Obsession & Comparison
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Is this it? Is this all there is to this ... game we call life? I've spent my time in good company. I've laughed and cried, hated and enjoyed; the whole slew of emotion is nothing but a pastime.
I've been used and manipulated as I'm certain I've done in the same stretch. I've savored my time and relished my own company. I've dreamed and created. I've thought and meditated. And above it all, I've felt the single sensation people salivate over, no matter the time nor the age nor the ideas of history or wisdom that accompany them.
I've experienced the end of the pursuit, only to find that it starts all over again once it's concluded. Only to find lack at its finale, let alone inebriation. That familiar piece of fulfillment is still missing like some forgotten puzzle piece of mine.
Are these petty little pursuits everything life has to offer? Constant cycles of the same thing? A wanting of just a ... a mere feeling? Whether it be happiness or sexual gratification, does it ever really change?
Is there no one on this damn rock who longs for something different!
I don't believe I understand their obsessions with these things, but perhaps these rudimentary desires are what separates the wheat from the chaff. I struggle deciding between which of the two I am, especially among my peers. Are they the wheat and I, the chaff? Or is it the other way around? A question I'm afraid I might one day find the answer to, though I pray it always remains hidden. I sincerely hope the scythe of Life is so forgiving.
Yearning. Yearning for amusement or attention or assurance or adoration. Their hearts reek of it. They hold these pursuits so dearly in their arms as if to not allow their own blood to seep away from them. Though, like some kind of tribute to these obsessions, their blood pours out of them like a river, and they don't even care to notice.
Their eyes turn glassy and hollow like that of a shark's—emotionless, hungry—and they pine and pant for their satisfaction and their satisfaction alone.
One might imagine it as the look that would cloak a man if he were to see a naked woman, or the look that would drape a woman if she were to see an affluent man. Those eyes ... yes, everyone knows them. Dilated and with one single purpose in mind as if you were nothing but prey in a single arm's reach.
I'm human too, so this is no judgment of mine. I can feel the weight of those wants! I just wish I felt it as ardently as they. No, not judgment. This is envy.
Where it seems as if their blood streams, mine only drips. Many times, I'm too frightened to look away from their heart's tears as I fear mine will be anything but red.
To be fulfilled by nothing but the company of others or from something as simple as physical touch—that sounds lovely if not ideal, but is that really all there is? Is that the summit to our entire lives? If it's true, I don't dare wonder where that leaves me.
There are times when I feel wholeheartedly accepted by Life. In tune with her as though I were an instrument in a symphony or a mere chord within its score, but even that would not convince me to pay the cost of immortality if it were offered to me on a silver platter.
I've little doubt those around me would gladly pay anything to live forever. Anything, if only to grasp onto one last tiny droplet of that silly little feeling of satisfaction, or to be able to white-knuckle onto youth for just a single second longer.
In truth, I don't really blame them. Half of me wishes to be more like them and half of me is terrified of them.