Tangentially related to the last Confucius bit, I’d like write to some personal feelings in this one.

I’m a loser. A loser in the context of everything that is normal. But what is normal? Simply what is most common and naturalized in some grouping. More comprehensively, what is perceived to be most common and therefore naturalized. Think along the lines of a loud minority. The Brad and the Chads are going to be the guys who post themselves getting wasted (yo) getting hoes (lit) snorting lines (epic) and this’ll get perpetuated as norm. Sorry, some defense mechanism made me satirize that, but I think my thought gets across.

I rationalize my wretchedness. I want to be happy reading about ancient China, playing vidya games, doing math problems, learning all day, distracting myself. But I’m not in control. A void grows ever darker in me. It screams for connection, a voice, warmth, hysterical laughter, a familiar face. I want to be able to isolate happily. I hate how little I’m in control. All manner of social skills have atrophied.

Sometimes a prideful smile creeps out when I look back to the shore crowded with people. But then my gaze shifts downward to my flimsy raft, stuck in a silent doldrum.

I can get lost in the sauce at times too. Math problems invigorate, philosophy and spirituality enlighten, poems nurture. But my mind always meanders back to, then what? I learn this, I solve this, then what? I graduate college, get a well-to-do job, then what? Good company seems to be the answer for a lot of people. Good company in anguish, joy, growth, stagnation, old age. I desperately want to cry during these late hours when the world is galaxies away. It’s all so much, my being’s contradictions bind me in place.

These sporadic thoughts are inescapable, but so are the doldrums. The beautiful doldrums.