Still here, and Still trying
As I've sunk further and further into my depression, I've noticed that in the midst of the numbness I am still open to finding my reason to stay here and live this life. It's almost a different kind of fight. But one that is still so difficult. I've spent my life fighting to be here but lacking understanding as to what is significant about being here at all.
There are so many things that live up to society's standards, but not to mine. I've grown into feeling that I'm tired of compromising my life and time into other's daily routine of going with the flow. Going with the flow of rape culture, going with the flow of systemic racism. I am standing on a platform with grief looking back at me, and exhaustion looking forward and I feel like I can't move.
I want to get to a point where my life means so much to me that I can't be spirtually exhausted.
There is a quote by Nietzche that goes "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." and when I first saw this quote today I immediately thought to myself "I want to believe this so bad." I'm not in a place where I feel like I can bear with almost any how, but I think its because I am still searching for the why. So I started reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" and I have to say that because he has really experienced the horrible realities of human power I already am open to what he has to say about why his life still has meaning.
One thing I am learning about myself is that perhaps I have been looking at life all wrong, not that I can be blamed for looking at it that way! I am but a series of experiences strung together. I think on some level I had set my expectations for life, albeit not very high and am actually impressed by how this society continually fails to meet my expectations. Maybe its not about society meeting my expectations, but rather looking at society and asking what it expects from me. I am but a string of experiences but these experiences no matter how painful can be summed into some measure of value. In my life, I've suffered immensely from the actions of the world and from those close to me but also since these are my experiences and they shape my view, they have also led me to this point right now and given me in some way my capacity to think outside the box. Suffering is horrendous, but does that mean that it can not be useful? I've been trying to spend time focusing on how I can't see through the haze of my depression but now that I think about it I don't think there was a time I could ever see clearly. I've never known exactly what my likes or interest were. But I knew what I didn't like. I learned quickily the things I didn't like because it was the suffering that taught me that I didn't like those things. My suffering has provided me some type of path,treacherous perhaps, but still in someway it has guided me into viewing the injustices of this world and my disdain for them, and by that logic, from what I see I don't like- I can better work towards finding out the things that I do.
There are so many things that live up to society's standards, but not to mine. I've grown into feeling that I'm tired of compromising my life and time into other's daily routine of going with the flow. Going with the flow of rape culture, going with the flow of systemic racism. I am standing on a platform with grief looking back at me, and exhaustion looking forward and I feel like I can't move.
I want to get to a point where my life means so much to me that I can't be spirtually exhausted.
There is a quote by Nietzche that goes "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." and when I first saw this quote today I immediately thought to myself "I want to believe this so bad." I'm not in a place where I feel like I can bear with almost any how, but I think its because I am still searching for the why. So I started reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" and I have to say that because he has really experienced the horrible realities of human power I already am open to what he has to say about why his life still has meaning.
One thing I am learning about myself is that perhaps I have been looking at life all wrong, not that I can be blamed for looking at it that way! I am but a series of experiences strung together. I think on some level I had set my expectations for life, albeit not very high and am actually impressed by how this society continually fails to meet my expectations. Maybe its not about society meeting my expectations, but rather looking at society and asking what it expects from me. I am but a string of experiences but these experiences no matter how painful can be summed into some measure of value. In my life, I've suffered immensely from the actions of the world and from those close to me but also since these are my experiences and they shape my view, they have also led me to this point right now and given me in some way my capacity to think outside the box. Suffering is horrendous, but does that mean that it can not be useful? I've been trying to spend time focusing on how I can't see through the haze of my depression but now that I think about it I don't think there was a time I could ever see clearly. I've never known exactly what my likes or interest were. But I knew what I didn't like. I learned quickily the things I didn't like because it was the suffering that taught me that I didn't like those things. My suffering has provided me some type of path,treacherous perhaps, but still in someway it has guided me into viewing the injustices of this world and my disdain for them, and by that logic, from what I see I don't like- I can better work towards finding out the things that I do.
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