You have this incestuous need to be around people.

Even if it’s people you don’t like, you’d much rather be surrounded by them than be alone. If it’s not real people, then it’s a digital version of them on your phone. In the bathroom you turn the music on, on Sunday afternoons you watch a rectangle hanging from your wall beaming rehearsed pictures. Even at night, you try your best to exhaust your body to the point where you physically pass out once your head hits the pillow, giving you no time to think. You need the distraction to feel at peace. You need the distraction to not feel alone. 

Being around other people somehow validates you. You have a phone full chats, a list full of contacts and a life full of relationships. Friends, lovers, family, all of them serving a purpose, all of them defining parts of you. You’ll make them laugh. You’ll make them cum. You’ll say or do something smart, something charming, something memorable. It creates this fucked up currency of human value that momentarily fulfills you and makes you stop questioning you. 

You claim to pour your heart and soul into your job but when was the last time you took care of your heart? What’s even in your soul? All you pour into your job is time. Your job is not who you are, it’s what you do.  

Have you ever tried it?  

To just be, I mean. Simply exist in silence. No, no open your eyes. This is not a meditation class nor a mindfulness tutorial. Right in the middle of your day, with eyes wide open just let yourself introduce itself. Drop the sales manager act. Take off the parent suit. Remove the kind partner mask. Stop worrying about the bank balance and the calories and the weekend plans.  

It’s awkward, right? 

It feels like getting punched in the face. Or like the first time you get naked in a locker room full of people. A raw state of existence where you become aware of things like breathing and get rid of things like feelings. Overpowering thoughts, big and beautiful like whales, you can’t pretend they’re not there anymore.   

It’s you.