The Great Wall of Vanity.

I admire adaptability, the actors of the world who can change what they let people see about them, fooling others into believing a truth that doesn't exist in any way at all. I enjoy being versatile but on no level close to the best, before it sounds like I'm trying to stand on a podium with these masters of their art. Some of the performances I've put on may actually be award worthy thinking back on it.

I'm growing more tired of life, the prospects of the future, the paths I can pick out compared to a life I'd actually want to have. Most days I find myself overcome with feelings of disdain for every minor infraction or occurrence around me, I feel like I want an escape and the old methods don't work any more and I'm running out of ideas. I want to live a life filled with meaning and do something that matters, impact the world positively, the more I read into the past the more I find out how recently this world has been for the lack of a better word, ugly. Despite how long we've existed we truly are still infants in the grand scheme of things and with that brings ignorance and intolerance on a scale that depresses me, violence and experimentation that disgusts me beyond words and a system the world runs off that's well and truly broken. We're not the good guys and we never were, that isn't new to me at all but delve into that, use this grand worldwide search engine and look at things, we, as people have got away with in the last hundred years alone. Atrocities, pure evil, and for what? Power, appeasement, and vanity.

I'm supposed to go about daily life, working five days a week and struggling every fucking minute of the day because what I do doesn't matter, even if I change that I'm terrified because I know whatever I do will never be enough for me. Just give me a good thing to die for, one thing, make my life worth something on the way out, I don't care about praise or legacy and I don't need to be remembered at all, it would be better than wasting away miserably in a shadow of something greater.

It's tricky thing, to evaluate yourself and what you're becoming. You live with your regrets, failures and worst moments across your shoulders, but letting those things become more than they are by dictating a path with less adventure or fulfillment is the greatest loss to learning about yourself. Embracing the mistakes and taking something from it is always what you're told to do, and for good reason.

Today

I made a personal breakthrough, one of those movie-moment epiphanies where something suddenly makes sense after years of not even realising it was an issue at all. My biggest flaw, at least to me has always been thinking I'm smarter than I actually am, most days I wake up and already have myself convinced that I can either outsmart or twist my way around people in such a fashion that I could do almost anything I wanted at any given time. Now obviously that isn't true and if that was the 'epiphany' moment I'd be realising I was much less intelligent than I'd ever believed in the first place, I have my days of self doubt just like anyone else and believe it's healthy, necessary even to stay grounded so my giant head fits through doorways. The thing I finally realised is: just because you aren't chasing after the girl doesn't mean you're over her, and just because you don't think about her all the time or love her any more doesn't mean there's not a subconscious remnant thinking maybe something could happen again one day.

Plenty of relationships between then and now, other girls who I sincerely fell in love with and been invested in fully that I put effort into, but this idiotic subconscious thought hanging by a thread was always there. I spent so long convincing myself that I never wanted it to happen again that I believed myself and made it worse, flipping a want to be with someone into a legitimate effort not to be which was equally damaging. I've gone so long without realising I was believing a lie I told myself to make things easier a long time ago, it's an odd feeling of closure and freedom to have worked that out, to get past it when I never really knew it was holding me down in that way.

All this because of silence, I wish I could say thank you.

Spills

Further and further away I feel myself getting from the life and mind I felt I knew. The constant need for something new being chased is almost exhausting and I often ask myself what I'm doing it for, I'm not sure I know the answer any more.

I feel like I know myself but I'm not sure anyone else does, I think I have a tendency to get lost in unrealistic ideas and talk about how I perceive life and what it means, I also offer advice far too much for someone who doesn't know how to lead themself on the worse days, but I feel strong, awake, clearer than ever in ways I never considered viable before, every realisation is a doorway to a knew breed of thought, every experience I have now could positively affect another in the future.

In the process of shedding my old skin of shyness to talk or draw attention to myself in larger social situations when there's not a guitar strapped to me, I pushed a bit too hard and that leaves me talking at times when it's not necessary. We're all constantly in a self improvement loop which can occasionally roll backward as well as forward, submitting to the wills of our personal nostalgia; perhaps your old haircut did shape your forehead better, maybe those glasses your friends said made you look like a Annie Potts from Ghostbusters actually fit well, and the classic "'I can bring the totally mustache back! They're not just for 1980's pedophiles!" These moments are often mistakes, but we all have them and my continuing journey of finding who I want to be in life has been through constant trial and error, pushing everything I possibly can as far as it can go just to see where it ends, I won't get anywhere or do anything at all unless I'm outside my comfort zone and the most serendipitous part of that is I'm aiming that gun of goals straight at falling back into that place once I can secure a life I love.

Right now I have my friends, I have my guitar and I have my freedom, these are the things that matter most. I want a motorbike to give me the freedom of movement, I want a business to be proud of, to be in control of my own life and I want more memories, experiences and moments than I could ever forget over a thousand lifetimes. Every risk is a necessity.

Letter

It's time to stop being so idealistic, it just goes to show when you feel like you have control of things, you're actually looking at it the way you want it to be and hoping the inevitable won't happen.
Realising this situation is out of my hands has hit me pretty hard and more than anything it's shown how good things are for me right now when they aren't so much for others. I wish I could do something, I really do and it's going to be in the back of my head for a long, long time, it's the reason I'm awake at almost three on a slow Thursday morning.

The only thing I care about is having fun, smiling, laughing, having the best memories possible while constantly making better ones. This isn't one of those times, but it puts a point in the future to refer to, an unsure one right now but it's there, something to aim for, to build towards so on that day I can do my best to make up the time where we all lost something and eventually got it back.

Hopefully time actually has some wings to fly with.

Points of Reference

These are all points for myself to look back to and remember who I was at the time. If you can truly write without inhibition about yourself, your fears, worries, strengths and weaknesses, it will give you a better understanding of yourself in that time, and it will give you something for the future to know you improved yourself.

Cogs

I try to think ahead of myself, probably a bit less than I should, obsessing about past mistakes and discrepancies which waste so much time that I could put towards something positive and life affirming? Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what I'd use the extra time for... Alas, letting my mind wonder seems to be something that brings equal amounts of pain and understanding to multiple aspects of my life, which mostly seems like I don't have a grasp with what I'm doing, and currently and quite honestly I look forward and see such uncertainty and change that I can't organise any effort to combat it.

Looking at other people's life, their plans and aspirations, they seem so simple, or at the very least they have an understanding of themselves, I long for that. I feel lost, I feel like I spend my time thinking and focusing on things that everyone else can ignore, or just don't find any interest for. I'm not talking about the 'Meaning of Life' or anything pseudo-meaningful like that, the meaning of my life is to be happy, the meaning of all life is personal to each and every one of us, so there's no need to sit around playing with it. The things that I seem to fixate on now are people's behaviour, and the things that cause certain actions, how I'm supposed to make a life that I'm happy with, and generally how unfathomably huge, stupid complex and fascinating space is. These are just some of the things that circle around in my head that I've pulled down for examples, every single day there's something new to focus on.

I'm guessing the point of the last two paragraphs filled with poorly worded ramblings, is that I'm not struggling to function in some 'Cry for help' fashion, but in some way I'm finding it difficult to live my life day to day and not question simple aspects of living that everyone else seems happy with. I'm sure it all bases itself in a fear that once I finally have something I've been wanting, I'll move on to the next thing and never be completely happy with what I've got.