It’s a late night with Alex Turner on full blast in my ears, never on the speakers though.
To make others around feel the full weight of unsolicited emotion of music, feels wrong. Who am I kidding, perhaps they don’t feel a thing. How rude.
The flair of words seems to have abandoned me today so it’ll be bare bones. I find myself constantly backspacing the words I type with a vigour. A quickly written sentence followed by a slight pause full of fear, before my finger reaches out to the delete button on the far right. Desperately trying to put the tarp back on naked emotions uncovered bare.
No more backspacing though. I’ve even gotten rid of the Grammarly extension. It shows me how a sentence rephrased, sounds more assertive but I digress. Enough fine tuning. Times like these I wish I had a typewriter. Imagine a canvas pedestal with hands, pointing to the parts where the acrylic paints fail to smudge. No one would ever pick up a paintbrush.
Okay, enough rambling. This would have been better suited as a conversation with a person but yapping away to a document has a certain unnerving permeance to it. I'm feeling experimental today.
The crux of why I'm writing today though the creative fairy in my head is asleep is because I’m starting to feel like a container with holes in it. Desperately trying to plug them, as opinions and thoughts pour out. Stuff I want to tell people inevitably seeps out. A glimmer of who I am peeks out of the gaps in my cocoon, when I laugh a little more than usual. When I share a little more than the conversation demands.
But I’m almost always reminded immediately about why I’d woven the cocoon in the first place. Perhaps it's the inability of the other person to reciprocate being as vulnerable and bare as I was. Maybe they haven’t grappled with certain truths about themselves yet. Maybe they don’t even realise that they’re hiding yet. But I can’t help but slowly climb back into my shell, disappointed and afraid of being judged.
Everyone else seems to be these perfect vessels. Airtight pipes connecting them to their close ones and no one else. Mysterious people who seem to have control over how much the other knows about them. And what.
They quietly observe and judge. A fake sense of superiority as they stay silent and watch when the other person stutters. But the truth is, they’ve stolen away from themselves a real experience. Something so rare today.
To be able to notice and see these subpar pseudo personas is a pain. I just know deep down they’re more than they show me. Everyone is. All I see these days is a small puff of personality from people. Like the fancy tester perfumes in shops. No one leaks or pours out of passion anymore.
Sometimes, there still are people who are unapologetically open. No secrets harboured. No apprehension to a new face. No cold spikes or walls. There’s two types of such people. One kind doesn't realise how open they are. Eventually someone with the tallest of fences will come along and kill their light by making them feel stupid to have been, well.. themself.
The other kind is the person who’s managed to tear down their defences and fences and is unapologetically open. Irrespective of the opinions of these ‘victims’ who at first glance seem like perfectly mature superior people. I only wish the world had more of the former kind, so these other victims learned to take their defences down slowly. Then again, I say victims but are they really? Or am I the true victim of naivety?
You could chalk up all these paragraphs I’ve written till now to be the musings of a very naive person. One who expects too much from people. Maybe having defences is good. Maybe appearing shallow to a new face is a good thing. Maybe not saying everything I want to is the more 'mature' thing to do. I’ve tried this, and it's been a lose-lose situation every time. Which leaves me wondering, is everyone just as lonely?
This may seem underwritten compared to my other work. But it’s untailored and true. I’m sick wallowing in the shallow world of today. Hours are spent weaving perspectives and opinions. Playing with the child in all of us, filling us with awe and just as much feelings of inadequacy. I’m sick of tailoring how I’m perceived. These are the truths. If I want people to be truthful to me, maybe I should start first. Even if impulsively you'd like to sneer and laugh at how childish this all sounds. Know that deep down, behind walls you don't even realise exist within, you're no different than me.
The flair of words seems to have abandoned me today so it’ll be bare bones. I find myself constantly backspacing the words I type with a vigour. A quickly written sentence followed by a slight pause full of fear, before my finger reaches out to the delete button on the far right. Desperately trying to put the tarp back on naked emotions uncovered bare.
No more backspacing though. I’ve even gotten rid of the Grammarly extension. It shows me how a sentence rephrased, sounds more assertive but I digress. Enough fine tuning. Times like these I wish I had a typewriter. Imagine a canvas pedestal with hands, pointing to the parts where the acrylic paints fail to smudge. No one would ever pick up a paintbrush.
Okay, enough rambling. This would have been better suited as a conversation with a person but yapping away to a document has a certain unnerving permeance to it. I'm feeling experimental today.
The crux of why I'm writing today though the creative fairy in my head is asleep is because I’m starting to feel like a container with holes in it. Desperately trying to plug them, as opinions and thoughts pour out. Stuff I want to tell people inevitably seeps out. A glimmer of who I am peeks out of the gaps in my cocoon, when I laugh a little more than usual. When I share a little more than the conversation demands.
But I’m almost always reminded immediately about why I’d woven the cocoon in the first place. Perhaps it's the inability of the other person to reciprocate being as vulnerable and bare as I was. Maybe they haven’t grappled with certain truths about themselves yet. Maybe they don’t even realise that they’re hiding yet. But I can’t help but slowly climb back into my shell, disappointed and afraid of being judged.
Everyone else seems to be these perfect vessels. Airtight pipes connecting them to their close ones and no one else. Mysterious people who seem to have control over how much the other knows about them. And what.
They quietly observe and judge. A fake sense of superiority as they stay silent and watch when the other person stutters. But the truth is, they’ve stolen away from themselves a real experience. Something so rare today.
To be able to notice and see these subpar pseudo personas is a pain. I just know deep down they’re more than they show me. Everyone is. All I see these days is a small puff of personality from people. Like the fancy tester perfumes in shops. No one leaks or pours out of passion anymore.
Sometimes, there still are people who are unapologetically open. No secrets harboured. No apprehension to a new face. No cold spikes or walls. There’s two types of such people. One kind doesn't realise how open they are. Eventually someone with the tallest of fences will come along and kill their light by making them feel stupid to have been, well.. themself.
The other kind is the person who’s managed to tear down their defences and fences and is unapologetically open. Irrespective of the opinions of these ‘victims’ who at first glance seem like perfectly mature superior people. I only wish the world had more of the former kind, so these other victims learned to take their defences down slowly. Then again, I say victims but are they really? Or am I the true victim of naivety?
You could chalk up all these paragraphs I’ve written till now to be the musings of a very naive person. One who expects too much from people. Maybe having defences is good. Maybe appearing shallow to a new face is a good thing. Maybe not saying everything I want to is the more 'mature' thing to do. I’ve tried this, and it's been a lose-lose situation every time. Which leaves me wondering, is everyone just as lonely?
This may seem underwritten compared to my other work. But it’s untailored and true. I’m sick wallowing in the shallow world of today. Hours are spent weaving perspectives and opinions. Playing with the child in all of us, filling us with awe and just as much feelings of inadequacy. I’m sick of tailoring how I’m perceived. These are the truths. If I want people to be truthful to me, maybe I should start first. Even if impulsively you'd like to sneer and laugh at how childish this all sounds. Know that deep down, behind walls you don't even realise exist within, you're no different than me.
Loneliness is just a mask, a subtle side of one's personality if one ever realises it.
ReplyDeleteNice work 👍🏻