No drugs and alcohol today, I hope. Or maybe a little bit. What’s the alternative? Masturbation or endless rounds of online chess, catching myself staring at the wall with head in left hand and spine dramatically misaligned. Look, I’ll just do the drugs and alcohol instead of the other vices, because it’s better. I want to feel good, is that so bad?
Let’s examine: ‘feel good’ seems a vast simplification of the universal maxim, if there is such a one. All I need to do is feel good? Can’t be. But then again, no drugs and alcohol, because that kind of ‘feel good’ is illusory compared to the present, the awareness of the light moving in the things you say. Vice does not compare to the ‘feel good’ that virtue grants. My maxim remains ‘feel good,’ even if it is a higher ‘feel good.’
Let’s build something new, then. My life is not fulfilled in the moments of feeling good; happiness is not the goal, because it is transient and will always be coming next. I don’t want it to be. The cycle continues because it’s wheedled its way into my core, prodding me to look for it again. You glue me together while I work this out inside. Inside is where we are truly blessed with freedom. My thoughts roam where they please, regardless of quality. Shitty thoughts? That’s freedom, you see. I’ll let them happen, because I want to feel good, but I don’t want to want to feel good. It’s a part of me, to feel that way, a part of me I don’t caveat out – or can’t. Inside me and inside those parts of me inside me is a sieve, a throttle I gently lean into and it all rushes out.
Squatting on the floor where I’ve moved my laptop after sitting scoliosed for too long, I want to feel good again. Not wanting to want it, but wanting it nonetheless. And above it all is the freedom I exercise to bring this about, as I sit in the desire and it’s second-order negation: I don’t feel good, but it’s better than the alternative.
The grey sky has sunk into the fabric of the rug my bare feet impress themselves upon, 3:15 p.m. and I have no shadow.