A chance encounter with another's loss

I am an artist.

The word means something different to everyone. It often means something different even to the same person, depending on when it's used.

To me, being an artist holds a whirlwind of meaning. Being an artist means I think way too much about everything in my life. It means I'm likely to take pictures of the sidewalk in the rain because it looks cool. It means I stop a hundred times on a hike to try to capture something I see with a few meagre words in my notebook. It means that I hide my heart in my stories and pictures and poems and songs, and give them to the world, but it means that I wrap my heart up behind a smile so that those I love won't look too closely at it and be disappointed. It means I'm less likely to open my emotions to one of my closest friends than I am to a total stranger, because I'm more comfortable when I'm hidden and unknown.

Being an artist means that I look at the world as beauty, as symphonies of wind and rain, as paintings of light and shadow, as stories of love lost and found. It means that I spend far too much time in my head, thinking and feeling and fearing in an endless cycle of imagination, hope, and remorse.

Being an artist also means that I read a book, hear a song, see a painting, or watch a film, and I see myself reflected in another human's work. It means that I have learned more about who I am, what I fear, what I love, and the life I want from the stories I have consumed than you would probably believe.

I had the immense privilege last night of watching with some of my dear friends an older movie that opened my eyes to something I've somehow missed for years. You would think that a bizarre film starring Jim Carrey would be the source, at most, of perhaps a little uncomfortably bawdy hilarity. And yet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind rocked my worldview in a way I would never have imagined before seeing it.

For those of you who haven't seen it, it follows a man who chooses to have a medical procedure to erase his ex-girlfriend from his memories. It's an odd little film that occasionally treads into the bizarre, but watching someone lose all recollection of someone they care deeply for has a way of making you take a step back and ask yourself what your life means and why you live it. The experience struck a chord in my heart that I hadn't realized had been silent for far too long.

Anyone who knows me knows that America's current political discourse deeply upsets me. Being an artist, for me, means that I feel things far more acutely than I ought, and that I occasionally tread into the melodramatic. And so, despite my nonsensical regurgitation of pious belief in some greater plan, I have found myself afraid of my future, and angry at those who appear to me to threaten it. I have said I have confidence in God's work, but I have lived as if all that ultimately determines the future is my behavior. And maybe that is the case; I don't, and can't, know which of those alternatives is true. All I know is that I have lived the past few weeks afraid, consumed by the shadow of politics that looms large in so many of our minds and hearts.

Last night, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind forced me to ask myself a question about a different sort of fear: If I knew that I was going to lose my memories, which of them would I be most frightened to lose?

Look, there's an old adage that small people talk about people, but great people talk about ideas. I would largely agree with that, but I think there's more to be said. The small person is the one who cares about ideas more than they care about people. An idea is an abstraction, a possession, something foreign to ourselves. A person is a life, a work of art, something that we ourselves are.

If I went to sleep tonight, knowing I would wake up without my memories, I would not mourn my opinions. I would not mourn my political thoughts, my achievements, or my unique perspective on the world. I would mourn the people I've met. I would mourn the memories I've made. I would mourn the laughter they've given me, the tears I've shed, those who've loved me and those who've broken my heart. I would mourn the people in my life, because they have made me who I am.

My dear friends, before last night it looked to me like the world was ending. I looked around at these broken lives we lead, and I felt my heart sink a little more each day. How could anything good remain in the shadow of so much wrongness? How could we continue when the deplorable was held up for our commendation by so many around us?

I'm not here to deny that this life is shitty. I'm not here to tell you that our political horizons aren't bleak. I'm not here to say that we should close our eyes to the pain that so many are experiencing. But at the end of the day, these few years that we have are a gift, and there's no guarantee that you'll ever get another opportunity to smile at the person on the other side of the room. There's no guarantee that you'll ever have the chance to see your loved one's eyes light up again because of something small. There's no guarantee that you'll get to ask that person out next week, that you'll talk to that family member when they come visit next Christmas, or that you'll see that friend tomorrow.

Being an artist means that I see life itself as a chance to create art. Our memories are paintings, and every word, every look, every touch is a brushstroke on the canvas that is another's heart. Last night, I was confronted with the starkness of my own mortality. The world as we know it is heavy, and so we walk around with hearts that have been broken by carrying around that weight. I'm not denying that, but that doesn't mean that we have to paint in dark tones. If you knew that your next interaction with someone would be the last memory you ever get to help paint, what would you want that painting to be? Hold that memory in your mind, and now ask yourself: what if today really is your last day?

This isn't a new sentiment. Countless people before me have said it, and countless people after me will say it. But I never got it before last night, and so I have to repeat this cliche, because what if there's someone else who hasn't gotten it yet either? There are so many things in life that matter, and each of them has a name: Elanore, Olivia, Evelyn, Benjamin, Richard, Jessica, Cameron, Abigail, Karl, Riley... Those are only ten of the countless people I love, and yet how many are the nameless, unimportant other things I tear myself into pieces caring about, when people are so much more precious?

