We Have a Bug Problem
Dear girls,
It is morning. I am sitting in the living room looking out the windows, trying to figure out what to write to you. All I can think about is how vivid and clear the world looks outside of my window right now. The sky is a bright blue and the trees a bright green, and the sun makes each leaf distinct, glinting and singular. It’s almost as though there can’t be anything else for me to do but look out these windows.
I’ve been dulling myself lately, stubbing out interesting trains of thought before I have the chance to drive them deeper, as though I am not currently worthy of exploring them. For someone who extols the virtues of nuance, I have such an all-or-nothing need to be a perfect vessel in order to create, think, or consume art and knowledge. If I do something that my mind deems baseless or unhealthy, then I don’t allow myself to pursue something healthy, elevated, above the muck, in any other area of my life until the time my brain has allotted before my purity returns has passed. All of my thoughts, actions and words must be consistent in their value—I cannot bring myself to go on a walk on a beautiful evening if I am not living adequately because then I will have to feel the immensity of my inferiority in comparison—and I have the gall to say I’m not a perfectionist!
Needless to say, I’ve been clogging my experience with a shiny, slimy film of ease and half-thoughts and, yes, I know we’ve been discussing the appeal of no-thinking and how it’s-not-that-deep but that renders me a dull shell. I cannot adequately convince myself of it and the moments I come to the surface are unbearable. Even in the moments where I am reveling in comfort and pleasure and a warm, hollow head, I’ll be struck with some empty echo that rocks me like the sudden panic when you’ve forgotten something imperative.
Do any of you tyrannize yourself like this? I am hoping to reintroduce ritual with myself in order to reconnect the sacredness I feel in the world around me to myself. Like jumper cables for a spirit.
Very truly yours,
Mackenzie
Kenzie!
I’m upset to hear that you are so harsh on yourself, even feeling unworthy of your interesting thoughts. :(
You are so cool and one does not become cool by having no thoughts. I know we’ve been encouraging bimbofication and quieting our existential dread for brat summer but now that it’s august and pumpkin spice is out maybe we can let ourselves return to our natural state of melodrama!
The concept of dulling oneself is generally distressing for me. It conjures up a claustrophobic feeling and for some reason reminds me of Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman. By dulling ourselves I fear we lay traps that eventually render us hopeless. I know we joke about it but maybe we SHOULD have highschool english class style book club. Even if only as a container/outlet for our dark academia-esque ponderings. My current reading diet is deficient in great works which highlight human nature (I’ve been reading mindless fiction about saving kingdoms and toxic relationships). So since the pondering human nature through art piece is missing and I could always use more chit chat time with you girls - what do you say? What should our first book be?
P.S. I feel Grace is maybe the best of us at pondering human nature through art. Perhaps this is because she got a degree in it. Or because she allows her thoughts to flow unbound by well established cultural thought patterns. Or maybe its tism? But if that’s the case then I should be good at it too…. Oh well!
Love to all,
Sydney
Girlss….
We all bought The Metamorphosis last fall with the intent to read and discuss. We never did. Now, I fear, is the time to ride.
Perhaps it’s too on the nose, but maybe a little on the nose is just what we need. I remember us all deeply resonating with Gregor and I feel it’s time for us to connect him again. Kafka fall is back baby!
In all seriousness, I feel I have been on my no-thoughts, head-empty train for the better part of a year now. Of course, I have many thoughts, and my head is never empty, but even throwing the joke around back and forth has become a comforting tactic to reclaim my own sanity. I always come back to this, but unfortunately, the trauma of coming out was my most formative experience, and having gone through a period of about two years where I could not enjoy a single waking moment without thinking about impending doom and Protestant, existential dread, I just got tired of thinking too deeply about anything serious in regards to my own life. Or maybe too anxious to confront my own musings. This defense mechanism is probably to my detriment, but I have been thinking a lot about this in Spain this week with Sydney.
Last time we traveled abroad together, it was literally months after I had come out, I was probably in the darkest “(mental place in my life. I could barely even focus on all the wonderful blessings around me since I was so encumbered with my own thoughts and fears. To Kenzie’s point, maybe the idea of perfectionism manifested slightly differently- but I think I was so afraid of being “sent to hell (Oop)” that I hyper-fixated on perfectionism and beat myself up anytime I felt I didn’t live up to my own standards. (To make up for being gay lololol). The trip was wonderful, but whenever I think of Greece I just remember how sad and broken in spirit I felt.
