Oceans of Consciousness

Twisting, candid brooks and oceans of consciousness:

I'm getting so tired of feeling empathy without the weight. I read about someone else's troubles and I immediately want to help them out, to take away their pain, to solve the problem. Was there a void that was filled before? Did I used to do this? If so, for whom? And why do I feel everything so damn deeply for everyone else's lives but not for my own? You know that little part of your nerve endings, of your emotional baggage carrier, that connects to the part that lets you feel, that lets you know how you feel about something that happens to you? I think I was born without one. I swear, I get mad for other people, I feel sad, I feel that they should do x or y, I want to help them, but for me, I don't feel anything. Not even tired, or upset, or happy, or mildly annoyed. I just feel slightly full, kind of spacy, and like I want to do something else. I just want this indignation, this desire to help, this feeling that if I don't fix the world I'll never be right in it, to stop. What if someone cursed me and said "she will never know happiness as long as there are problems in the world." Why would they do that? Anger, jealousy, feeling that I did wrong somehow? Who have I annoyed lately? Maybe it's karma. I don't know what's going on. Maybe when I started to care about people, I lost my edge. I lost my anger and I stopped lugging around my portable gaping hole of despair. Or maybe I was meant to be this other person, this one who wants to change things and make amends and stop the pain of others. I don't want to hurt people right now. It's not as if that was my end goal in the past, but I often used to be an observer, one who could do experiments with the ants around me and see how much pressure it took to make them squirm. I guess I missed my calling as an actress. But it doesn't matter now. I just wonder which is the real me. This feels like I've been given a lobotamy, like I've been reformed, like I could no longer destroy, like I've been dulled. Is my knife edge dull with misuse or with happiness? Is this what happiness feels like? I think it's more contentment in general than anything else. But am I truly content?

No. There's something always pushing, always digging, always hoping, reaching. I want to know what this is. Is this the bottled-genie me? Or is it the Pandora's Box me? The container of infectious disease me? Or is it the real me struggling to get out. Is it right to be someone else, or is it worth it to spare the world and hide me? What if what's inside is the magic antidote to the world's problems?
Can you say, metaphysical?

There's something there, that says that you are not like this. Where is your wit, your sarcasm, your carefully orchestrated dance? Where have you hidden your claws this time? Did you try to file them down? How long do you think it'll take before they grow back? How to let this out on paper, safe, contained. Is that taking away the true essence of it? Because what if it could inspire to do good? Is that not how good counteracts evil, studying it in its natural habitat? So who's studying me? Why study something so confused?

Is it atonement? Am I trying to make up for things that I think I have to make up for? healthy slabs of guilt on my plate, I'm sure, but where I'm headed won't make up for anything. Besides, it needs to let go. I think it's to make happiness, more flies with sugar, to fix and not to destroy. Where did this inspiration come from? From love, or the chemicals associated with it? From the realization that my struggles were not valiant, not epic, but misguided?

There's a tugging, a pulling at my memory. That's different. I'm pretty sure I know why that's there (it's the only thing that makes sense), but I can't let that out. I don't need to, I've been practicing, and it's been analyzed, contained, quarantined, if you will. That is not worth the time it would take to let it escape. Because it never will.

So what is this other thing, this unsettling feeling. That time is running out. What does my body know that my ignorant mind does not? What is going to be lost? A life, a person, a feeling, a stage, a chance? Or will I simply poof into nothingness? Why is it telling me to fight against the water, that the canoe is by my side, you can see it red, among the green shafts of sunlight. Will my brain listen this time, as it did then? Will my body fight, or will my mind wear the gloves?

The fire cools as distance and time take their toll. What becomes of a fire the day after it is set? No forest fire, but a tame, expected flame. Will kerosene-man get there in time to save the blaze? Too bad, he doesn't exist? Who would fake it this time? Can it be done? When fear starts to replace love, anything goes. But will it come back before time runs out, and the journey begins? Can you picture it, and every picture seems more and more off? Then you might need to let it go. But it's so sweet, and it seems to like you so much. What's the difference between love and obliging contenment, anyway?

Like I said, Time can be bought, but time is running out. There's no way to decide and no way to know when the deadline has been drawn in the sand. My mini merry-go-round is spinning in circles. The foci must be offset. The horses and seahorses and giraffes and lions and tigers and dragons run away. But the leopard is my friend, maybe he'll stay. Then I can learn how to be back again, in that jungle I fled for the first time to get to the cities. Maybe we'll take on the strip malls and make them cry.

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My archives for August have run away! And they screwed up my sidebar on the way out! Grrrr. Oh well, such is life.

On the plus side, I think the course of a life hangs in the balance. My hand could push someone's sanity over the edge or help it get a grip on the side of the spiky building.
"Callous and strange..."

It might be evil again. Nah, I should be so lucky. Like I said, I need the karma on my side. Besides, my conscience beat up my little devil, who's in the hospital. So it holds sway.
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Maybe I've lost my fears. All of them. I'm not saying I can face anything, but the emotional fears, maybe they've gone on holiday. Perhaps now is the time to try and start something new. Or maybe the fears have forced me into complacency. Soft, feathery handcuffs of contenment make me queasy. The grease on them belies their angelic features.

I think I was wrong. I think the fire is still there. It's different, now. It knows how to twist and turn. It knows where to find fuel and how to burn what it needs to burn. And so do I. It always works that way. The memories you want to lose are the ones most burned onto your hard drive brain, and the ones you reach for are the ones that live in ghost arhives.

I don't want to plea bargain life like this. It's like trying to drink really thick milkshakes through a thin straw. No substance, no access. Just use a spoon and add some whipped cream. It was seize the day but now it's seize the years.
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I don't mean to write in riddles. It's just easier to get down the feelings than it is to speak the events. Because there are no clear-cut events, so to speak, it's just there, and I don't remember how it crept in and took over. But that's the way it is. Good or bad, it's got to give a little and take half only. Life is compromise. At least it's not a fight but a council of peace.
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Unhelpful imagination of the day: Anaconda am I!