Missing

I told a lie tonight ; I told it twice. I was asked by a stranger if I was “okay”, and I mechanically replied that I was. Not that I wasn’t “okay” in the physical sense, just that something seemed to be … missing.

It seems that the very moments when we are the most contemplative and the furthest away from understanding our place in the universe are the very moments when we find ourselves the most desperately alone. And yet, even surrounded by well-wishers, are we that far away from being alone? The disjointed nature of not feeling your place in the larger puzzle pushes us to not relate with those around us. It’s an odd sense of being ; not depression, not sadness, just a strange sense of loss and emptiness. Words cannot express.

And yet I am one of the lucky ones. I’m not hungry, I have food in my stomach. I’m not indigent, I have a roof over my head. I’m not ignored, there are those who love and care for me. I know no suffering, I have led a fairly sheltered and protected life. I don’t *want* to be oppressed, miserable or unhappy, and I don’t think I’m any of the above.

Writing always seemed like the deepest form of narcissism; shouting blindly into an uncaring void, hoping that some imaginary audience would either applaud or revile the deepest of translated thoughts. Who are we to be the heroes of our own lives, the narrators of our own volumes, the winner of our contests? If we are allowed to continuously revise those parts of us which we feel to be the least fit, will we find some kind of sick perfection? Perhaps if and when we become capable of viewing life without the forced blinders of individual perception, we can know something more of why and what we are missing.