"if you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." - jean-paul sartre
"it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that i really only write about me and the things that i'm going through. i mean, like the situations in my posts are either things i've experienced personally or my perspective on what did, may or could have happened in those situations. i guess my point is, to read my blog posts is to know who i am and what i'm about as a person. what i write is insight into the real "brian wilson", based on the daily events of my life. for those who are interested, it's brian in real life...
and in real life i've been hesitant to write this for some reason, probably because people won't understand it. they won't understand how i can write these words or feel the way i do but honestly, nothing i am going to say here should come as a surprise to anyone. let me explain...my thoughts are the same, whether it's late at night and i lie awake unable to fall asleep or it's the middle of the day and i'm contemplating my own existence. the reason i spend my nights staring at the ceiling is the reason i spend my days philosophizing...i'm lonely. no shock there right? but i don't just say it all the time because it's true all the time, though it is true all the time. i say it because it's not even an adjective for me anymore. it doesn't describe my condition. no, it is my condition. it's no longer how i am, it's what i am. i'm lonely.
i guess i've come to the part i need to explain. hmmm...how do i say this? when i say "i'm lonely" i don't mean physically as much as i mean emotionally. while most of the time it is physical, when i say it i mean i don't feel connected to anybody. i have friends. i have family. and yet i'm alone. i know...sounds weird right? and people won't understand that, not even the people that are the closest to me. mortimer adler said, "unless we love and are loved, each of us is alone, each of us is deeply lonely"; so i don't understand why i feel this way. i could argue i've never been more loved at any time of my life than i am right now and yet i don't think i've ever felt more lonely. i mean i love the people i keep close to me and i try to be helpful when they need someone to be there for them because they're all a part of me but there's disconnect there...i feel it. and it's probably my fault. some people want me to share myself with them and i don't, ask my therapist. the...rapist?! coincidence?! i don't know. anyway, there are people who want to know me and some people may want to love me but nobody should want to be me. i can't help but believe that every teacher that gave me an "e" for excellent as a grade for my social skills in elementary school was full of shit cause i'm definitely failing now. all my relationships are suffering because i'm suffering. and i'm suffering because i'm withholding. people want me to open up to them and i can't do it. i struggle with this everyday.
lorraine hansberry said "the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely" so apparently i must be exceptional at making other people not feel as lonely as i do.
one final thought...who is the closest person to me in this life and what does that person know about me that nobody else knows? do i even talk enough for anyone to know anything about me (shrugging shoulders)? i wonder who would say they really know me."
"at times in my life, i have been utterly lonely. at other times, i've had disgusting infectious diseases. try admitting these things in our culture." - martha beck
