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mynlov · 7 years

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10/22/17

while reading taipei by tao lin (which is really not helping with my growing sense of dissociation. that’s the only thing i know how to call it, although i’m planning on looking up dissociation because i might not be sure what it means and i am probably being dramatic. aoife called it dissociation when i vaguely explained it to her at dinner ytd) i came across a sentence which was very relatable so i thought i should type it up because i feel like it’s a better written version of what i’ve been tiredly writing about for the past three weeks or so in hopes of physicalizing my state of mind.

He wanted to hide by shrinking past zero, through the dot at the end of himself, to a negative size, into an otherworld, where he would find a place– in an enormous city, too large to know itself, or some slowly developing suburb– to be alone and carefully build a life in which he might be able to begin, at some point, to think about what to do about himself.

it’s specific and yet still applies to me in an unsettlingly accurate way. (when i read books i accidentally begin to think/write in the same way that the author writes, which has made me upset for a long time because surely that indicates that i lack originality? oh on a side note that reminds me of when i was on the green lawn in cheltenham by the statue of holst with TM and C, the irish busker, while his friend L played a song by himself. C said that L had a better ear than him and vaguely mentioned that this allowed him to sing more similarly to the original artist. but i was really sure of myself when i replied that having a “less good” musical ear meant that C was more individual when singing, which is true, and that this was a good thing, and since then have felt slightly dubious about my notoriously good musical ear. pretentiously leads on to a potentially extensive discussion about whether ignorance is bliss). mostly it’s unsettling because “he”, paul, does an inordinate amount of drugs which, if i knew enough about drugs, i probably wouldn’t say should have killed him by now, but which is large enough to (not knowing all that much about drugs) make me think that he should have died by now. it’s a lot of drugs. i would never do drugs because i’ve heard stories of 14 yr old kids dying at parties bc somebody put a dodgy drug in their drink. i don’t want to die, obviously, so i think i’ll stick to alcohol. i’m aware of the naïvety of the statement because somebody could easily put something dodgy in my alcoholic drink which makes my argument sort of redundant, and also because you can die of an addiction to alcohol too. but sometimes i’d rather work by principles just for the sake of something like law and order. so i just won’t do drugs. maybe weed if someone offers when i’m like 18 going on 19, which they probably will. but i’ll honestly avoid getting addicted because it seems like such a bleak experience. especially after watching people, places and things. if i’m going to be unhappy then it probably shouldn’t be because of drugs, which could kill me.

i don’t know if i’m just in a good mood but everything (like me being unhappy) seems sort of amusing, like there’s another version of myself, maybe the original version or a younger one, watching from beside me, condescendingly knowing that i’m sort of making it up because i’m tired and dramatic. i know that i’m dramatic and tend to make silly assumptions about my wellbeing, but i don’t think i’m wrong about being unhappy. i also don’t like feeling guilty about being unhappy, when my dad or M constantly ask if i’m ok or tell me to stop stressing out. i’m not a stupid person so if i’m stressing out it tends to be for a good reason. actually, that’s not very true, but i know when i’m not stressing out properly and i make sure it’s known (i think). whenever they ask me if i’m ok or tell me to stop stressing out it’s when i actually am. and i am really stressed about things, but only because i know school is ending soon and i’ll have to leave, and because i’m worried i’ll do badly. i’ve become a lot better than before at analyzing my unhappiness and dismissing it if there’s no logical basis for it, and i know that if it weren’t my last year i wouldn’t worry about not enjoying myself all that much. i also know that if my college education didn’t rely on my performance i would be able to tell myself it’s ok. and i also know that if i didn’t feel like i was disappointing my teachers then none of this would even be that much of a problem for me. (a few weeks ago ID came into L’s and my room and the 3 of us talked until very late even though i wanted to go to sleep early, and i mentioned the fact that i hate feeling like i’ve fallen short of people’s expectations, especially when they’re grownups or people i look up to. ID immediately said “are you an only child?”, to which i replied, “well, yeah” because i sort of/basically am, and she said that that’s common for only children to feel, which made sense in a way that felt like it ought to have been sad but wasn’t really all that sad because it wasn’t surprising.)

being alone is strange now because i keep imagining social interaction and what i would be like if i were having a conversation with somebody i know well and who knows me well. but i can’t tell whether they’d think something was wrong or if everything would be normal. i think it would be normal, because i was with A yesterday and this morning and it was pretty normal. i’m a little quieter than i used to be, but that’s partly because i’ve spent a lot of time wishing i were quieter and wishing that i didn’t need to impulsively fill silences with irrelevant, boring or try-hard things. so i guess i’ve accomplished that, mostly because i no longer feel the need to say those things or do that. it’s made a lot of people ask me if i’m alright and assume that there was something off because of my quietness, which annoyed me for a while because i thought “people aren’t letting me change” when i wanted to “change”. but i don’t mind it now. they don’t do it as much and i’m better at just saying “yeah?” and smiling. or not smiling, if it’s someone like lara, whose attentiveness makes me feel greedy and like i was asking for attentiveness. i hate that.

my fingers are so cold… i have a ridiculous amount of work to do but i think i can do it. i’m feeling a little bit more positive! i wanted to look up dissociation but there’s no free wifi on the flight. i’ve realized something which was bothering me up until now: i keep mentioning my unhappiness. i think this is pretentious and self-indulgent and annoying, but i’m too tired to think of a less annoying way of describing it and i don’t think i’m happy so i won’t do anything about it. hopefully being aware of it will prevent me getting too self-indulgently attached to the idea of being unhappy. also it’s just a way of me describing my dissatisfaction. but i don’t want to say dissatisfaction (even though that came close for a second to being more accurate than unhappiness), because it seems superior and arrogant. it’s dissatisfaction but in a humble way lmao. i wish i had someone to talk to, but i’m not sure i’d know how to say anything satisfactory. hahaha.

i’ve just realized that i’ve put my finger on something that i’ve been thinking about for the loooongest time. i think there is another way (aside from the selfishness symposium lol) of separating people, not that you should but we all do it. and i always vaguely entertained the thought but always found it too complicated and kind of lame to go through with it. but now i did. i think there’s people who have a sort of decreased awareness of things like social interaction and “inner feelings”. then there’s people like L and me, who are the opposite and are aware of their feelings in a way that causes them to talk about it in a certain manner with people they’re close with (for me it’s always sort of sheepish but inevitable). i think that typically “popular” people tend to be the detached ones, to whom if L or i were to say something along the lines of what we usually say to each other about our “inner feelings” or whatever, would either be nice about feeling weirded out or would make some sort of face or something along those lines but would feel weirded out nonetheless (some might not know they’re weirded out but hence why i’m not very good friends with any of those people, bc they’re still weirded out). some people, like M, are amongst the “popular” detached people but are “clever” or “thoughtful” or “intuitive” enough to notice the difference between us and them, and this has caused specifically M, in the past, to come into our room and talk to us and say things like “you guys are so nice” and “i feel like i can really TALK to you” (in 5s). i always sort of sceptically thought, “yeah that’s because we’re normal people” but now i realize we’re just the other type of people. whereas people like J, whom M is friends with, whether out of some sort of desperate pretentiousness or simply their own personality, are the detached type, and are generally more difficult to “really TALK to” because of it. just now i started wondering whether this strange feeling of dissociation (sorry, i keep worrying that it’s not politically correct to refer to myself as dissociating because i’m not mentally ill, which is why i would love to look it up) will last long and 1) if i’ll feel trapped or unhappy because of it and 2) if i’ll start experiencing the laziness that makes you not want to talk about your “inner feelings” ever, and therefore if i’ll make friends with people like that and will be considered “officially popular”. although that’s a bit of a stretch because it doesn’t technically work like that, really i just wondered if i would become one of those people. i’m not sure anymore. it would be weird if i “became” one of those people but was aware of it and inside my mind i were still the other type of person like L. i have a headache. my computer is abt to die.

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