Writing isn't a therapy for me. I never understood the idea of writing being so therapeutic, that somehow trying to write down what you feel is gonna magically makes it easier to survive. The objective part of my brain knows that language is a complicated thing. It's sorta like an output of whatever it is that your brain process and you experience as feelings. And feelings are just chemical reactions, when you zoom enough, chemical reactions are nothing but physics, right?
Is it okay to see humans as much complex physical systems running on chemical processes that perceive the world as it is?
I always had this feeling that we are limited by our language. How much you can express yourself is limited by the strength of the language itself.
Sometimes you feel too much, it is as if all the words the world has to offer is not enough to pen it down on a white sheet of paper that looks as empty as the space between stars where light forgot to touch. You're not sure what to make of it, what it is that you're feeling, or the why, so you keep it for yourself and try to make sense of it.
It is a strange kind of loneliness, isn't it?
Is it the limitation of the language or the limitation of your knowledge about the language?
But at times you don't need the language at all. One look at your best friend and you immediately know that inside joke you both are thinking about. A touch, a hug makes it easier to lift that weight pulling you down. A silent night staring at the starry sky with that someone, and you know, you just know that this is the one, even if it only lasts for a day or week or month or a few years, you know this is the one.
Infinities and forevers are tiny little moments, aren't they?
I used to romanticize about reality and existence. I still do. But there is this internal battle that I'm forced to go through where my left and right side of the brain fight to figure out who can come up with the best explanation to this reality that I perceive as mine.
Do you really need to understand "the why" to feel a little less of the existential dread falls upon you every night? Or knowing that "why" takes anything away from the subjective experience that feels so personal?
I don't think I've ever loved anyone enough to write like Neruda, or was sad enough to write like Bukowski. Perhaps that's why the lines often end up being so mediocre that I end up deleting on a second read.
But there are some words, carefully structured by someone else in a way to make art. With the very first read, it connects with you. Every line, every word, and every space makes sense, telling you the story that you always wanted to shout out. "this is exactly what I feel".
Perhaps it is not the writing that makes you feel better, it's the carefully crafted words that you read and knowing the fact that there is someone out there who feel the same, finding that human connection to know that you aren't the only one. Someone has lived this life, lie down in the same space, and looked at the same sky wondering about the same damn questions. Some managed to find the right words to tell the story and some never did. Maybe all of this is how I feel, maybe you feel it too. Maybe this story is mine, maybe this story is about some random stranger with no name or a face, maybe this story is yours. Does it really matter?
I don't think it fixes you, but for a moment you are not alone, you smile. One day you learn how to make peace with it, but still wonder about things beyond all the words and all the languages that the world remembers, beyond the mundane chains beyond the bounds of gravity, something somewhere the world forgot to reach.
You wish you could understand, how you feel complete yet empty at the same time. I wish too.
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