Solipsism

serenity
Originally uploaded by randi bee

I try to live my life in terms of the themes I think about. They are usually discrete in one way or another, and thus quantifiable. Spring semester, when I was taking courses more or less about society and all its minor injustices, I thought about that. It was a theme. That and spirituality/sense of self really permeated my thoughts this spring.

It felt good to have strong thoughts, but as usual I was stuck in the academic bubble. I've never been active in any school or purpose-led community, because I am selfish and antisocial - I'll admit that because it's true. And one thing A taught me while I lived with her this past year is that it's stupid to hide the truth from yourself, more so from anyone else who needs to know it.

Now it's summer, and I'm isolated from the people and the community that made me think. My jobs are essentially free of critical thought, because a) in one of them, my position is so low that I'm not considered responsible enough to take on truly thoughtful work beyond being critical of others; and b) in the other, the higher-ups value every possible idea that the interns can dream up but aren't organized enough to make good use of them.

I'm living with people who aren't like me. I'm discovering just how hard it is for me to open up to people, whether it's out of stubbornness or pure personality. I'm unwilling to make the effort to befriend new people these days, because I am afraid we will just drift apart that much faster, when my time in New York is up. This is incredibly pessimistic, but I am too stubborn and in too deep denial to change.

The one benefit of being so introspective and introverted means I have time to realize these things about myself. I've grown up a very selfish person, a result of strange emotional cocktails downed over twenty-one years of strange maturation. I notice my self-absorption even in my journals - personal or otherwise. It's interesting to have glimpses of other people's personal journals; they extend so far out in ways very unlike mine. The thoughts they have trickled onto paper or digital media are more like wandering spindles, touching various aspects of life and the thinker's relation to the world.

Mine are more like inward-turning spirals.

God only knows why we (or why I) decide on the ideas we do to share with people like this. But we choose, and I choose, because somehow it seems the most satisfying place to discover things. This self-indulgence, combined with my other hyphenated self-nouns (self-absorption, -centeredness etc.) has made me realize that I am a very lazy person. I dislike honest work, except when I masochistically enjoy it under circumstances of very high stress. It has to be the perfect pinnacle of stress, otherwise I just scuttle away and avoid the effort.

Don't get the wrong idea: I'm hardly worried about this strange condition. I'm just curious to see how it grows and mutates as I get older. Let's call this the diagnosis stage.