unidentifiable amount of time roundup #1
Time Started: 4:01 PM
Mood: vaguely shitty
Weather: it's been two weeks and the ice still won't melt
Trigger Warnings: New header. This entry devolves into my philosophical ramblings near the end, and I make mention to suicide and nihilism. Feel free to avoid this entry if need be.
Hello again, readers. I know that I start every post this way, but my apologies again for never updating this blog- the universe seems to conspire to stop me from telling four people on the internet about my nonexistent goings-on.
Since it's been a good while since my last post, quite a bit has happened. I have finally started school back after winter break, for one thing. This is my last semester of high school. It has me feeling rather conflicted- on the one hand, the thought of finally striking it out on my own and living away from the suffocating confines of my parents is incredibly exciting. On the other, I am genuinely quite worried I am not suited to living a real adult life. My depressive episodes can be quite disabling, so my anxiety is quite high around this whole situation.
Other than that I don't have much. Because of the winter storm that swept the USA a few weeks ago, I have been locked inside my house for around two weeks with basically no reprieve. I always thought I liked to stay inside, but this situation is seriously making me re-evaluate my entire personality. If I don't leave the house in the next four days I will probably lose my mind and die in a very dramatic Shirley Jackson-esque way. (Speaking of, I re-read The Haunting of Hill House over the snow break. Excellent book.)
These past two weeks of being stuck inside have been so mind-numbingly boring that the highlight of my week was sitting outside for thirty minutes yesterday. I must stress that I never sit outside. I'm not sure what came over me, but I was staring at the dark gray Silent Hill background that was my backyard, and I pulled my chair outside with a cup of Earl Grey tea and sat there staring at nothing.
How can I explain this experience? I must assume I underwent some form of ego death. As I sat on my cold chair in the drizzly rain, I felt my consciousness bleed out of my body and into the environment, and I experienced an unsettlingly quiet feeling of despair. I realized, in that moment, that I really had no idea who I was, and the absurdity of the world at once appeared to me in perfect clarity. Why, I wondered, must we continue this needless march of life, when at the end of it all we simply disappear into nothingness? As Hamlet mused, it must be the fear of what comes after, the unwillingness to go into the undiscovered country from which no traveler returns. And as I sat in the rain, it struck me- I didn't care, I wasn't afraid. I cannot imagine an afterlife more despondent and meaningless than the life all of us live, the one we are swept into with no consideration.
I try to avoid nihilism, I truly do, but in that moment I came to terms with it. It was still quiet. The only thing I could hear was the rain and the occasional car passing by my house. I drank my tea and I went back inside.
Maybe that is the true absurdity of it all, isn't it? Because at the end of the day the clock keeps ticking and normal life continues. I went inside and I played a board game with my family and I ate dinner and I did my homework. Aware however you may be of the machine, there is truly nothing you can do to stop it. It will continue when you're here and it will roll onward after your death, never looking back, until the heat death of it all.
I don't really have anything else to say. I will still recommend an album, as I am not one to break my own promises. I'll say you should listen to deathconsciousness by shoegaze band Have A Nice Life. In particular, I have been listening to the first track, A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut, quite a bit over the last few weeks. If any of my talk of nihilism or despair resonated with you, I believe you will get something meaningful out of this record. You can find it here.
As always, if you like my blog or my music choice, let me know on my guestbook. I greatly enjoy getting messages there.
Thank you for reading this.