Pre-Fairy tells - Gulag Ep.4
July 31, 2007
The Sad Truth
Millions travel everyday by tube, sitting on plastic chairs or standing up packed in like sardines; they ignore their surroundings, isolating themselves deep within their corporal boundaries, switched off as if they were nothing more than some sort of a device. Shells being moved around by the current.
I have done as most of us do and seen those long commuting hours as nothing less than a waste of my valuable time. So I filled those empty minutes by listening to music and/or reading, being comfortable in some else’s bubble. I realised something today; I'm not just doing it in the tube: this is all I do. And I feel as though it is all everyone ever does. Are we so desperate to fill our lives, to occupy ourselves as much as we humanly can to avoid staring at the emptiness within?
I travelled back from work today: no books, no music, no one to talk to. Nothing to fill the void. My mind started unravelling. Absurd thoughts occurred to me. I wondered what I was doing there. I tried to hold on to those irrelevant thoughts and images. It was quite challenging not to look around at what people were wearing or looked like or even if there was a cute guy on that very gloomy Russian tram.
My eyes always get caught by something: A hair cut, a coat, a pair of shoes, a tree, traffic, the sky… you get my drift! I blot out the world that surrounded me and let my mind run wild. Ideas, peculiars thoughts, questions whether existential or not took over the void within. It was the opposite of meditating and yet things seemed clearer. It all began to make sense.
I have been wondering about what I was doing with my life for quite some time now and I've never really allowed myself to go further with my reasoning. Believing that all that mattered was living in the present. The right here, right now. And therefore deciding to go on an around-the-world journey where there would be no looking back. Letting the wind and chance encounter drift me along. But this journey was more than just having fun. It was a quest. A way to transform who I was rather than accepting what I was. ‘I am what I am’ sings Gloria. What a load of bullshit! Don’t we all want to change? Don’t we all try to, to some degree?
Putting myself through a journey that seems to lead nowhere, I know I am purposely testing my own limitations. But salvation (if it is what I seek, that I do not know) is fleeting. The more I get to see of the world the less amazing it all seems; everyone, everywhere, being after the exact same thing. Over and over again, I see empty shells going from point A to point B, from birth to death, from work to the mall, from bad relationships to other bad relationships, from the pub to their bed, from not caring to caring even less, from jumping over an obstacle to facing yet another one. Contenting themselves with trivial things: a new TV, getting plastered on Saturday night, finding the so called love of their lives, getting promoted, buying yet another car, owning their home, going to whatever church they belong to on Sundays and getting blessed by an invisible God.
But through all of this, none seem truly happy to be alive, truly blessed to be here. And should they, I mean, should I? Aren't we all going through the motion after all, waiting for the shell to slowly disintegrate? Aren't we all pretending to be more than what we really are? Aren’t we all deluding ourselves?
The world seems such a sad place filled with fake laughs and made-up beliefs. (Or is it just Russia?)
I thought for a long time that I was running away, going from one place to the next without really settling, without really giving it/him/them/me a chance. But I've come to understand that what I was really looking for was a refuge. A place that would feel like home. A place I could call home. A place where who I was would be appreciated. A place where I didn't have to pretend. A place where I would be more than just a shell.
A place or a lie? A lie that would put a veil over my eyes. A lie that would save me.
A lie I could believe in.
The sad truth is my shell is empty.
The sad truth is I want to be lied to.
The sad truth is I want a lie to call my own.