O Death all-eloquent! you only prove

What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love.

      - Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"

We are all artists, and we have only these few years to create something beautiful. Our lives are our brushes, and our canvases. One day they will end, and we won't leave anything behind except the memories we help others paint. Please, dear friends, let's not waste them.

To a friend who was really no friend

Tell me once more the story, my friend,

of a world that needs my services,

and I will call you a liar. This world?

You think it needs me, of all people?

You're either a fool or (as I've said)

a false friend who mutters pure nonsense

to me in the hopes that I'll listen

and care

and change.

But why? What's here for me? You?

Not likely.

"Don't give up! Fight! Continue to struggle!"

Do you even know what it feels like

to know nothing's right but the fact that I'm wrong?

I am incorrigible,

insufficient to mend e'en the first thing about me

but here you stand: smug, secure,

certain of your ability to "fix" your friend.

Your friend?

Really?

Your project?

Oh, I'm sorry. That's too close to home,

isn't it? Do you honestly think that a band-aid

of half-hearted "care and concern"

will patch up the seven-inch scar that's been bleeding

since I was a child, pretending heroics at thirteen,

telling myself that you were what matters,

forgetting my dreams and my wishes

and turning to all that you told me.

Bleeding dry.

How could I know that your stories were lies?

I was naïve! Yes, I should've known better

but you were so lovely and needy, affirming

my thoughts of importance,

of saving the damsel,

and now, seven years down the road?

Whom have I become?

Empty

Unknown

Enigmatic (by choice)

I base my life on opinions from others

and pretend I am more than

just veneer

coating

dead, hollow places:

once bright, now cold, dark, forgotten.

Who am I but a dozen masks?

I take one off and put one on,

but underneath

I remain

featureless

To cry

Quietly imagining a world

In which everything we pretend has become

A reality--unimprisoned, faultless, and free

But that is not reality.

It's a drug, to keep me sated and clumsy.

I drink the death I brew for myself

And wish for a day when I will be

Alone

Unloved, unhated

Unbroken, unformed

Unknown

The realness of a record of wrongs

(Wrongs that mean nothing?)

Is too much for me to grasp

I twist away from what I feel

Because feeling is like a finger, pointed

Ruthlessly at me, accusing

Never relenting

Always tormenting

No one defending

And what does it mean to be free

If freedom is nothing but agony?

Explain to me why, God!

I believe, but so do the demons

Is that what I am?

Are they just like me?

Knowing, but running and mocking and dying?

I want to cry, but you've closed my eyes,

And now I'm alone.

Alone with the one that I hate

More than all

Emptiness

The past few weeks have been a time of some serious soul-searching for me. I'm almost halfway done with my undergrad, working on getting a degree that will hopefully lead me into the field I would like to pursue my whole life. I'm studying stuff that's interesting to me, and that I love learning about.

In spite of that, I feel empty. My academics aren't bad, but I'm not focused or diligent or excited when it comes to any of the things I'm working on. My relationship with God is not at all in a healthy place. I am consumed by the cruel lie that so easily dominates so many of our lives: the lie that others' opinions define me.

In a cruel twist, though, I very rarely consciously care about the opinions of the people around me. I think that I'm okay and secure in who I am, but I have gradually come to the realization that my motivations for most of what I do and who I am are based entirely around a desire to shape others' perceptions of who I am.

I thus find that I'm not actually certain what I want out of life. I care so much about how people view me that I have trouble knowing who I really want to be. I want people to think I'm smart, spiritual, philosophical, deep, funny, outgoing, reliable, friendly, or any number of other adjectives. I look at the people around me, see personality traits they have that I admire, and attempt to gain them for myself. The problem is that rather than focus on developing them in myself, I have a tendency to work to develop the appearance of having them. I think about how a nice guy would act or how he would talk, and then I work to behave that way.

The result is that the time I spend with people, I spend playing an elaborate part that I have developed in order to gain their approval. My identity is defined by appearing to be a certain way, rather than actually being that way. And this leaves me lonely, tired, unmotivated, angry at the world, and angry at myself. I know that I'm not supposed to be living for other people, and so the life I've been living doesn't feel like life at all.

Who am I? To be perfectly honest, I don't really know. I know I'm not the person I've been spending my energy pretending to be, but that doesn't really mean much; knowing who I'm not doesn't go that far towards helping me to know I am.

I wish I could conclude this post with a point. But there isn't a point to it--it really is an inconsequential thought, one born of desperation and frustration and sadness. It's a thought more for me than for anyone else, and so it's not a particularly motivational one. I feel like I've lost myself. No, it's more that I feel like I never found myself in the first place.