For me, Damien was an escape into a world where nothing mattered. In his world, I didn’t have to do anything or be anything. And it was all justified by these vague references to the great things we would do and be in the future. But we didn’t have to do anything now. Somehow I knew that this fantastic future would never eventuate. It would continue to bob along, just ahead of us, and would never be transmuted into the present. Tomorrow would never come and we would never do or be anything.
I was lucky to get out. I was lucky he kicked me out.
I’ve seen him since. He’s alienated so many people. He’s nearly alone now. It’s sad; kind of like looking into a glass display at an animal that doesn’t even realize it’s trapped.
“Meaningless” by definition isn’t something that there can really be degrees of. But I do believe that his life, inside his glass case, is more meaningless than the lives of those who actually strive for something. But then, most of the time I feel like it’s all meaningless. Life, that is – any kind of life. And then I feel like an idiot – constantly searching for meaning in something that I believe to be meaningless. But I keep searching. I can’t help it.
Why did I have to wait to be kicked out? Why did I let him dump me when I knew his world was childish and wasteful and not for me?
It took me ages to work it out, but I think that, since I had decided life was meaningless (getting sick of that word now), I saw it as a chance to dive to the very depths of meaninglessness. If that’s what life is, then why not take it to excess?
And we really took it to excess. So much of that time is just a haze. A big mash of memories that can’t work out what order they’re meant to be in. And the more I try to focus on them, the more confused they get. The only thing I can really hold on to from that time is the feelings. They seem to sort of stay with you no matter what, feelings. Imprinted in your mind, or something. There’s fun mixed up in there, I know I had fun. There’s also a bit of despair, not too much though, a lot of apathy, some tears, some laughs. And that horrid fuzzy feeling you get from too much partying and not enough sleep. There was a lot of that.
It’s strange, but it’s sort of like you’re living in a fog. And because you’re in a fog and you can’t see how you got in or how to get out, you sort of forget that you weren’t just always there. So you just accept it – you learn to just accept anything and everything. Life stops affecting you. I think that’s why it’s so hard to get out – because you’ve forgotten that getting out is even an option.
I guess I was lucky really that he kicked me out. I’d like to think that at some point I would’ve woken up to myself and gotten out of there, but I just don’t know. It’s funny, because on the outside I’m sure it just looks banal and uninteresting but for me, it was the tragic low-point of my life. It’s all about perspective I suppose.
The real problem is that I still feel the same way as I did before Damien. I still have the same feelings that drove me into that lifestyle in the first place. Call it depressing, call it nihilistic, but it’s just what seems logical to me. But now the idea of pushing it to that extreme just doesn’t seem right. So, I’ve had to make a decision. I’ve decided to fly in the face of my own logic and say that there are degrees of meaninglessness. And I guess I’ll keep on trying for a less meaningless existence.
It’s funny, but the most logical decision I could come up with has ended up being the one that always seemed most illogical.
Elaine van Dyk, about 1 year ago
A lot of questioning and fathoming life out here….. Got me thinking too, about a lot of things and how we can look back on something we’re out of and believe we are happier or better off, but still remember there were also good things where we came from…........ I really like the way you wrote this – a little repetition here and there, just to bring us back to the point.
Knox, about 1 year ago
I am intrigued by your charater’s understanding (or lack of understanding) of life. You write just a duck on the water – on the surface; calm and pensive but underneath your almost going mad from the cross direction of what is “logical”. The repetition of some words really expressed this. Not sure if that’s what you wanted. Not bad.