My quest to emptiness keeps me awake at night. I feel this giant void eating at me from the inside and I just allow it, like a black hole expending ever so slowly from within... hoping that at some point the black hole will be big enough to swallow me whole.
At times I feel as though I'm in some kind of trance. I'm still very much aware of my surroundings, but I feel a sudden disconnection from everything around me, and suddenly everyone and everything appears two-dimensional, as if the people around me were nothing but momentary hallucinations. As if there was nothing more to them except exactly what my eyes see. Bodies moving randomly around me.
I used to be deeply depressed, so I know what I'm experiencing is different, for the main reason that when I was depressed I used to wish I was dead. I hated myself as much as I hated the world and its fabrications. But now... I feel this 'depression' just as deeply, except I have no wish of being either dead or alive, nor do I have any wish to hurt myself or others. I just feel in limbo.
I spent the weekend watching episodes from a TV series called Dollhouse, which is about some corporation with the technology to erase people's brains and memories completely to implant various personalities back into the 'emptied' bodies depending on the mission the corporation gets paid for.
The whole concept was rather interesting. The question of what remains if someone erased all of your memories or 'identity'... what remains if identity is wiped out? The series starts off with the assumption that by wiping out a person's memories and experiences, not only is the person's core identity, or illusion of one, destroyed, but all that remains is really the empty shell of a body - and as such the people whose personalities are completely erased are dubbed 'dolls'.
As the series progresses, it starts questioning the notion of a soul, or core 'being' and whether wiping out what we call identity (memories and experiences) really does lead to an empty body.
As I watched the 'empty' bodies walking about, clueless and childlike in their lack of memories and personality, I have to say I was able to relate far more to them than all the other fully-functional characters who haven't had their personalities and memories erased. I wondered for a moment which one I 'was', and the answer was... just like the 'dolls'. I don't know why, but there you go.
The way it feels is strange... It's like I only become 'active' when my environment triggers me. But as soon as I find myself alone or not 'triggered' by a person or event, I switch off. Vacant eyes, numbness, the void within. And then it only takes one person to come my way, to ask a question or simply talk to me, and I swiftly switch back on again almost like magic... but now I feel it... I feel the trigger, the way my personality switches back on to life because that is how I've been conditioned as a human being to evolve. It is so rooted in me that I switch back on beyond my own control, just like a reflex. I cannot consciously decide to remain disconnected from my environment when it triggers any sort of reaction from me. A lifetime of learning only about responding to it has led to this.
Head hurts...
You don't think people who marry, have children and stay together until old age love each other? Not everyone is lucky enough to experience it, but love is certainly real and important for those who do.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how this comment fits with this particular blog entry, you're probably referring to another one.
ReplyDeleteI'm questioning the notion of love, what it is that we all call love, and how it translates itself in reality within society. On a subjective level, everything feels 'real' to the person experiencing it. Only the power of hindsight eventually tells the person whether it really was real or not.
No, I don't think ALL people who marry, have children and stay together till old age love each other. That means there are some, but a lot of them just do it because they're expected to - social norms, expectations and the need to fit in. The biological clock also plays a role, women for example after a certain age may start longing for children, and it may be the same for men.
A lot of people out there get together out of convenience, fear of being alone, or simply because they share similar traits and goals (ie: they get on well enough, and both desire children and a stable life/settling down).
Is that better or worse than 'love'? I don't know, perhaps it is better to have companionship than forever holding onto the all-elusive notion of some kind of all-consuming passionate romantic love.
It's certainly an important feeling for all humans, otherwise none of us would be talking about it so much and trying so hard to figure it out.
I like to question everything, and love is one of the things I question and try to understand as deeply as I can.