#willanyoneevenseethis

[peaceinside]

Spinning

I have never been a writer, I have always been a thinker. I think about things endlessly. All kinds of things. I never know where my brain is going to connect to something else. On my 30th birthday, in the midst of a long covid-19 inspired depression, my life seemed to click. 30 years of being a thinker, made me see that a lot of my thoughts are worth sharing. And even now after reading that sentence I start to wonder if people will think that sounds narcissistic. But aren’t all people who write just sharing their ideas? Mine are just rooted in my unique brand of thought. And my thoughts today are a reflection of 30 years of thought behind me. I thought maybe the ones that I’ve stitched together into a coherent string can be read by others who see reflections of themselves in me. Because I see struggle everywhere. Struggles I understand. Everyone has their own story, I have come to the conclusion that there are no “normal” people. And in 2021, I realize that only few are really happy. Everyone is plagued to some extent by internal struggles they refuse to share or receive help for. Help comes in all forms, I wonder if anybody might find these words and get help to look inside themselves for who they really are. Until people find peace within themselves we will never find peace elsewhere.

 My thoughts today while driving home from having coffee at a friend’s house were inspired by such a small thing. But I have come to such a stage of thinking that other trains of thought are already well explored. This blends a few parts of my views on the world and things that have happened in my life. But they all came to me at once when watching my friend’s child play outside in the sun with his friends. His child broke from the group and came to talk to his father, and returned back to his friends. In the time he had left the group, his friends decided to start spinning. When was the last time you spun? Arms out on the grass under the spring sun? But when my friend’s son returned to the circle of friends, no explanation needed, he started spinning too. This is how kids play, this is how humans play. And we lose a lot of that when we get older. Or do were?  I spin with friends all the time. I’ve had cigarette friends, cannabis friends, coffee friends, gambling friends, alcohol friends, and sex friends. Sharing in vices and activities and view points. When others are spinning, sometimes we don’t question it, we just shrug our shoulders and spin with them. That’s playing. And that’s part of being a human being.

I’ve always known that there were a lot of similarities between my brain and Karl’s, Karl was my big brother, who fought a fight his entire life. One with mental illness, one with addiction. And in 2018, he lost that fight and left my life forever after a drug overdose. That’s a story I’m sure I will get into in much more detail at some later time. Today’s thought was that I know there are similarities between myself and my brother. I don’t think we ever fully connected before he died. But I’m in tune enough with how my brain works to know that I suffer from forms of “mental illness”. Bi-polar disorders, manic depression run in the family. I don’t need to go to a doctor to know It didn’t skip me. My brother lived his struggle alone, like I would have. But I got to have the benefit of the endless warning signs he left behind him while paving a road to nowhere. That’s why there is a lot of my brother left in me, because through his life, he was able to show me that whatever our family has been plagued with genetically, is something I had to carry down a different path than he did. I don’t know all the things Karl struggled to cope with in his brain. But I have an idea of how he thought about them. It’s hard to talk about all of your sad thoughts, your complicated thoughts because we don’t live in a world that’s open to thoughts that are radically different. We call it illness. And I know that he got to the end of his road quicker than most because for a lot of it, he didn’t have the benefit of someone else’s road markers. Traveling an unlit road is scary and I understand how my brother would have been looking for anyone to help him navigate. And when he did have the benefit of co-pilots… His friends just spun a little faster than mine.

In a final desperate blaze my brother fizzled out like a road flare. A flare that was no longer asking for help, but a last signal for future travelers to turn around if they happen to find where he left his car at the end of a dark and lonely road. Shine on you crazy diamond. And thanks for all your help.

[ccorpuscallosum]

BABY GOLDEN BEARS

AAAAAAH <3 Welcome to Bear Territory! This place is amazing and challenging, I am 99.99% sure that you will love it. Uh, I guess I will hop on the bandwagon of "You can ask me questions about UC Berkeley"? ouo Also: WHERE MY STEMANITIES MAJORS AT