When I laugh, I am a fraud because laughter is not meant for me. "It was a joy for someone else" to quote a beloved poet.
Well said. In my case, my mom can always manage to make me laugh. Despite my often grim disposition, it's actually pretty easy to get me to laugh. Laughter is inherently painful however because of the juxtaposition it provides to the rest of my empty life. Once the temporary joy of laughter subsides, the usual misery I feel is only heightened for me that much more clearly. What's worse is that, these days, I find myself almost compulsively laughing at how terrible my life is. Similar in shape to what you can see demonstrated by the character of Arthur Fleck in the film Joker. When it comes to myself though, it's a very dry and dismal laughter. A quiet cackle at how immeasurably deep I am within the proverbial pile of shit which constitutes my existence. Silently laughing at myself, the sheer horror at this wretched shape my life has to come to now take. And, even more damningly bleak,
was always destined to take. So terrible, useless, and futile, that it almost becomes darkly comedic. So overwhelming in its scope, so pointless in its inevitable conclusion, that I can't help, but smile and laugh out of reflex to stymie this falling brick wall of pain and madness that continuously descends on my every waking moment. Quietly bitter laughter, in place of quietly bitter tears.
Thank you for sharing your experience, I enjoyed reading it and it resonated with me
I'm glad you think so. I appreciate it. It's good to know that there are others out there who find what I have to say is of value, even when I often don't. It's easy for me to believe that nothing about me is good, and that everything I choose to write about are just cringe fests or are annoying for others to read.
Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs in sheer envy and isolation. God bless them.
Yeah, there's a sublime, almost unique, kind of pain attached to it all. Having oneself be teased the joys of life, but forever being denied experiencing them for themselves. Like a spirit of someone long dead, having to look upon the vibrant energies of the living. As with myself, it's something that can only exist in my imagination. Something that can only be futilely grasped at it with phantom, disembodied hands. Seeing those people last night. It was like getting a glimpse of the sun after years of endless night. It hurt my proverbial "soul", if you will, to even look at it, just as it would when one's vision has long adjusted itself to near permanent darkness before being exposed to light. However, the warmth thrown off by this display, like that of the sun, penetrated me like so many cosmic rays. It was an infinitely bittersweet pain, knowing that's what normal for them is like a diamond falling out of the sky for me. They'll never know of how I, this moldering corpse that I am, briefly looked upon their shining light of life and felt both a faint tinge of joy somewhere reflected in his own heart (as if I were an inanimate mirror of blurred glass standing nearby to absorb the faint images of those who were in front of me), while also having the bottomless morbidity of my existence hammer me down further into the grave of waking torment of this; the undead creature I've long been and will always be.
Joy also comes in many forms, and though I can't derive it from running, not in with my health condition, there seem to be other sources... like language or math or physics. Or sketching.
This is good. It's impossible to put the value of such things into words. Meanwhile, anhedonia has long denied me the possibility to reap any kind of consolatory benefits from my otherwise dreary existence. Beyond death, all I wish at this point is for a release from my perpetual ennui. To once again sit quietly within my room and contentedly pass the time with what few hobbies/distractions interest me. To resurrect from this pile of bitter ashes, a small tree of fruit to sustain me in the long night that is my "life". How typical it is to have come so far and suffered so much; yet be denied so very little. I've been left defenseless, forced to endure the unendurable. The maximization of pain seems to be the only thing that was in store for me, and all it is I can continue to expect or experience going forward. The universe must really have it out for me.
