silence and solitude

which comes first, the solitude or the sadness?

in general, i am sad because i am alone. and i remain alone because i am sad. my gloom is toxic - it affects how i interact with people, how often i interact with them, what i say and when i say it.

i suppose the solitude came first. when i was young, i would enjoy playing by myself and hate playing with the other kids. when i was a teenager, they were simultaneous. because no one wanted to hang out with me, i took to walking in nature at camp, reading at home, and i enjoyed these things. i don't know really which came first. even when i had "popular summers," i would still relish time alone by a lake.

my having spent time alone allowed my religious consciousness to grow. now, i wonder if the consciousness inhibits my being able to be social. "i have been rendered a social cripple by god." a look at the evidence shows that the desire to be by myself predates any particular thing i would do by myself. whether it's playing with lincoln logs or writing a poem or meditating - it doesn't seem like i should blame the lincoln logs for being by myself.

the wish, which may be a death-wish, is simply to be away. the thought being that if i were living upstate, in a nice quiet country house, i wouldn't have this endless sense of loneliness. here, the things to do are social things. going out, even to movies; meals. there, the idea would be, those things wouldn't be around. i do OK when i am solitary for a while. i stop whining about it all the time.

it is toxic. i don't think many of my friends really enjoy being around me. i don't really blame them.

i do still have erotic energy, spiritual energy, intellectual acuity. last night at the roxy, i did finally get to dance in a sensual way with a great guy. just by being confident and assertive and male and hot. it was great.

what brought this on? mostly the energy with my friend at the concert tonight (who i won't name) - i felt like, here's a great guy who maybe i could date. but come on. all his friends who we met there were in love with life. i'm in love with the part of life that is like death. "die before you die."

i like eros, but not cheerfulness.

my friend called me "the morose jew." i guess that is true. sometimes i am ok with that. tonight i feel like i should be on prozac. which probably i should. why the resistance? some bogus idea of consciousness? the suffering artist?

"there is nothing to attain but now." that is true. look, it is opposed to the western/american ethos of making something out of yourself. it is about surrender. you won't become famous this way, and you won't find a partner. you might, but you might not and probably won't. how captive am i to the american idea that to be human is to achieve something, to make something? pretty captive.

"don't give up" - that's american advice. give up, that's buddhist advice. not in a despairing way, but in a way of dropping something that doesn't work. then again, persistence does work for many people.

sometimes i think the dream of the country really is nothing more than a death wish. i just want to disappear. that's the wish.