Saturday 7 July 2001

Pic of the day: Hey, why are you all just looking at me like that? (Screenshot from Daggerfall.)

"Oh no, I've said too much"

(*Taps monitor*) Are you here still? I can sure understand if not. But it wasn't meant like that ...

Life is bigger
- it's bigger than you,
and you are not me -
The lengths that I will go to,
the distance in your eyes...
Oh no I've said too much!
I set it up...

I woke up from soft, friendly, pleasant dreams. As soon as I touched the surface of wakefulness, a nagging thought was waiting for me. You are aware that you insulted your readers by calling them all a bunch of hypocrites? I bolted from bed and checked my entry. Oh my quills and whiskers! It was true! Blame it all on the pronouns. There should be more personal pronouns so you don't risk mixing two groups of people by calling both of them "them". Anyway, I rewrote it. But I don't know if I did it fast enough. A night is a long time.

Of course you people are not hypocrites. The hypocrites must have stopped reading long ago. I can't believe they would stand for so much soul-searching. In fact, I wonder myself if I have gone a bit over the top. I am not really that bad, you see. Most importantly, I am not really that cold and cruel. But to explain I would have to say even more, and just hope it comes across better this time.

***

That's me in the corner;
that's me in the spotlight;
losing my religion
trying to keep up with you.
And I don't know if I can do it...
Oh no I've said too much;
I haven't said enough.

I can't prove that my religion is right. In fact, I think most of my fellow christians would consider me a heretic at best. The rest of the world is even more certain to shake their head at me. What can I say? By now it is based on experience. Every waking hour there seems to be someone with me ... by my side, in my heart, somewhere around. A presence that is at once comforting and demanding. I guess other people experience the same, but clothe it in different words. And some, I think, do not experience it so strongly.

This is the "third leg of the chair" that I referred to in my infamous Wednesdiary. It is something, or as I believe someone, that I can lean on. It takes a lot for me to feel lonely as long as this presence is along. I identify this presence with Jesus, but I can't really prove that. I hope the real Jesus won't take it badly, for in my experience this presence is a very good thing (or person) indeed.

I notice this in the few cases - usually a few times a year - where I cannot feel it anymore. I call this "panic attacks". You may say they are a kind of separation anxiety, actually. I did not feel any of that when I left home at the age of 15. By then the presence was already there to some degree, I guess. It may have been there long before, if my scattered memories of childhood are anything to go by. Perhaps we have always been together, from the moment I entered this world. I can't say for sure.

It is terrible, to be utterly alone. To have this gaping hole inside. To have meaning ripped from my life. To feel as if I cannot even sustain my physical life because my spirit is gone missing. It is a horror beyond mere nightmares. Is this how I should become in order to be like you? In order to gain the ability to fall in love, to feel homesickness, to grieve when a loved one dies as if it were I who were dying? Is this the length I should go to, to close the distance in your eyes? Losing my religion, trying to keep up with you? I don't know if I can do that. I don't even think I will try.

Have I now said enough? Does this explain anything? I don't know if it is religion or psychology. I am not even sure there is a difference, except in vocabulary. But I know there is someone, or you may call it something, that makes me feel more complete. Not in the sense that I don't care about people ... but I care from a stance of surplus, not from a need to bind myself tight with something, someone, anyone, to fill up that gaping hole.

***

Every whisper
of every waking hour
I'm choosing my confessions...
Trying to keep an eye on you,
like a hurt, lost and blinded fool.
Oh no, I've said too much!
I set it up...

Yes, I know in a journal like this I am choosing my confessions. I don't say everything, and I say some things more than once. It is not quite like a webcam, or like that tools some psychologists use ... the small beeper that beeps every x minutes, and then the subject must hurry to write down what he was thinking right then, right there. Now that could be interesting ... but it could also be fragmented, meaningless, repetitive. It is not how I perceive life. I see it as long lines loaded with meaning. And so I choose my confessions to try to show some of the lines that run through my life.

And I don't write this for myself. If no one was reading, I would not bother with the uploading (which is really a hassle, using command line FTP). I am trying to tell my life and my thoughts and my world, to share them with you. And I know I do so imperfectly, because you are not me. Still, I try. I am not more remote from humankind than this: That I feel the need to share, to invite you to spend a few minutes with me.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive" - not least regarding journals, I guess. But each thing to its own time. I am not so remote that I don't usually reply to e-mail... Hey, two is not a crowd, not even in a heart. There is room for more. :)

Consider this
the hint of the century;
consider this
the slip that brought me
to my knees ...

(All lyrics from Losing my religion by REM.) (Summon MIDI.) (Summon full lyrics.)