imaginary, but have also disappeared from the memories of those who know you personally; so that it seems you have never existed at all ...
Maybe you do exist, just that everything and everyone around you is once removed. You float through the crowd ensconced in an almost-impenetrable bubble, your buffer against the rest of the world; you see and feel everything second-hand.
Yes, you do exist ... but do you live?
:::
Who's to say?
I blubber my gratitude of being alive whenever I'm happy; and I'm made happy by small things - tufts of dandelion floating pass me on a sunny day; toddlers chasing pigeons in Civic Square; colorful wild flowers; liberally sweetened hot, fragrant tea; bubbles, etc.
I smile easily; most things can make me smile - a man hitching up his skirt (it just seems funny); three feet tall Carebears; Gaia's indescribable beauty, etc.
At least I don't have to carve myself every time I want to feel alive.
So maybe I merely exist and have never lived; so what?
Anyway, what does it mean to live? Traveling around the world in eighty days? Extreme sports? Spending quality time with kith and kin? Breeding a family?
By what standards will I live? By whose standards will I exist?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
'A Dream Within A Dream'
Edgar Allan Poe
Sometimes, especially during the extended periods of being all by yourself, you start to wonder if you mightn't have become invisible; so that when you walk down the street, brush pass with the crowd surrounding you, nobody actually sees you or feels it when your shoulder glances theirs.
Or like Adrian Healey in The Liar, you muse: "Either they’ve got a life and I am imaginary … or I’ve got a life and they’re imaginary.”
Some other times, you wonder if you have not only become invisible and/or imaginary, but have also disappeared from the memories of those who know you personally; so that it seems you have never existed at all ...
Maybe you do exist, just that everything and everyone around you is once removed. You float through the crowd ensconced in an almost-impenetrable bubble, your buffer against the rest of the world; you see and feel everything second-hand.
Yes, you do exist ... but do you live?
Who's to say?
I blubber my gratitude of being alive whenever I'm happy; and I'm made happy by small things - tufts of dandelion floating pass me on a sunny day; toddlers chasing pigeons in Civic Square; colorful wild flowers; liberally sweetened hot, fragrant tea; bubbles, etc.
I smile easily; most things can make me smile - a man hitching up his skirt (it just seems funny); three feet tall Carebears; Gaia's indescribable beauty, etc.
At least I don't have to carve myself every time I want to feel alive.
So maybe I merely exist and have never lived; so what?
Anyway, what does it mean to live? Traveling around the world in eighty days? Extreme sports? Spending quality time with kith and kin? Breeding a family?
By what standards will I live? By whose standards will I exist?
Is but a dream within a dream.
'A Dream Within A Dream'
Edgar Allan Poe
posted by s at 12:12
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