what comes out is what is

alphabettown:

when I was little, everything about the idea of being somewhere else kept me going. when I was 12, I couldn’t wait to finally turn 16, and then I couldn’t wait to finally turn 19, and then I couldn’t wait to finally turn 21. There must have been something greater out there, and everything leading up until then would be worth it. And now I don’t talk so much and I try not to think about things too much and feel just as displaced as ever. everyone else says that this is just how it is and how life is supposed to be and to suck it up, but god that sounds unappealing. And everything is okay but I want things to actually feel okay. whatever that means.

Replying because I am all too familiar with this particular dissatisfaction, and what I have to say about it in no way implies that I’ve figured out how to conquer it. However, isolating the idea that at some age, or some time, or at this job, or with that person, a plateau of happiness will be reached and sustained, is a good thing to try to forget. I also reject the ‘life’s a bitch, so deal with it’ mentality. You’re an artist, you know how beautiful the world is. I think the goal is to try and see how the meaning of it all is to just continually let it pass through you, which is a super active and difficult thing to do. The doubts and the dissatisfaction is all part of it, but I think there is a way out and, as an artist, in many ways you have a heads up because you can see the spaces in between words or constructs. Having the feeling that there is something greater (and something greater in your own terms, not societal expectations or what people tell you you should want), and therefore not settling for anything less, is definitely a curse but also probably a blessing.