More Value For Your Mind

This year has began with a great deal of heavy hearted self reflection. The knowledge I’ve gained about the true inner workings of the world feels meaningless; and, what good is knowledge without meaning?

Let me save you the momentary notion that I seek some measure of pity, or expect any semblance of pity or relief. I am well beyond the misguided belief that the place I had elevated others to, and the one I held in their lives was on an even plane.

You can hardly blame others for failing to understand what it is that hurts you when the things which drive you to get out of bed, and the ones that keep you up at night are so removed from the normal they are sheltered in that confusion is the most natural response.

It is a pain to be anything other than others. It is the unenviable and inexplicable position of always being, “The Other,” which both enables you to readily identify what others are missing, and ensures that others do not find you when you’ve gone missing.

I have been missing from myself now for three years. It might be more accurate to say that I was “stolen from myself,” but with almost everything being an illusion, being a projection managed through issue trackers and algorithmic indifference, what difference does accuracy grant to those who never truly knew the original, and others more than happy to spread any lie, as long as it helps recenter themselves within their own projection?

Long live the king, and so doubly does the crown lay burden upon his head. That he should be at a seat which overlooks so many, and in that seat be seen by none is a fate far less luxurious than is imagined by those who plot to assassinate the leader out of envy of the illusion that sitting in the throne will mean that the eyes of the world would be watching.

The world never sees that king; only when he falls, or stumbles, or leaves some unaccounted for absence does the world seek to make individual one typically imagine to be the shared property possessed by all who dwell within every city.

Jake Lawson

January 23, 2024