darkwall
Well-known member
I didn't celebrate my birthday this year, but I got depressed anyway.
In trying to analyse why I hate birthdays so much, I've stumbled across a lot of things that are wrong with my life.
All of these are characterised by my fear of dismay. Not disappointment, but dismay: that I will be rejected, or underwhelmed, or hurt by committing myself. Why am I not a good writer? Because I avoid things that will make me realise my limitations.
"To make a dove, you must first wring its neck."
Pablo Picasso said that. Although he was talking about art, I can't help but feel that life could be described in the same terms - that we grow by destroying parts of ourselves. Yet I am afraid of compromising myself, and this takes the form of a sort of extreme pessimism that I justify by saying that I am never disappointed by anything. Which is really like saying 'I have no garden, so I will never see a flower die.'
It is my love of these flowers - that I never let grow within me - that inhibits me: because I am secretly more of an optimist than almost anyone else I know. I didn't let anyone celebrate my birthday because I would be dismayed by the reaction - what if not enough people came to my party? My hopes are always crushed, so I commit less and less of myself as I grow older, and in doing so doom each of my ventures - into love, into art - to an ever more impressive failure.
I'm going to force myself to make more friends, because I love people and pretend not to, and because I want them to love me and so reject them constantly. I turned twenty-one years old a few days ago. Things must start now.
In trying to analyse why I hate birthdays so much, I've stumbled across a lot of things that are wrong with my life.
All of these are characterised by my fear of dismay. Not disappointment, but dismay: that I will be rejected, or underwhelmed, or hurt by committing myself. Why am I not a good writer? Because I avoid things that will make me realise my limitations.
"To make a dove, you must first wring its neck."
Pablo Picasso said that. Although he was talking about art, I can't help but feel that life could be described in the same terms - that we grow by destroying parts of ourselves. Yet I am afraid of compromising myself, and this takes the form of a sort of extreme pessimism that I justify by saying that I am never disappointed by anything. Which is really like saying 'I have no garden, so I will never see a flower die.'
It is my love of these flowers - that I never let grow within me - that inhibits me: because I am secretly more of an optimist than almost anyone else I know. I didn't let anyone celebrate my birthday because I would be dismayed by the reaction - what if not enough people came to my party? My hopes are always crushed, so I commit less and less of myself as I grow older, and in doing so doom each of my ventures - into love, into art - to an ever more impressive failure.
I'm going to force myself to make more friends, because I love people and pretend not to, and because I want them to love me and so reject them constantly. I turned twenty-one years old a few days ago. Things must start now.
