the only thing that's real
almost everything is a lie the system tells to keep us under its control.
there's only one thing that's real, and that's how we treat things.
most importantly ourselves. almost as importantly, other people.
but not just them. everything. dogs, cats, birds, bugs, trees. potted plants. the ocean. a storm. a fire in the fireplace. even electronics.
anything that bears in our view even the slightest, most facetious resemblance to being alive. how we treat it matters. how we treat things like that is the only thing that matters.
without kindness to ourselves, to others, to things that act like others, to things that look like others—without kindness to everything—we have no love, and no hope, and wander in darkness, searching in vain for threads in our lives to grab onto, that we have not taken the measures to bind.
that's me right now.
poisoned by my own bitterness against those far more hateful, i myself have become hateful, and now i find my connection to the world around me is severed. i feel nothing for others. i feel nothing for myself. i don't treat myself nor others with kindness. i'm only bitter and angry.
i have almost nothing. i'm so grateful for the small community that keeps me sane. as for the ones i hate, those more hateful than i—they truly have nothing. and yet they think they have everything they'll ever need, because they don't understand the purpose of life. they don't understand the value of connection. they are so caught up in chasing fake extrinsic things.
i don't pity them. i can't, because they've made me hate them. but i want to pity them. i want it so badly. i yearn to reconnect with humanity. even them. even now. more than i hate them for being hateful, i love them for being alive, and i so dearly wish they would forsake hate and come home to us. i weep for them.
please come home.
to them—
to myself—
i say, please, please come home. i miss everyone, and everything. i miss you all so much.
it didn't start with political frustration. in truth, i've been lost for so, so long. lost, and alone, and empty.
my need to value life, and see it as worth living, for both myself and others—is truly desperate. i'm cursed with knowing the truth of this world, the sole and absolute reality of love, and yet still living with a void in my heart where that truth should be.
instead of the voice of that truth, when i close my eyes i only hear the call of the abyss. "come home," it whispers, echoing me—mocking me. "come home to blissful nonexistence. everything and everyone you hold dear, every past kindness, every past joy, it's all right here. here where things go when they disappear forever. and you could do the same. if only you would take the knife, and let it carry you home."
this is the true source of my bitterness, my defiance, my lone wolf attitude. i refuse to give in to that. but that's all i have. that's all i do for myself: i refuse to die. i worry how long i can keep that up without a source of real strength.