28 and counting.

And then there was nothing.

This is the first day- perhaps in my recollected past- where this trite phrase, this cliched, overdramatic sentence passed through my head- fueled by undeniable sincerity.

There was nothing, and then..

Yoga in the park yesterday, surrounded by hundreds of others, stretching to the sounds of Led Zepplin, encircled by the blue reflection of a Saturday morning in the buildings of a retiring morning, no pulse yet in the pavement. The voice which commanded our contortions told us to imagine our dream. The image that came into my mind- a small chalet on Lake Geneva. Living alone in a crisp, modern, minimal home. Writing pieces on development, on health care. Having the memories of time spent in the field. Perhaps the memories of personal entanglements that would merit a passing neural flight. But alone.

And then nothing was there.

Is this solitude, this "complicated solitude" as my latest book would parrot, really a dream? Or a dream composed of an acceptance of my limitations? In the minds of those around me, I imagine lives littered with loves, both new and lost, families, human connections. Frail, tenuous, human connections. And yet- when given the cosmos to fashion a vision, I find myself alone. That same memorable of tremulous loneliness I felt in London so long ago. Desperate for human connection, but still something proudly redeeming, something accomplished- in those days on end spent traversing the old city alone.

Other travels have served as a reminder of this paradox: the dream of solitude, but the human need for connection. The basis of a thousand works, and yet a motif I would constantly cycle back to. Always finding the quiet stoic, the learned man who seeks company and yet is still somewhat apart: this I find most moving, most uplifting. Always looking at those grounded most strongly in the world as alien. This mental drive- this dream that appeared from the ether as quickly as it was required of me...

Nothing.

How can I rectify these with the days spent locked in semi-sleep, waiting simply for time to pass. Enjoying that boundary of consciousness and sleep, where daydreams and longing pass into that realm where for a few transitory hours, the random firings of sleep draft a new reality. And in these realities: there is some way to make this solitude tolerable. I have not yet determined how to pass these subconscious dreams into an actionable... life.

28- no significant relationships to speak of. And yet, this is the part of my character, my life narrative with which I am most accepting. Perhaps I no longer, or never did, find this to be part of the life I expected. I want people who fascinate me, who challenge me, who can torture themselves in word and thought the same way I can. This brings me elation, fulfillment.

But even now- most of those people are gone. Too many years spent in too superficial of relationships thinking it would protect me from days like this. And now that a shift has occurred- that a loner begins to occupy the body of a former butterfly, so few are left. I find myself missing the conversation, those individuals, when I need not a solution, not a new path, but... to bring these thoughts into the world, to make them real through language outside of my own meandering rambles. To bring them into the world, they seem less daunting. And perhaps less isolating. I have lost those bridges to reality.

I have no career trajectory of which to speak- despite having had multiple opportunities, backing from people who found me brilliant with little effort. The confidence I used to have in those abilities, beginning to flag, as I can no longer harness them in the direction I once could, with outside reinforcement, with concrete goals.

My family- a world of concern, and yet there will always be a bit of a divide. A chasm of insecurity I will never quite be able to cross.

These passive thoughts, and beginning to become- more real. Not in action, but in sentiment. No reason to be awake. Nothing to rally my will around. When did this flee? Why felt so acutely now? Surprisingly, I can tolerate the passage of time much more easily, the purgatory of days repeating.

Nothing. And then there was...

Paralysis

How do you fill up days, when life is more lived between the pages of a book, enveloped in the glow of a screen, the silence of mind- than in what is the best approximation of reality our senses can muster?

A full two months now, where I cannot even attempt to concoct a purpose to my being, any sort of meaning to my days. So much philosophical waxing on about how the life of the mind, the intellectual stimulation that comes from seeking to understand the cosmos- provides a true grounding, helps to create a true life. But doesn't meaning require an external validation, a feedback loop, another person? Perhaps not, but how often does it feel so.

