What am I living for? I can't seem to answer that question. I've become so numb that I hate everything that I am. Everything I've become in the past ten years or so. Everything that I've evolved into. It was regression, not progression. I haven't dedicated myself to school. I haven't dedicated myself to any amount of work, or even my training, which is what I am MOST dedicated to right now, despite not having trained in several days. I can't even get my sleep back to normal, even when I'm trying. My friend Sean pointed that out to me today.. or.. yesterday.. He said, "No matter what you do, you always get back to this schedule. This Andy schedule.. the complete reverse of everyone else. You take naps at midnight, Andy. You go to sleep at 10AM, and wake up at 4 or 5PM, and live fully awake when everyone else is down and out. You live alone, and when you fix it and try to come back to the world of life, you might for a few days, but it always goes irrevocably back to your time. Even with pills.. with medication that attaches itself to your NERVOUS system... you can't do it. You can't live in our world." I MIGHT pass my classes.. I might graduate.. I might get a job and come back.. and all that great shit.. But what am I living for? What am I fighting for? What does any of this mean?
Nothing feels real anymore. Not school. Not my family. Not my friends here, or my work here, or even my existence, because so much of my time is walled up in this room, alone, in the dark.. laying in bed.. listening to music.. trying to sleep when I know I just can't. Noodling away at guitar with no progression and no aim. Actively NOT writing. Not thinking. Playing games.. Everything's so virtual.. my whole life. The only time I ever feel alive is when I'm outside, gripping the concrete, running, propelling myself through the air.. hurting.. bleeding.. feeling the roughness of reality on my fingertips, on my feet, the air breaking apart my skin.. The only time I've ever been in real control of my life.. and when I'm cutting. see, that's the thing.. everything else is so virtual. Am I a student? Just virtually.. On paper. In marks and grades. I don't study. I don't read. I barely work, yet the marks are there.. alive and kicking and passing and outdoing several students.. A virtual student. A virtual person.. Social security number, passport, driver's license, back accounts.. But no real identity anymore. Even when I tried to find life in other pursuits.. my writing, which I still adore, but has only been a means of virtually controlling my own emotions.. Music,which became so temporary and fleeting.. What permanence do I lend to the world? Where do I fit in? Where do I exist? Only in these walls. In this room. This mess and hell.
I'm sick of it. And even if it's plagued my world so much more severely than others, how many people here live just as virtually? It disgusts me, what I've become. But it's also what Parkour is the solution... why it clicks with so many of us... because it's that one thing that reminds us what life is and how to not feel so numb and empty and dead inside. One of the greatest things I remember being said about Parkour was said by Pkdanno... "But you want to bleed a little. You want to feel the concrete on your hands and its roughness. You want to feel alive again."
When my hands are pressing the concrete, pushing my body forward... When I'm pulling with all my muscle to top that wall, when I'm rolling into the dirt.. When I'm tracking up mud, or feeling the snow against my skin, or the rain pounding down onto me or the sun blazing its heat, it's when I feel alive. It's when I feel whole and complete and like I'm actually human. When we're re-engaged with movement, we become connected to humanity again... At least, that's what I like to believe. And we've become very far detached from it, and maybe I'm the only one who's getting sick with self-hatred... But what I want this to get across is that... We must remember life. And find our ways to keep our hearts full. For many of us... Parkour is the way.
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animus, i've read this before and only decided to comment on it now. first off i have to say that the last couple years are somewhat similar to what you're experiencing. but i guess the only difference is that i have gotten over that already and partially with the help of concepts from parkour.
for the longest time i was pretty depressed or at least found less meaning in things(things weren't as funny, food didn't taste as good, emotions felt distant, etc.) and it was all because i was obsessed with the fact that truly our lives are in the end pointless, but not meaningless. i came to the conclusion that they are pointless because in the end we all die and what we have achieved will count four naught. if you are religious you may believe you will continue to "live" but what would be point of that be? just to experience more? and personally doing something your entire life for a "greater being" is equivalant to doing your chores for your parent and getting a reward or working a job where you get compensated for your actions; to me this is pointless and i couldn't get over that. but then i was talking to my little brother, who is six years younger than me and i told him i've been looking for the point to life for the past three years and he said "why not just live your life doing what you like to do?". i had heard this before but for some reason it didn't sink in till then and since then i have just accepted that life pretty much IS pointless but you have to make your own meaning whether this means being a traceur, finding someone you can't live without, having a career you are passionate about or doing whatever it is that gives your life meaning.
one of the best quotes i've heard is from an old philosophy professor of mine "the meaning of life is in the moments you aren't asking what the meaning of life is"
for example: having a child, setting up camp for the night on a backpacking trip, executing a kong to precision, what ever, just do it. even though life can suck at times that could just motivate you to work harder towards making it what you want it to be.
ANyhoo, that's just my take on things.
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