It was so exhausting always critiquing myself and after a while, I truly think I just cut it out because it robbed me of every joy. Even now, I try to interrogate this sentiment. Is forgoing self-critique and interrogation in favor of being happy and at peace moral and permissible? I am inclined to say no. While I ask the question in a much better place than I used to be and am not necessarily referring to religious interrogation here, the more I try to cut off my own trains of thought before I let them run their course; the more I feel disconnected from my own human experience. The less present and responsible I feel.
I feel more joyful, I feel happier, and more at ease. But am I more human? And I a better person? Am I being a responsible and active participant in my own psyche?? I don’t think so. What is better? Happiness? Or sacrificing some of that active conscious consideration (within reason). Probably the latter. We can’t run from things we just don’t feel like facing.
Sorry, that got so intense I am several glasses of Martin Codex Albariño deep (Sydney told me to remind you all that I am more than just angsty; I am also an amateur sommelier. Albariño is a crisp, salty, white wine from north Spain; heavily influenced by the rocky, coastal climate the grapes are grown in.)
#kafkafall #thoughtfilledfall
Love Avery
Dear VTY Women,
As the staunchest proponent of “people think too much” rhetoric, I’m being forced to confront if this is a self protective behavior or truly how I operate in this world. I think what I’m uncovering is that I’d like to ponder the unknown without the melancholy and malaise that typically follows. These days I’m falling more into the “existence is a gift” camp rather than the “existence is a burden”.
Perhaps the world requires all types. We need people who never stop thinking and who can stare into the void.Who else would philosophize and outline worldviews otherwise unpondered? I don’t know that I see the point of thinking deeply (for myself) unless it results in an outpouring of creativity or problem solving. I find no satisfaction in letting the wheels turn over and over and over in my head without an end goal turning the crank. Otherwise I fear I’d take to the bed permanently.
Maybe when I say I think people think too much, what I’m most fixated on is snuffing out the flames of unproductive worry before they become all consuming. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel deeply. I think the difference between who I once was and who I am now is that I allow myself to revel in joy and not wallow in despair. I used to feel like there was a wash of gray that tinged my every interaction with the world. I am by no means a happy go lucky optimist, but maybe I now see everything in truer tones.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just still traumatized by the senior year AP English reading list.
Very truly yours,
Julianne
Dear team,
Do you remember months ago when we wrote about our frontal lobes forming and that perhaps we felt them forming and that is why our brains were behaving the way they were. I can’t recall what we were up in arms about then…. I think it was that we didn’t have the same angsty energy and absolute fire for the world ahead of us, as each of our lives felt like they were busting at the seams with excited opportunity. I think that is partly what we are experiencing now, the dullness and mundaneness of adult life has settled in us and it seems that half of our brains have relaxed into our fate, the other half resists, and Kenzie’s brain is entering a very formative Kafka phase.
Not to be so ahead of this self-hatred phase, but I very much felt this for most of college. I HATED the thought that I wasn’t making wonderful, thoughtful, cutting edge art. I hated feeling like I wasnt exceptional. I loathed myself for not being able to be more creative and reveal deeper things within our human experience. I actually became so anxious that I didn't really make art for a whole semester… as an ART MAJOR. It took a long time for me to get over this phase as it was also connected to my rumination on what happiness and joy really was.
I prolonged any sense of pleasure and comfort as long as possible as I was afraid I would never be able to experience it again. In hindsight I was just majorly depressed and wanted any bit of comfort and pleasure to last longer. And also reflecting on this time made me realize that the only way I got out of this thought pattern was through therapy, practicing self love, and pushing forward as hard as I could towards the life I wanted.
I think something that keeps us on the ground is companionship, family, and community. Perhaps Kenzie you are feeling the effects of living with another person, and not truly letting your mind wonder because there is someone to take up your attention.
And yeah, you guys were fake af when we didn’t discuss The Metamorphosis because I had to sit alone with those thoughts because normal people haven't read that book. And I had to return it to the library so I didn’t annotate. I think I will pass on reading it this year, but I know there are other things we can read that will stimulate wonderful and thoughtful conversations that don’t drag us to deep depths of depression. Even though it does make for good art. I think we should learn not to hate ourselves for feeling deeply, and throw around the ideas of “not thinking as much” but rather learn to manage our intensity, accepting our imperfections, accepting that we are excessive, accepting we are different from what we perceive to be the correct way of experiencing life.
Kisses.
Very truly,
Grace McCraw
p.s. Sorry for the word vomit. I know it takes time to write thoughtfully and not sure this was the most thoughtful!