I read a definition of meaning that implies it is two-fold: an experience one gains subjective joy from, but also is deemed of value by- someone. Social norms seemed to be the lingua franca of the philosopher, but there are also higher values or drives, which an isolated story can serve to further. This gives those narratives meaning, in the overarching fabric created by the atomistic pursuits of self-fulfillment. Self-improvement. Self-recreation. These endeavors are surely more lonely though, than meaning found from a network, a connection spiraling out like a spider web. Granted, sometimes more like the den of a brown recluse. But can these experiences truly be meaningful if they die along with the neurotransmitters, the neural network in a single mind? Can attempting to use philsophy and understanding to take in, the watch, to absorb, rather than create, to scupt that outer world, come to mean something? And if it can, why is it sometimes such a restless loneliness, and yet other times, particularly in memory, such a cleansing isolation?

Life Deviations

The music assaulted her ears as she descended into cafe. "Have yourself... a merry little-" the slight breeze of the door closing, a with a deliberate casualness, and a second to reorient. East or west? Which way was the holiday season likely to not to have invaded quite yet? Or did it spread north to south across the island, the direction the sparrows, the only redeemable birds within a 30 block radius, had chosen to flee from its onslaught several days earlier? A more modern looking espresso bar- trying desperately not to be recognizably Swedish, maybe aiming more for a Helsinki, or at worst a Bergen. Generic insert-name-of-underground-indie-band whined in a more subdued fashion from the speakers set acoustically back from the counter. This seemed more acceptable. The holiday season was much more tolerable from the protective barrier of two sets of windows, separated by a cobble stone street and several strolling couples trying to look indifferent to life, their expensive flannel defeating the purpose of their jaunt. To "simply be one with the..." god only knows what, this was normally when she stopped listening. The dimly lit bar seating in the cafe contrasted in a comfortingly cliche way with the opulence of the Soho christmas behind the glass on the opposing street. Clean and minimalist, for what could be more American, it like the tree cautiously draped with a single strand of white lights, lounging like an oscar wilde novel, and the couple who had lingered in front were working to celebrate the holiday in the same fashion: blasse, one too tasteless, the other too tactful to acknowledge it. This made the pangs of home more easy to caffeinate away, one skim latte ounce at a time.

More movement

It's the same office that it's been since October. Fifty dollars a visit to figure things out. Life. To learn what to be curious about. To learn what not to be judgmental of. The same turn to the right at the cinema, across from a smoky bar. Down a flight of stairs, to a room where I try not to see the others that are there. Upstairs to the same third floor office. A comfortable place, the same spot for my coffee in front of the clock on the table. Bag down, jacket off. "How's it going?" the standard greeting. A stenographer pad that someday would make an amazing case study. Successful, but dissatisfied. Unable to let go of things that are painful and damaging. And today was the first day I saw the frustration beam over. An eye roll, a fast apology. Of something she's wanted to say for ages, and something I've spent my time trying to avoid. Since the first time in a different office nearly a year ago. My emotional attachments are only to something hurtful. Sometimes honest, but unclear in waht construction. I am learning, certainly no innocent bystander. Parts of myself I don't like, insecurities that need to be fathomed. But why do I continue to seek out something that now only results in falling apart because I've hurt someone (or feeling self-centered in I'm only concerned about how it affects me), or waiting with anxiety for the next time I fuck up. How do you change those intial, visceral reactions of wanting forgiveness and acceptance. How do you reconcile what in retrospect are often good memories with how painful the arc has actually been? How much self control is it going to take not to pick up the phone- and to dred the person on the other end not answering? Can I be something else? Who else would that new person find- and will there always be this nostalgia for whatever this uncertainty is, this slightly foreboding discomfort?

Transferring these feelings of pain into anger. That was the prediction of where they would go- and acting on them rather than just feeling them deeply. is anger a more suitable emotion, more palateable than being a victim?

Accumulations

Such empty spaces... erode in the modern world, to the point that silence provokes a why-am-I-not-in-demand anxiety.

I know, in middle age the business of life is less about doing things for the first than for the last time.

Memories, as Apollinaire noted, are like the sound of hunters’ horns fading in the wind. Still, they linger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/opinion/08cohen.html