“And when there is no shadow, all that remains is the purposeless murmur of an observant mind and a captive audience: singular and bothered.”

Taylor M. Wilson

So what did I think that leaving everything I was doing and going to travel alone for 2 months was going to bring me? Some new sense of self-understanding? Some enlightenment on what was wrong in my life before? An eagerness to get back “home” and have a blank slate to start over on?

I’m not too sure. I told myself (and a select few others) that it was to find out if there are things in life that I can draw enjoyment from, or if everything in my life will be viewed in misery. I’m only two weeks in to my solitude and have found no answer. In fact, I have stopped asking the question at all.

And that to me is scary. That I’ve stopped questioning. But I think that may be an answer in itself. The fact that I no longer ask if I truly live void of authentic reaction to whats around me, has made me wonder something else, from a different perspective. What if this “enjoyment of life” as I’ve imagined it does not exist at all. What if the “enjoyment” is really just the absence of a hatred for ones own existence. What if the state that one is meant to live in is one of that observent perspective spouting random lines with no meaning. If that other part of me, or voice that Ive found and become so attached to, is really just the interaction between me and something that seeks to draw me away from that intended state of living. If life is truly meant to just be observed by the senses of the body, and thoughts to only be in response to such, would I pick that life over one of misery but, perhaps, illusion of real understanding and existence?

When I started talking to a professional about how I feel I touched on something similar. How my “feelings” go in cycles, and that when I am feeling “depressed”, it feels like I’m living within the authentic part of my existence. And when I am on the other side of the cycle and feel rather good and hopeful about being alive, I don’t feel real, as if that experience doesn’t belong to me, but as if I am watching an ignorant mind live. Waiting to return to what is “me” which is forced to only exist within a life of “depression”. Anyways, it was something like that, and their response was, “So you identify as a depressed person and want to stay depressed?” and thats something that has bothered me (a little more than it should, as it was later cleared up as poor wording). But what if that is the truth? Not that I want it to be, but what if, unknown by my conscious mind, I keep myself in that state because it’s where I feel comfortable and authentic.

Thats not what I want though, I know for certain thats not what I want. What I want is to be able to feel happy about myself, about being alive, about existing, I want to be able to enjoy my experiences for their own value, not a value that I’ve imagined or forced onto an experience. But more importantly than that, I need to be able to feel as if the me that is happy, and enjoys life, is me. That I also belong in that state. That I’m not only “me”, or living authentically, when I live in a state of self hatred, and hatred for my existence. That any hopefulness and enjoyment that I may experience is real, and not convince myself its a façade put up to distract me from the more harmful parts of my existence.

I guess that the state of my mind at this point is what has given me these thoughts. But I’d hardly call it a revelation.

I hope you all find whatever it is that you’re looking for, or accidentally stumble upon what you should be.

In pursuit of current joys,

Taylor M. Wilson