At 36, I feel like I’m just beginning to understand the essence of life. It’s perhaps another one of those moments where you think you’ve finally grasped it, but the profoundness of this realization feels nothing like it did before.
I’ve always felt weak—made to feel weak. That weakness lingers in me when I’m around people I know. I’ve come to accept the unfairness of existence, where not everything can be expressed or heard. It doesn’t matter to me, but while I reflect on this brief, profound moment, I begin to accept my weakness and isolation manifest in my demeanor in public life. I am cast in it as a mere shadow, seeking and moving on its own, while everything it does, hears and speaks are hollow actions and words void of any feeling but weakness and shame.
Shame dwells in me at moments when I am afflicted by a habit I was quite resolved to write about, but unsurprisingly I am ashamed and afraid; the words I could conjure, will lead me to be despised among people, the same people who speak, but empty words. While this context brings scrutiny, I must reiterate, the habit is not scandalous but one, I have come to resent and blame. It can be possible to speculate : we are all, very often held back with a darker aspect in our life that we try or are so inclined to let go of, that we feel a great mental effort acknowledging its presence and vilification.
Among all this what astounds me a great deal is the lack of depth in empathy we humans can be blamed of. It is true a great deal of pretense and struggle lurks within all, but through my entire life I’ve never felt an affection in my public life that seeks to help or understand. The circle of people I am happy to regard as a close one is as short as it can be and it may just remain as it is.
