Alone

Nobody wants to be alone. I mean, if I had a choice, I would choose companionship and it’s not because I’m lonely; it’s because I’m human. Yesterday I choose to be alone. Not by choice, it was by a need to discover myself again.

I find myself teetering on brink of a mild depression. It’s purely situational although I am no stranger to it. My mind sometimes relishes in the idea. It wants to feel bad, to write sad poetry while eating whatever ready made meals are at hand, otherwise I’d go hungry. It very romantic, you know. Some of the best writers, songwriters, creators were strugglers also. They were restless; so romantic, so in despair that all they could do was create the most wondrous things in our existence.

I have been known to head to art galleries. I wear my best hat, dress in a manner that suggests I’m a free thinker, and I ponder every which way, folding my arms, relishing in the colors, and letting out sighs of appreciation. I know sub-consciously some of it’s an act. It’s as if I’m stuck in this morbid fantasy where I would be picked up by the most wonderfully creative and handsome man. He would paint for me. He would fill me in on the history of art, and later he would because disillusioned because he would realize I am a fraud. The picture he painted of me was premature.

I’m heading back, you know. I think there is a new exhibit opening in Vancouver and I have a year long membership, and the card itself is dusty. It’s time to start grabbing a hold of things that will stabilize me mentally.

So yeah, I am finding a lot of things are becoming familiar as of late. I just recently moved back to the grassroots of Victoria. I have moved back to my first home when I moved from Newfoundland to the West Coast. Initially, of course, because of the culture shock, I found it to be a seedy area. Now, it’s everything I ever wanted. It’s so me.

God, I can’t stand listening to myself.

I’m being blinded by florescent light.

Some studies have linked office buildings with this particular type of lighting to increases in depression and various other emotional disorders.

Some studies would go so far as to say: we are all slaves. We are all being harnessed for whatever talents we possess and there is no longer say. All we have are the hoards living their lives in some ‘unique way’ when in essence a larger percentage of the world does the same thing; something considered specialized isn’t really, only in our little cubby hole of the world. We want it to be special just to get through the day.

They say we’re all dying slowing; rotting away and we don’t even realize it until it’s too late.

I want to meet them, whoever they are. I need to know how to avoid this unavoidable trap. I want to ask them philosophically, rendered questions and peer into their notions of attainability. I want to know if they are happy, and if so, how did this come to be? I want to know if they aren’t bullshitting me. I need to know if there are alternatives.

I guess winning the lottery could solve these issues or even finding some sort of sugar daddy that would tend to my everyday needs.

But even if I were self-sustaining I would complain about other things. I would wonder why I wasn’t helping more people, or I would question the apathetic world we live in and point out the various differences of class and struggle. I would be an advocate for socialism and express my concerns about the starving children in third-world countries - we so early turn a blind eye, without cause.

I would then conform to the world of being rich. I would be selfish and buy furs. I would eat expensive cheeses without regard for my starving cousins, my friends on the zenith of welfare. I would think they were all trying to use me and revert into my own world where my every whim is met, without regard for the people who shaped me in the first place. We all become selfish in time. We all learn that without yourself, who is going to look out for number one. Who’s going to fulfill your needs and maintain the equilibrium of peace that we – oh so – desire.

I don’t want money. I couldn’t be that person. If I were that person and approached that brilliant light on my death bed, I’d probably feel the heavy weight of hell upon me. Oh no, I don’t want that indeed. I’d rather be the simple peasant. I’d rather be the conformism in today’s world, the guinea pig of corporations; the unseen man. I’d rather be humble then obnoxious and cold with fulfilled want.

I think when our rotted and overly consumed soul approaches the time to perish; we will look back and hopefully be satisfied.

Being satisfied could be as simple as seeing the world, or finding the right friends in my lifetime. Would I be happy just to spend my remaining days in Victoria in the routine I have grown so accustomed living? Would it be enough to make me die without remorse?

I talk about death like it’s at my backdoor. It’s not, you know. I mean, it’s possible I could drop dead tomorrow but I won’t. I’m not even thirty yet. I see friends sky-diving and speaking of their various trips to Europe, Asia, or any other continent for that matter, I become jealous and sad. I become envious of their lives and curse myself for being so practical. Then again, I think I’d have to lose everything in order to get to the same point that they relish in so freely.

I want more, you know. I feel as if sometimes I let the people down my life because I can’t break free of the struggle of livelihood. I can’t make that break between current life and the ‘life I am told I need to live in order to feel accomplished’.

I walked out to have a cigarette a few minutes ago. I am an on again, off again smoker. I smoke when I lose hope. I smoke when I no longer care about the people around my or myself for that matter.

When I started smoking, it started as some romantic ideal that was brainwashed into my wiring. It was the Marlboro man who sat on his horse, isolated and withdrawn, but still full of great pride and dignity. He was the thinker. He was the renegade (think James Dean, think Andy Worhol). He was the idol of ever teen boy, although if you asked them why they would shrug it off. It was the imagery, without question, that influenced our decision making process, and the funny thing is, we didn’t even think about why, we accepted it full-throttle.

There was also the lone house wife, dressed in the modern garb at the time sucking back on her minty cigarette while popping some cookies in the oven for the kids. I guess we didn’t realize at the time that she smoked because she was trapped by the system. She smoked because doctors told her it would help her lose the domestic fat she put on due to inactivity. She was fulfilling what was expected of her and no longer cared. So why not smoke her fucking brains out? All she had left of her was an overworked husband, her kids who were the product of post-war sex that would fill up the trades with vigor and later develop distain towards anything and everything; I bet you she wondering what the point was…

Now it’s more a cancerous causing chemical that eats away at my body. The romanticism is gone; it’s the habit that lingers and cannot flush out the 20 years of advertising that has brought me to this point.

We have all these traps set up at the office to catch crickets. It’s an epidemic this time of year and you can hear them rubbing their legs together in just about any nook you pass by. The trap by the one of the exits had a large spider in it. Its legs we’re stuck to the cricket-trap gluing and all I could think was “lucky bastard”.

No one sees the tragedy except for me.