I joke about being dead inside, but it's true. What feels like forever ago I was cut open for the first time. After bleeding for a while, your wounds heal. But it's amazing how many wounds you get in such a short lifetime. How many wounds you get while striving to do no harm. After you've been sliced open enough times, I suppose you stop bothering to seal yourself back up. So you bleed. And bleed. And bleed. You get used to the mess. A lot of people are squeamish, it makes sense. You get used to seeing the world in red. There are in fact different colors, but sometimes it's hard to remember. I see red so well that I can see it running under other people's skin. It's scary to know how to topple a person like a tower. To know exactly where to cut, exactly which block to pull out. I'd never do that though. Bleeding isn't fun, like sleeping and eating are. It's draining even when you're already empty and there's nothing left. Just marrow I suppose. Marrow without a moment to rest. So, maybe it isn't exactly true that I'm empty, there is something there. But can an outpouring cup ever be filled?
A better world?
We claim that what we seek, that what we're working for, is a better world. What does that even mean? Innovation. Passion. Research. Education. So far as I can tell, they are all good things, but what does this "better" world really look like? Where exactly are we going with all of this? When I think of MIT, I do think of technology, of the forefront of human knowledge, and our endeavors to push those borders ever farther forward. And yet, the question that we've failed to answer, the only one that I think is truly worth asking, is which way is forward? Where are we going with this? Everything that happens has its explicit intents and purposes, but it goes without saying that there are byproducts of every action. What are the byproducts of our actions? We talk about walking on the shoulders of giants, while stepping on the necks of children. What are we doing here?
Young Jedi
As always I’m unclear on where this is supposed to begin. But, I can at least say what it’s about. The dichotomy between the pieces of my person has become painful again. I truly wish that I were capable(not truly) of looking away or burying my head in the sand. This world, this reality, it’s so very warped and broken. But I think the real struggle is that it’s fixable. There are other states that things could exist in, reachable states...that aren’t reachable. I walked along the river today - it was beautiful out. The water, the sunshine, the skyline. Everything shimmering. People enjoying a (likely brief) bit of liberation from the cold. I stared and silently took it all in and there was not an inkling of peace to be found. I closed my eyes and imagined being in the country and in the mountains away from the city away from people, to truly appreciate the magnitude and beauty of this green and brown and blue rock that we inhabit. I intellectually know and knew that nature is beautiful...but I couldn’t feel it. There is so much here and yet it feels wasted. I feel wasted. I spend most of my time pondering economics and politics and psychology, wondering about how we’ve organized ourselves, about what we’re doing and where we’re going and why. We have so much potential, realized and unrealized, for both good and ill. I just...I wonder if I agree with Samwise Gamgee - “that there’s some good in this world and it’s worth fighting for”. I struggle not to let myself think of this world as a Sodom and Gomorrah that I should turn my back on before I turn to salt - I mean, I’m already full of salt anyway. And yet, I don’t think the world is so. I know that we are not beyond saving, but maybe it’s just that I feel like I’m beyond saving. The crippling loneliness that eats away at my soul for no real reason other than that I haven’t found the people that see things as I do and use the same words to describe them is crippling. The truth is, that I have found them. But it’s not enough. Sure, they’re not an army, so maybe that’s what they have been insufficient. But I think the fear that lives beneath is that it’s not them, it’s me. That I am the one who is too weak to drag myself out of the muck. You can’t break yourself out of a prison that you carry with you. You can’t break chains if you instead aim to tighten them.