Journal Entry: Why I Write

For A Feeling of Clarity and Order

I think life’s about addiction: we’re addicted to the vices and the copes that give us a reason to wake up in the morning. I’m hungry right now, but nothing seems appetizing. I might be a little depressed, but when it feels like the outside world is closed off to everybody and everything, and when it feels like even the ones closest to us to are closed off, it just gets really hard to want anything at all. I think I’m first and foremost addicted to The Real: the things that trigger our senses uniquely, and provoke emotions like no other.

My friends and intuition suggest I turn to another cope. Video games are a nice one, but I can only play for so long without returning to thoughts of how aimless this activity is. It’s simulated. Even my communication with most of my virtual friends could be programmed into a rather simple binary tree at this point. It just doesn’t feel real without looking them truly in the eyes. There’s nothing like The Real. I even started putting hot sauce on most of my meals as an attempt to make the experience of eating food more exciting and emotive, but I lasted about half a bottle of Sriracha before I got bored again.

At this point, it seems like all I’ve got left are my words and my memories to remind me of what it was like to experience real life first-hand and intimately: something that could make me feel something real, because it itself was real. I’ve lost a bit of my affection for music because I’m just not feeling much at all nowadays. All music sounds the same and none of it resonates with me because it’s hard to resonate with a lack of feeling. My only stable, consistent, real (or as real as a screen can be) external stimulus is school, but it’s Thanksgiving break, and instead of feeling relieved to be free for at least a moment, I mostly just feel lost and unnerved. I got used to the strife that my classes imposed upon me and I’m clearly at least mildly addicted to it. I might be going through withdrawal.

I don’t really feel anxiety or fear very much. I dream a lot, though. Last night I dreamed there was a beautiful butterfly flying over my bed, and I tried to catch it. It evaded my grasp and then nosedived into my sheets, turning into a cockroach. I’m not really afraid of roaches, considering that there are so many of them in my basement, but they tend to be loud and have caused me to break out in hives in the past. I started scrambling for it, trying to catch it, and then woke up from my dream, still patting around my bed, trying to remove the roach from my bed that wasn’t even really there. I don’t feel anxiety or fear much, because– while I still have that deeply shy and deeply anxious core from my childhood– I’ve realized there’s no point in really indulging it. I only pick up on my fear and anxiety though the physical symptoms: elevated heart rate, racing thoughts, fatigue, trembling. I barely register it as a real emotion at this point. I’ve experienced so much fear and anxiety in my life, it just washes over and away from me. It still permeates into my dreams, though.

Writing gives me a feeling of control. It puts my feelings into words I can look at and understand. Right now, I write because it’s like stirring the pot in my heart, hopefully trying to revoke an emotion I’ve felt in the past; something concrete and something different from my everyday life, at least. I’m a visual creature, and I need my candy for the eyes. I become increasingly apathetic as time goes on. I’m left holding onto whatever I’ve got. And those are words. I’d read, but I mostly just want to live my own life, outside, with other people, desperately. I’m so tired of the screens… And here, at this moment, I’d just like to remind you to keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how tired you may be. It’s what I tell myself, at least.