Being free of external oppression for the first long period of time in the largest period of mental and emotional growth in my life has been weird. A lot of feelings that are suppressed by a more basic survival instinct, and the sudden lifting of that need and changing of behavior has opened a plethora of doors in my mind. Some of that is good, some of it is... frightening.
I've had the chance to explore the newness of life and the fuller range of things like emotions, which I had ignored before in an attempt to stay pragmatic and objective, which kept me safe. And with that exploration and change, a lot of my old thoughts and behavior left or were moved out of the way. Some of those things that my conscious mind realizes were only moved temporarily so that I could explore without certain aspects of myself getting in the way are coming back. I don't mind it, but my subconscious mind is panicking, thinking that I'm either falling back into a cycle of fear and pain, or that I just don't appreciate my amazing situation in life enough.
But, with this new unlocking of a fuller spectrum of thought, ability, and availability, there are a lot of things that don't make sense. At all. It's neither good nor bad, it just is, and it's... unnerving.
Today I experienced a need to write. I mean an actual need. For the most part, when I write it's because I have some motivation. Either I want to say something, or I want to get thoughts down to organize them, or something along those lines. Today, it was nothing of the sort. I didn't want to write, my hands weren't (And still aren't) thrilled by either writing longhand or typing, and my mind didn't give a damn. No, there's this otherworldly urge originating somewhere in my chest that demands to be felt.
There are several instances in day to day life where someone will exaggerate by saying that they need something, but... I'll be damned if there wasn't something about this that actually caused me pain when I wasn't doing it.
This trivial thing somehow has become paramount to my survival, or so my "heart" would lead my to believe. It's not as though I have anything either important or necessary to say, either. Of course, the restless internal monologue that everyone experiences is always there and I wish I could share that at times, but there is nothing so pressing that I must say it.
While I'm here though, and my hands are flowing smoothly, I'm going to talk about something that was on my mind not too long ago.
I read a lot. Books are amazing. But the stories and characters in books are just words on a page. And those words are just collections of black dots, or sounds that we make that would be incomprehensible to people who don't speak our language. Yet these characters and these stories and these words and those texts make such a huge difference in so many people's lives.
I was thinking of two lines from two books that I've read and reread a LOT over the years. That's saying a lot, since I've only had 16 years to read things in. But two lines just, for some reason, stuck in my head (Many more besides, but these two today, and they're very iconic).
These two lines out of context are, to an extent, meaningless. Absolutely without any meaning, depth, worth, or anything else. Knowing, however, the story that these lines lead to, or come from, reminds you of struggles of characters, societies, people and places that have never and will never exist, but mean something to you.
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
Well, there's number one. That quote carries so much with it. That quote alone tells the Tolkien story from beginning to end for people. That quote tells the story of the whole post-Tolkien fantasy genre. It tells of humble beginnings, quiet afternoons and a beautiful world. It tells of a lovable character and a priceless setting. And that's without people recalling where they were and what they did while they read that line and those that followed.
"He loved Big Brother."
That ended its book. It ended a world of fear, pain, and inhumanity with a line that expressed the futility of... anything. Damn it. That book opens up all the politicization and struggles of the world in so many aspects. I can't even comprehend that statement enough to describe it.
Alright, I'm done. I want to write a lot more, but I have nothing coherent to say. So I suppose that is that.
Have a lovely night, ladies and gentlemen.