From childhood's hour, I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow - I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I loved, I loved alone.
- Edgar Allen Poe, "Alone"
It is strangely comforting to know that Poe once felt the way I feel. He knew the darkness like few others. I know darkness, too. I am its cold, windswept, barren heart. Of course, I have a tiny fraction of his immense talent. If I could fashion the darkness around me into some kind of art, then my sorrow and loneliness and pain would serve a purpose. Instead, all I have is a blog that few will ever read. This is true loneliness. To be surrounded by people, and yet feel no connection to any of them. I suffer within a darkness that others cannot even see. The world, it seems, is coloured differently to me.
Even as I write this, I am filled with despair. My writing is so bland and uninspiring and pedestrian and stupid. I live in a darkness that I can't even adequately describe. How sad. How very sad.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
One Common Denominator
My life is a series of spectacular failures. I was talking to my psychiatrist about all of the relationships I've had, and how they've all gone down in flames, and he said something very profound. Profound, and profoundly depressing.
"In all of your failed relationships, what is the one common denominator? It's you."
He's right. There's an old saying that once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, and four or more is evidence. When relationships keep failing and falling apart, there are only so many times I can blame luck, fate, the other person, or circumstance. When it keeps happening, it's pretty solid evidence that I am the problem.
This applies to the rest of my life. My procrastination, my inability or unwillingness to see what's really happening, my stunningly selfish desires and many other deep character flaws too tedious to list are the problem. I am the problem. I keep fucking things up in my life. I am evil. Sometimes I feel like my life is a swirling, dark whirlpool of misery, but the truth is, I am the center of that whirlpool, the heart of the darkness that surrounds me.
I imagine I could be content if I had something in my life that I didn't consistently screw up. I could put up with my tiresome, low-paying job and my loneliness if I could organize some part of my life, whether that be something creative, or just organizing fun stuff with my friends or with my daughter. Unfortunately, I can't plan shit. If I were put in charge of organizing a three-car parade, I'd find a way to fuck that up. So in addition to wasting my life doing a monkey's job, the rest of my life is a shambles, too. Motherfucker.
Days like today make me want to become a drunk. If I were an alcoholic, at least I'd have some reason for screwing up that people could immediately identify. Instead, there's no-one and nothing to blame but me. Instead of a light obscured and covered by the darkness of illness or addiction, I am the darkness itself.
"In all of your failed relationships, what is the one common denominator? It's you."
He's right. There's an old saying that once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, and four or more is evidence. When relationships keep failing and falling apart, there are only so many times I can blame luck, fate, the other person, or circumstance. When it keeps happening, it's pretty solid evidence that I am the problem.
This applies to the rest of my life. My procrastination, my inability or unwillingness to see what's really happening, my stunningly selfish desires and many other deep character flaws too tedious to list are the problem. I am the problem. I keep fucking things up in my life. I am evil. Sometimes I feel like my life is a swirling, dark whirlpool of misery, but the truth is, I am the center of that whirlpool, the heart of the darkness that surrounds me.
I imagine I could be content if I had something in my life that I didn't consistently screw up. I could put up with my tiresome, low-paying job and my loneliness if I could organize some part of my life, whether that be something creative, or just organizing fun stuff with my friends or with my daughter. Unfortunately, I can't plan shit. If I were put in charge of organizing a three-car parade, I'd find a way to fuck that up. So in addition to wasting my life doing a monkey's job, the rest of my life is a shambles, too. Motherfucker.
Days like today make me want to become a drunk. If I were an alcoholic, at least I'd have some reason for screwing up that people could immediately identify. Instead, there's no-one and nothing to blame but me. Instead of a light obscured and covered by the darkness of illness or addiction, I am the darkness itself.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Like Iron To A Magnet
There are those who believe in energy fields. I know people who believe that everyone has their own energy field, and that these energy fields attract similar energy. Positive energy attracts positive energy, and negative energy does the same. Some days, I believe that.
I seem to attract more than my share of bad karma, angry, bitter or depressed people, and negativity. My dark heart gives off such a powerful, negative energy field that negativity is drawn to me like iron filings to a powerful magnet. Bad things and bad people come my way, because, deep down, I am very bad.
My darkness and negativity don't hurt just me. Like people living too close to high-tension power lines or chemical plants, the people in my life are affected by the darkness that seeps from my black heart like poison. I don't mean to hurt them, but in the end, intent means nothing. I hurt them, and even though I didn't intend to, it doesn't matter. They get hurt by my poisonous negativity just the same. I am a source of darkness in the world, and it makes me weep.
My heart is a great black hole, whose powerful and grasping gravity affects everything around me. There is darkness in my part of this world, and I am the very heart of it. I have tried to turn it around. I still struggle to reverse it, but like a great and heavy stone wheel, it has tremendous momentum. I don't know if it can ever be changed. I don't know if I can ever be a source of light and good instead of darkness and evil. I try, but sometimes, like today, it seems hopeless. I just wish that I were the only victim of the blackness that emanates from my soul. Perhaps I should live alone, far from the rest of humanity. Perhaps that is what I deserve.
I seem to attract more than my share of bad karma, angry, bitter or depressed people, and negativity. My dark heart gives off such a powerful, negative energy field that negativity is drawn to me like iron filings to a powerful magnet. Bad things and bad people come my way, because, deep down, I am very bad.
My darkness and negativity don't hurt just me. Like people living too close to high-tension power lines or chemical plants, the people in my life are affected by the darkness that seeps from my black heart like poison. I don't mean to hurt them, but in the end, intent means nothing. I hurt them, and even though I didn't intend to, it doesn't matter. They get hurt by my poisonous negativity just the same. I am a source of darkness in the world, and it makes me weep.
My heart is a great black hole, whose powerful and grasping gravity affects everything around me. There is darkness in my part of this world, and I am the very heart of it. I have tried to turn it around. I still struggle to reverse it, but like a great and heavy stone wheel, it has tremendous momentum. I don't know if it can ever be changed. I don't know if I can ever be a source of light and good instead of darkness and evil. I try, but sometimes, like today, it seems hopeless. I just wish that I were the only victim of the blackness that emanates from my soul. Perhaps I should live alone, far from the rest of humanity. Perhaps that is what I deserve.
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