I have to get on the tram. But there is a huge crowd in front of it. They are jostling with their arms and elbows, with feet and knees; they are shifting about, shove one another aside, swearing as they force their way through and get on. It is obvious to me, that if I too want the get on, I’ll have to do as they did. And so, straight away, without a moment’s hesitation, I decide for myself: I’ll continue on foot.
And I have been walking through life ever since – already for my entire life…
– Dimitar Podvarzachov, selected quote
The familiar sensation of dull ache and pressure behind my left eye has returned. I am unable to stifle this around-the-clock yawning, either, no matter how much caffeine I ingest. And I can sense something of a cardiac arrhythmia settling in. Not dying yet, I hope, but my physical and mental health markers are in rapid decline. I blame my own mind for the state that I am in, ever restless and not in the productive kind of way.
My experience with finding a new job over the past few months has been a miserable slog. Today I thought about how the micro-habits, reactions, and emotions permeating this process are so reminiscent of a certain period in my early 20s. A mixture of low paid meaningless work, a health condition which still haunts me to this day, and a failed relationship that seemed to weigh more on me over time than I’d expected – they all made for this bittersweet concoction I kept sipping on around the clock. And it left me perpetually drained, dazed and confused. Every entry in this blog hints at this period I am referring to. Yet I am older now and should know better. I’ve accepted that romantic love is beyond my control and shouldn’t be forced; I try to think about my diet, too, but I tend to overeat. What seems to get to me the most, however, is the silence after a job application or the email rejection post-interview. I try to get used to it all, muster some indescribable force and bear my failures with stoic determination. But unlike any decent punching bag, a tear in the fabric of the value I ascribe to myself isn’t as straightforward to mend.
I am flying back to the UK this Saturday. I made a half-hearted promise to my younger brother to go stay with them and seek temporary employment. Every fibre of my being revolts against this next step, but it is the adult thing to do. Or so we tell ourselves.
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg that has come to be my four decades of indecisiveness. For you see, I’d gladly do paid work, whatever that might be (well, almost) if it meant I’d get a chance to earn respectful treatment and a half-decent pay cheque. No, what gnaws at me is that I still don’t know what I’d like to be when I grow up. It almost feels like I am not living a true-to-self life.
Much like our planet I fall into this great void left by the vanishing of what little passion and imagination I had as a child. All I do is circle around the cold light of LCD and OLED screens in almost all waking moments of the day. And it is wearing me out at rates I do not recall experiencing when I was younger. In my 20s, the struggle was predominantly of the romantic kind, the burning up of unrequited love fuelled by what was left of my youth. Career-building, I admit, was a distant blip. As I draft this I realise I feel the exact opposite. It bothers me greatly that I am not earning at the moment, sure. Greater is, however, my inability to imagine myself both following a passion and making a living of it. Meanwhile, the notion of love, of intimate and romantic closeness with another human being, the very idea to build something lasting with another – such thoughts hardly ever enter my mind uninvited anymore.
Tell me, dear reader, does this candid overview to my personal life at the moment, sadden you at all? Does any of this move you to pity? Or, does it motivate you to get your own affairs in order, lest you end up in a not too dissimilar situation? I am just trying to tell it all like it really is. Whatever the heck ‘real’ has come to mean to me. Yes, presently I am at a point in my life when my affinity for metacognition is making me doubt my own perception of reality. Like a dog chasing its tail until it collapses, I wonder whether I am not causing myself needless bother by overanalysing my existence. What I state with certainty is that misery isn’t on the list of my favourite mistresses. And I have had many! Well, mostly of the ailing kind…
There is a mind-numbing quality to this state I am attempting to describe for you. Not even the warm caresses of an October sun get to me the same way; instead, they are somehow rendered glaring, harsh even. I am so cold, so far removed from the sweet nectar of simple pleasures, from joy. We are all in this together, I know. Albeit, at different stages. Mine seems to be the one where I need to learn, and soon, how to fail fast and fail better. Learn from my mistakes and do better, or risk a label of one whose entire existence could be summed up as: peculiar. Let’s at least aim for ordinary.
In The Weight of Inertia, I pick at what it feels like to be stuck just thinking about doing things.
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