The Way My Academic Arrogance Manifests In Me As Harshly Critiquing Others' Work But Then Lashes Out

for days of hauling books

Dresden, Germany

— Megan Fernandes, “Do You Sell Dignity Here?” from I Do Everything I’m Told

"The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans."

Sherwood Smith

forever in love

with your dark night

What do I do with my life

Can you please hand out any hope I can cling to?

I have notifications on for your posts and yet can't bear to open each one because I know it will hit me so hard I'll want to sink into earth

and I don't wanna die just yet

I want to live life vibrantly and with joy, grass, green, wonder, sunlight, all of the things that make it easy to breathe or at the very least, easier

pero I'm so lonely and achy and whiney and shaky I hate who I am and all that I stand for, I'm a fraud and a fake! I say I love love and then live in my hate I can't stand myself and my existence

I wish I could live inside poetry like a blog, like your blog, like a tiny post existing as it is, not real but real anyway, not real enough to touch but real enough to touch

What do I do with my life what do I do with my life why am I spending my days alienated and tested for things I'm no good for why am I doing this to my life who let me do this to my life what do I do with it now

hello, my friend! I guess we're on the same train now, plagued by the same guilt of being alive but not really living ... reading your message felt like a soliloquy, my own soliloquy for you so gently grazed your fingers on my bleeding wounds.

I myself am trying to make me live, if that makes sense. No one really tells you that you might have years when you have to actively convince yourself to stay alive, no one teaches you how to do that.

By clinging to the littlest of things is how I operate. a song, a poem, a photo, a minute, a memory, a tasty snack or a warm cup of coffee, an idea, a painting, a stupid joke I've heard somewhere — I gather all these things in my hands to keep them occupied, so that they wouldn't do something unrepairable, irreversible.

What I've understood so far is that we go through seasons of (1) living despite, (2) living for and (3) simply living.

You and I, it seems, are at the mercy of the first one. To live despite is what we should do — despite the alienation, despite the loneliness, despite these spiteful thoughts and horrors. Once this season is over, we'll move on to the second one: to live for. This one, I think, will be much easier to travel through because the days here are full of little droplets of hope that attach themselves to your skin and don't leave your side until you reach the final season: simply living. Living here is as easy as it is to breathe. This is our destination.

I know that I didn't answer your questions and that I'm not capable of doing so. I'm sorry. I myself have decided not to seek answers anymore. As Rilke said, Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that — but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself.

I'm accepting the happiest days of my life (that are yet to come) as my lighthouse and I'm sailing toward them. Hopefully you'll do the same.

Take care 🧡🌼

the divine, only in dreams

... One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. ...

Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69 (interviewed by Peter Stone)

Sometimes it’s absolutely scary to do something just because you care so much, and if it goes wrong, the disappointment can feel crushing. But trying is better than being paralyzed. There is more regret in inaction than in making a bad choice. It’s not too late to do something you’ve been putting off out of anxiety. You’re more than capable of doing this. Let’s try to think more about realistic future scenarios instead of catastrophic ones. Yeah, life is not always perfect, but you don’t have to be either. You are good enough as you are, keep going. You deserve to try. There is more to life than the awful scenarios anxiety comes up with and tries to protect you from. Just remember that isolation and inaction are cutting you off from the world, and it’s hurting you on the long run.

You are so much more than anxiety, than catastrophe, tragedy or failure. What matters most is that you keep trying, not that you do everything perfectly. Take slow steps. Do it at the best of your abilities without burning out. Each day at a time. You’re not alone in this. 🌱