As I stand atop my little castle, all I do is look up and envy, and dream, with such fondness too, of days when I would throw it all away and stake myself, once and perhaps forevermore, to reach ever greater heights.
I remember I used to believe I was really “special,” but so do most people, I think. Funny, even in that belief I was not unique. I don’t anymore, and that is not an admission of defeat, just a greater understanding of self. Yet I could never let go of the dreams I believed in when I was more naive.
What dreams, though? At no point, now or in the past, have I been able to define them. Like air, I know only their vague existence, that they expand to fill everything in my life, and that, just like air, I would die without them.
There comes a time when you start to understand and accept who you are. I have done that more and more lately, as my isolation from the outside world and from what society would consider “normal” grows, perhaps it is because I have been isolated that I have had the time to look inward.
Any contentment I have ever found comes when I do something that moves me toward my dreams. On those days I can sleep with a strange satisfaction, perhaps akin to what some old hunter felt after a bountiful day, knowing he had done well and that his family and tribe were well fed. I understand that reasoning because at least it makes rational sense and is grounded in reality, instead of being some abstract pursuit.
There have been days though when I forget my dreams, the same days I would rather forget from my life as well. I am painfully aware that I am not cut from the cloth those “great men” were. It is easy really, for me to forget and lose myself, to do what society expects of me, to do what the next person tells me to. And I admit that I write these pages partly to lie to myself, to make myself feel as if I am doing something. These writings, after all, are part of the dream. If I had to assign a single word to it, “creation” would be close.
I deeply regret the days when I could not create. When days are spent in work to earn money I will never spend, money to put food on a table for no family or tribe, I regret it. Days spent with friends, maybe watching a movie or playing games, I regret even more. It has taken me twenty-four years of life to arrive at the degree of isolation I have now, and only now have I been able, as much as my meager talents allow, to create.
I have been trying to write, to read, to learn, to do whatever feels like part of the dream. My dream, after all, is just a vague vision. And at the end of each such contentful day, I cannot help but wonder what it would have been like had I started sooner. All my successes, or rather all the effort that is a prerequisite for anything, have been born of isolation. If I keep removing things from my life, forsaking them, I may be left with nothing but my dreams - what beautiful life!
And so, every now and then, I try to take steps in that direction. I have uninstalled and deleted all my games. I deleted the one parasocial website I had become addicted to as well. Everything and everyone, I have tried to throw away like rotten calluses. There are only a few ties left now: one friend I still talk to, and my family - and lately I have been having ugly fantasies about them.
I know I will find it in me someday, borne of some impulsive excuse, to burn bridges with that friend; and given who I am, once we go that way there will be no going back. My family, which is basically just my parents, well, let me start by saying that I am grateful to have been fortunate enough that they care about me. Of all transactional relationships, perhaps that of parent and child is the least so. There are expectations, yes, but it is still purer than most. And yet I fantasize about the day they leave me, about that sorrowful day whenever it eventually comes, because I believe I would then be truly free, with no ties whatsoever to the world.
It hurts me even to write those last few lines, but that is my reality. The mother for whom I would genuinely wish to be the son again in this life and the next, with no regret, and yet I wrote what I wrote. Such revolting thoughts. What a sick mind. Can I not see anything beyond myself? What selfishness. And for what? My delusions of grandeur, as I try to grasp at threads?
Instead of admitting my own weakness, I blame it on the world and dream of forsaking it because I believe that only then would I be able to do something. I have tried to come to terms with this, to dismiss it and just have conviction, to be rational and mentally stronger. But there is no denying that isolation is one of the ways I can move toward my dreams. There is no denying either that I am weak, that I do not have it in me, and I understand that painfully clearly because I have seen people who do. Still, it is not as though I blame only the world. I blame myself most of all. And even if I was stronger, would it not be foolish to get any and all help I can get?
Anything that can distract me with a false dopamine high, I have cut from my life. I have entirely given up on the notion of a “normal” life. To myself I have declared, solemnly, that for a man who has nothing but his dreams and no other life, no friends, no family, there must, one day, be somewhere he can reach; some place I can look back from hopefully with a content smile on what little I could create while I drew breath. I cannot wait for some imaginary mental fortitude. I would sell my soul to the devil, sabotage myself, lock myself up, simply because it might allow me to create. If absolute isolation would leave me with nothing to do but create, then I choose it. There is no life without my dreams anyway, so if I must live with nothing but, then that is what I must choose.