A few months ago I gave my best shot at designing puzzles. At the office I started writing crossword puzzles a while back. Connections was easy and the cryptic crosswords were difficult. Market segmentation for the real nerds (shoutout Tolga). It took some time to get people doing them but at a certain point it had become something everyone expected and even looked out for. Something I introduced them to. I like to be in that position. I live in an in-between point in almost all cases in my life. Betwixt the privilege I have benefitted from immensely and my stubborn individuality is someone stuck in a dilemma. But they will win that dilemma.
I have been going over the control I try to exhibit in my life with my therapist for some time, it felt as a natural step. I had brought it up towards the first sessions but either I was not eloquent enough to convey what I felt like my patterns were or my therapist thought some other ongoing points were more relevant (the obvious).
There has always been a supreme belief in my mind that I could persevere and impact the outcome of a situation; an innate belief in my myself. This might be a daft belief to hold but it is very tough to let go of. I have always been capable of impacting a crisis, examination or situation. The provenance of positive outcomes related to my direct influence has fed my ego with positive cases to look back on. This is great for interviews and the like but sucks when you have to hit reality.
Reality is not your personal failures. It is not your deficiencies. Not you. It is something that has no bearing on what you have done or can do. It just is.
I wrote something previously regarding “Hope” by VW. This in many ways is the antithesis to that. Sometimes it really is not about you. There is nothing you can or could do because if you could then you probably would have. I know this, have known this and will do so forever but it does not hurt less. I was raised up believing I was somehow unique and my value system (which I could not fail) would allow me to prosper. Letting go of this has been really difficult. I can’t. It has been the driving force of my existence for the longest time. It will continue to be so. Ego death might be necessary. But if past near-death experiences did not provide me that then what will?
I still do not connect fully with helplessness blues. Sure, being part of something greater is a very strong motivator but it feels like everything in my life has moved me in the opposite direction. Not that I do not want to be part of something bigger, a community. It’s more that I have pushed myself to be different, mostly better but even if not then something unique. A pr campaign to impart the illusion of worth that I thought was necessary because I did not feel worthy in the eyes of others. It mostly did not work. I was more forgettable than I would have liked, inconsequential.
The titles are generally clickbait, I find some barely relevant connections. This one does however, connect to the online reprieve I have had of these general feelings of control and stubbornness in letting go of it: lonerism. There are some songs that have mottos that come to me in the most apt moments. When walking alone around the Hauptbahnhof in Zurich, Bowie shouting “You are not alone” really did help. And now knowing that nothing that has happened so far has been anything I could control is relieving.
As always, my passes at omniscience are absurd, but you, of all people, should be polite to the part of me that comes out merely clever.