I worry that I might actually exist.
Naturally something that one takes for granted...until the doubts nestle in and bury eggs of existential angst deep within the confines of the soul.
When I was in hospital, the matter gets discussed - as it is when you stuff a load of maniacs together under one roof - and it seems easier to numb yourself to when you're aware that you're unwell/sick in the head and nothing is supposed to feel real anyway. But then you get used to being back in society again, and you become more conscious of the passing of time. You can't deny how old you start to look and feel. Your sense of self is still buried deep within those multiple layers of trauma that haven't quite buried all semblance of reality. To paraphrase Radiohead, one hasn't learnt 'how to disappear completely'. And a sense of panic sets in that all the shit that's been thrown your way in this eternal living nightmare may actually be real, may actually have happened, not as some bizarre thought experiment of how much the brain can take without causing the body to give up, but actual physical endurance in time and place. And the suppressed rage that you just can't express feels real on a level that you can't express, and you start to wonder how it is possible to even be human to exist at such a degree of inward spiritual torture.
When I first clung to existentialist philosophy as a crutch to navigate a path over the earthquaking impact of a tormented adolescence, I could feel myself willing myself on to believe in something on which to base the seemingly pointless reality of life. But how do I know that I actually exist? I don't feel well.
A
Naturally something that one takes for granted...until the doubts nestle in and bury eggs of existential angst deep within the confines of the soul.
When I was in hospital, the matter gets discussed - as it is when you stuff a load of maniacs together under one roof - and it seems easier to numb yourself to when you're aware that you're unwell/sick in the head and nothing is supposed to feel real anyway. But then you get used to being back in society again, and you become more conscious of the passing of time. You can't deny how old you start to look and feel. Your sense of self is still buried deep within those multiple layers of trauma that haven't quite buried all semblance of reality. To paraphrase Radiohead, one hasn't learnt 'how to disappear completely'. And a sense of panic sets in that all the shit that's been thrown your way in this eternal living nightmare may actually be real, may actually have happened, not as some bizarre thought experiment of how much the brain can take without causing the body to give up, but actual physical endurance in time and place. And the suppressed rage that you just can't express feels real on a level that you can't express, and you start to wonder how it is possible to even be human to exist at such a degree of inward spiritual torture.
When I first clung to existentialist philosophy as a crutch to navigate a path over the earthquaking impact of a tormented adolescence, I could feel myself willing myself on to believe in something on which to base the seemingly pointless reality of life. But how do I know that I actually exist? I don't feel well.
A
