Throughout high school, I had no intentions of going to college--at least not until my senior year. My plan was to travel the world with not a dime to my name. If my fate was similar to that of Christopher McCandless, well, so be it.
However, the second semester of my junior year in high school, I began weight lifting. Very soon after beginning, I became obsessed. I would spend 2-3 hours a day in the gym, 6 days a week. Working out was the one thing that helped ease the depression--well, dysthymia, but I didn't know it was that at the time. It was the one thing I could see myself doing for the rest of my life and by Jove did I feel invincible.
However, after catering to my "temple" for a year and a half of my life(eating healthy and putting everything I had into the weight room), it all began to crumble. And it crumbled fast. No matter what I tried, I could not shake the feeling of unimportance, helplessness, worthlessness, and any of the other feelings that caused me to lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling for hours on end. Going to the gym felt useless as I was to die anyways without making any sort of impact on the world in which I lived. I felt like I had no home, no sense of belonging, and I felt like a burden to everyone around me. I felt like a parasite. A toxic mess. I continued lifting, but I significantly decreased in size, which of course added to the self loathing.
When I was accepted to the College at Brockport, I cried. I cried hard. I cried so hard that I fell into my mothers lap and sobbed for several minutes. Me? Accepted to college? Good enough for something? Wanted by something or someone? How could this be?
Based on my reaction to the acceptance, this was the college I would go to. I had so many plans for college. I had so many ideas of the person I wanted to become. The possibilities seemed endless. I met this girl over the summer and was infatuated to say the least. We hung out everyday, going to the beach, getting ice cream, whatever excuse we could find. I was still headed for Brockport in the fall, but we figured we'd work it out. I had high hopes.
However, I'm an introvert, I am anti-social, and I find it very difficult to just "strike up a conversation." I did not connect with my roommate and I made a total of zero friends. I continued lifting, but I still got this terrible feeling that it was all for nothing. My girlfriend cheated on me and I once again fell into the deep, dark pit of "Why the Fuck am I Here?"
I got all my homework done on time, I got mostly As, never got below a B+, yet something was missing. I spent my nights binge watching Netflix shows and YouTube videos. One guy I watched was Koi Fresco. Koi was a spiritual guy and his videos provided comfort. His cat's name is Watts. He named it after Alan Watts.
I forget exactly how I decided to look up Alan Watts, but from there, I indulged. I listened to Alan Watts seminars to and from class. I listened while eating alone at the dining hall, and I listened while laying in bed before sleeping. I started to see things differently. I could think about death, nothingness, the void, and feel comforted. I started to see the beauty in things and the interconnectedness. I saw that we are all one. You, me, the trees, the stars, everything. I took solace in his words and also in my creative writing class.
Watts and my creative writing class gave me the tools I needed to express how I felt. They showed me other means of feeling whole. They showed me that introspection wasn't a bad thing. They showed me that I could remain in my head all day, every day so long as I felt necessary. I wrote my thoughts down and turned those in. I read them to the class, but they did not leave those walls and it felt natural. It felt like an extension of myself. Extra storage.
I still had days in which I felt severely depressed, but Watts and his words made it a slight degree more bearable. I transferred to the SUNY college in my hometown and I have listened to Watts nearly every day since then. I took a break from lifting for seven months and used that time to explore the boundaries of my self expression. I don't write as much anymore, as it was a means of expressing my sadness, but I do on occasion.
Now that I've seen a psychiatrist and continue to see my therapist, I learn more about myself every day. I have dysthymia. I'm not just fucked up and I'm not alone.
I still stumble into the lows, but I know they're not permanent and I know I can get myself out of them.
I am an English Language Arts major, I am a junior, and I have plans on going to Thailand to get certified in teaching English overseas this summer. I am excited for my future. I can see myself living past 20 years old, and I can see myself making an impact--even if it's just improving some aspect of a life for one human being.
While staring at a picture of Alan and listening to Alan, I painted Alan.
I've always found it difficult to paint abstractly. I enjoy expressionism, impressionism, surrealism, and so forth, but I can never paint like that. Perhaps it's because I am staring at the image/scene that I would like to paint and don't have the capacity to add my own touch, or perhaps it's because those movements are in the past and I need contribute to them.
I'm thinking of ordering some quality canvases and paint as this was done with 79 cent acrylic paint on paper from an 11 dollar pad of paper for children's finger painting.
The blue and red background squiggles represent the ideas and concepts that Watts provided and continues to provide. These ways of life and ways of thinking blend together to create new ideas and concepts that derive from his direct words, creating violet. The yellow, however, represents a great deal more. The yellow represents the impact of his words. The yellow represents the things that he did not mean to teach us or at least might not have predicted. The yellow represents the series of events in my life (and I'm sure in many other lives) that unfolded from his words to shape who I am today. The yellow is the now, "the eternal now," as I've often heard him say.
In commemoration of the man that helped lead me to the light.