Madness of the Misplaced

The odd feeling of being out of place and out of the loop in time and space is something that pops up for me on occasion.

One of those occasions is today, where I sometimes look out for the place where belonging and home is, but can’t really find it. It’s a strange thing to feel – and it’s not for not understanding the reality that you make your own hierarchy, your own work and your own life, but it’s more a longing frustration of sharing those things with people around me.

I have friends, and some very good ones, but I also have a lucid understanding that one day, through the passage of time, they won’t be around anymore. Just like family and so many other things, time takes all – and in that time, the displacement I feel is hard to bear.

I’m taking a step back at the moment to collect my thoughts and have them clear, because right now I’m really more just rambling in my words – but in essence, I’m talking about the sharing of things with others, alongside the inevitable loss and the profound sadness that comes along with that, plus the search for finding others to share things with again.

I’ve dealt with loss in my life before, and the burden of that feeling never gets easier the longer time passes – I become more capable of handling it, but the pain of carrying it is always the same. The only difference is, I understand it better the next time around. I can take it.

That impending loss sometimes really hits me though, and hits me hard. The friends and family that I have, I value very, very deeply – I’m not someone who trusts easily (hence the whole cynical thing), but once I give it, you’ve got yourself a very good friend, so when loss comes around and I really never wanted that to come around in the first place, it’s a devastating hit to the energy I gave.

And it’s not easy to find that kind of loyalty and friendship again. It never has been. Superficial friendships where making small talk and sharing stories is not something that is hard to come by – I meet with many, speak with many and connect with most – but to have a strong companion by your side that stands with you in the blinding fires of disaster and in the hazy mists of joyous rain is a truly rare and precious kind of companionship that is profoundly uplifting but just as devastating when lost.

I find that kind of companionship is becoming rarer and rarer, too. In an age where 255 characters has more value than hours long discussions at cafes with good drink and company, it is hard not to be cynical and feel that I grew up in a world where my mind is right for reality but wrong for the world.

Hence the feeling of displacement – the feeling that the world I live in is not the time or place I ought to be in. The unusual sensation that what interests me is a dying breed while quick, quirky quips and snappy, snotty assholes on the next social media blitz are a dime a dozen and all there is.

I’ve felt out of place and out of time for a very, very long time – I distinctly remember it from my childhood, into my teens, and now into my adult life. The people I find that I can truly click with are very rare, but I cherish them.

Perhaps I’m rambling, but this blog post is a cathartic release of frustration for me. With recent events, I was reminded that loss happens. I had a very good 2021, and 2022 will likely be just as good with the focus and confidence that I have, but there are moments and things that happen that remind me of the inevitable losses and failures we all must cop on the chin once in a while. For me, it’s not so much that I have lost something now, but I know I will in the near future.

That’s part of being true to what is real, however. I can live in the fantasy of “nothing can ever take this away”, but that leads to the problem of not waking up to disaster when it hits. There is sadness in knowing there will be loss, but there is utter despair when one evades the reality that loss is possible.

Never evade, and always be honest. Honesty is reality, and reality is not a sweet thing to swallow. It is however, what you need, and that you must never forget.

But with all this, don’t think that I believe that “life is suffering”. I absolutely loathe that term and people who carry it, as if to say that the default of humanity is to suffer. It’s gross – it rubs me the wrong way on so many layers. In other words, go fuck yourself.

I do however think that life is hard – and there is a great deal of discontent that comes and goes in everyone’s lives. That however, is part of the play that is living.

Without the states of discontent and complete, tensionless living, you could never progress or feel the radiant explosion of joy when you finally “solve” whatever you were pushing through. Humans were not born to just “be” – they were born to grow. To maximize, optimize and flourish. To keep pushing forward, with muscles strained and tendons stretched.

Life is not about suffering, but it is about pursuing ones values – and that discontentment is the signaling that we aren’t done yet – we’re still alive and we still want to keep going. To move, to achieve – to find more that is valuable to us, but as individuals.

I have a pretty good life, all things considered – but there are moments where I notice a stagnation or slowing of my energy, and that is when those moments of lucid discontentment arrive, or an event transpires where I realize that something is wrong.

Through that occasional stress and torment however, I recognize that there is something missing in my life, something incomplete – and that’s where I start to light the fire of creativity again. To write more, to excel more, to achieve.

Whatever degree of achievement that is, it depends on the person and what they want to do – but for me it always comes down to some kind of art, whether it be in the form of writing or painting. Teaching, too.

Right now, I’m in a place of momentary sadness – recognizing a feeling of lonely displacement in a mad world full of mad people where all I want is to connect to the sane.

But I’ll be alright, always am, always will be. The existence of an existentially interested, cynical Frog is much too important for this world to simply vanish.

I’ll keep writing, thinking and solving things in my own way. I’ll probably find more interesting people to share interesting stories with too.

Just keep hopping on, lotus by lotus, lover to lover, friend to friend.

Until there are no more lotuses in the pond.