Those 2 AM Thoughts
The weight of that question lands like a brick in the gut, doesn’t it? “Should I poison myself with reality or keep hallucinating a happy ending?” God, it hurts. It’s like a trapped scream in your throat. It’s the furious, childish stomp of your foot against a universe that seems harshly grey.
Let’s be brutally honest here. Hallucinating the all happy ending? Oh, it’s perfect, it’s warm, it’s tempting. We build these castles in the air: fantasies of love with happy ending, a successful journey, a shimmering future. It feels good like a sugary treat we swallow (when the real meal is ashes.) In Bukowski words, “We’re all going to die, all of uss, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t, We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities…” And sometimes, drifting away into a prettier dream is the only possible solution for those trivialities. It sounds childish, yeah. But damn, when reality keeps kicking you, who wouldn’t want to daydream? Aren’t you the hero in it who finally wins?
But wait, there is poison, too, named ‘reality,’ taking the raged breath while staring into the abyss. Acknowledging the bills pilling up, the unforgotten love, the shattering dreams, exhausting effort of just 'being.’ It is poison and of course, it burns. It makes you want to vomit. It’s the untreated wound, more like a crack in your foundations. You just stay there and realize how deep they (can) go.
Life is a business that does not cover the costs.
Schopenhauer.
The universe feels malicious and the happy ending seems like hallucination. It makes you furious! Furious at the unfairness, at your own limitations, that the childish hope isn’t dying and leave you with you.
So here we are, stuck in-between. Do we choose the slow poison of truth? Or the addictive delusion? Sartre long ago declared, “Man is condemned to be free.” Condemned! Why? Because this choice is ours and ours alone. Nobody gives us the answer. That’s the terrifying burden of it.
Why this state of mind? Look around or look in. Maybe you are exhausted or disappointment has piled up so much it’s blocking the sun. Maybe you expected so much from your dream that evaporated or trusted someone so blindly who turned out to be smoke. Maybe this, maybe that. In actual, it’s thee collision of a mature understanding of how hard, how random, and how unfair life can be, crashing recklessly into that stubborn part of our soul that ‘still' desperately wants the fairy tale. We know better, but we want to believe.
Here's the messy maybe not positive but something else truth I’m clinging to: what if the choice itself is the trap? What if it’s neither poison or hallucination?? Maybe… just maybe… the only way through this smoke is to build a tiny raft between them. But wait, aren’t I hallucinating again? Wishing for a balanced approach like always. What if I just go without expecting anything at all? This way I will be expecting everything. I know, it’s absurd. And yeah, reality is poison in large doses. So don’t gulp it. Sip it! Now pass the coffee, this thinking thing is exhausting.
...............................................
Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot.