#existential ramblings

i think there are not enough words

we need some new ones

or maybe i need to just learn every language ever, and learn all the amazing untranslatable words for things like love and life and friends and music and all the slightly different ideas they represent

i mean maybe it’s just impossible, idk, idek what i’m trying to say here

you know how there’s that idea that nobody sees a colour the same way? i think that applies to lots of things.... like how no one feels an emotion the same way, no one has exactly the same mental symbol for things like “an apple” or “cat” or “house” or “bird” even though we’ve come up with symbols and words that we generally agree on...

idk, human communication as a concept is just so fascinating to me... that we are all here, experiencing the world, and we want to communicate the things we see and the ideas and perceptions and emotions we have, so we come up with all these little imperfect ways to do that

and there’s no one word for love or life or ANYTHING, no one word can exactly capture the idea it was invented for, so then we put them together in different ways....

and we can always keep doing that!!!!! we will never run out of things to say or words to discover or languages to invent or songs to write or art to make... 

and even when we say one thing it might mean something different to the person saying it than the person hearing it, and that’s frustrating sometimes, but it can also be really cool i think, 

but also that’s probably why i talk so much and get to rambling (like i am right now haha) and sometimes i feel like i will ACTUALLY die if i don’t write down that lyric RIGHT NOW or sketch that thing RIGHT NOW and go on and on until the person i’m talking to REALLY understands so i just go on and on trying to say something and then clarify it more but then there’s another idea too that’s kinda related and and and slkdjghlksjdghlkjsdhglkjhsdlkgjhlskjdgh

but i think we need some new words, i need some new words, i need to put words together in some new ways, i need... i don’t know! i don’t fucking even know what i need!!! see look!! even right!! now!! there are NOT ENOUGH WORDS !!!! ! !! !!!!!! ! 

its like when a kid sees something for the first time and doesn’t know the name for it.. that’s all of us.. all the time.... and there’s NOT always names for everything....

i’m repeating myself now...

do you ever just look at someone you know or even someone you don’t, and think:

you. you are a person. i am person. 

we are both people trying to learn how to person on a great big ball of rock with other persons trying to people and none of us knows what the fuck we’re doing and for some reason we don’t talk about this, despite the fact that acknowledging it would undoubtedly make our lives easier and take a great pressure off all of us, 

unless that’s just me, 

but maybe you think it’s just you, but we’ll never know because we don’t talk about it. because you’re a person and people don’t say those things. 

i don’t know why that is. 

that’s just how persons people but i really wish it wasn’t. 

i don’t know if my experiences are universal and i never truly will. is everyone else this confused? is everyone else this much in love? this much in pain? why are we only allowed to ask these things in songs and poems? why are we so afraid to be known as people? 

who was it, that decided people have to pretend to not be human? to not be merely awe-stricken, lovely, slightly terrified children running about on a rock in a great rushing universe? who was it that said it’s not okay to get overwhelmed at the responsibility of being alive? who was it that said we are weak if we love every thing and every person we get to know, as if this is not the most natural and beautiful way of living? and who was it that said we must never speak of these things? who was it that said we must live with knowing, always, that these worries and dreams are too grand to speak of with seriousness?

why is it that we can only speak of serious things through metaphor and verse? why is it that we make unimportant things so glorified and important things remain taboo? why must we grow up if growing up means to suppress all growth? why must growing up mean unlearning the skills of compassion and generousity and wonder and curiousity and artistry and justice that we had as children? 

there is a word for when you look at a stranger or even a friend, and realise they have a deep inner life you will never know about. but why must it be so? why can we not share these things? why have you stopped reading my words, why do you call me naive? i am just a person. you are just a person. haven’t you ever wondered these things too? even once? 

either i am alone in this universe, or i am not. both prospects are equally terrifying, this is true. but i much prefer the terror of being known, to the idea of being alone. 

now go on.

continue with your life

and consider this merely another poem.

i won’t take offense, after all, it is what we are all taught to do.

i am a person. i have no idea what that means i’m supposed to do. i am still trying to figure out what it means to “person”, and no one can give me a straight answer. i think they’re trying to figure it out too.

some of whom I will never meet; some of whom I may meet, but never get to know; some of whom I know so well and yet knowing we will soon part ways and never deepen that relationship; and how many more that I will never even get the chance to know about and love; and never knowing which of these is the greater tragedy-

I say I am cool and confident, I say I am the master of my emotions and my dreams and my destiny, but this is only half true, if even that-

If there are any gods or stars or ruling fate, what strange game and reason do they have, to see fit to allow me to exist in this world- me being as I am and this world being as it is-

don’t they know I can hardly bear it? don’t they know how love aches? are such mortal concerns too trivial for their lofty contemplations? 

isn’t this world so lovely? isn’t just being ALIVE so... so... ineffable?

Me: *waves my arms around like noodles*

Me: *stares at my hand*

Me: *slaps my hands together*

Me:

Me: these things are attached to me

Me:

Me: i’m stuck inside them

Me: i can make them move

Me: i can wiggle them in funny ways and it makes sounds come out of a piano

Me: and people like those sounds, so that’s... cool beans

Me:

I've had a lot of shit put life into perspective this last year.

A surgery that should've taken me half a year to start reintegration into life and I was back at work after a few months.

My best friend passed. I had been waiting for years for him to get better so we could start the band we'd talked about since we were kids.

He died of fucking neglect from his nurses.

And now an attempted murder on the same floor I work on.

Despite how shit I've felt over the last decade. I appreciate how lucky I am to be here. In the state I'm in.

I'm alive and I have so much opportunity to improve.

My New Year starts on the 1st of February.

Perhaps even the only ones