Cities on Fire with Rock n'Roll

I was originally going to make my next post about a topic which I had prepared ahead of time, and written and formatted properly. But I've changed my mind, and I'm about to barrel off into another rant.
The only problem is, I'm about to be ranting about myself.

You see, boys and girls, there once was a boy named Ben. And over time, he grew up into a man, and some things happened to him which he liked, and some he didn't, and some people aren't happy with how he turned out. For instance, he displays personality quirks a little out of the ordinary.


So I'll try to come a little more clean about some of the things that I've been thinking behind my mask while I talk to you.

Recently having gone through FYP, my perspective on the world has changed somewhat. I'll explain what it is now later, and now interject with a description of what my life was like.

Acknowledging the rose-colored lens of memory, my life shortly before entering university was pretty damn happy. Having got over a number of confidence issues, being physically fit and experiencing a freedom of sexuality previously unknown all helped. But the primary thing was that almost every single day, at some point, I was caught up in moments where I felt like I was directly and entirely involved in the divine, moments of light, peace and unexpressable beauty. I saw eternity in a grain of sand, was struck by the magical in the most small moments, and was utterly certain of a divine, wonderful purpose to existence. Everything was peachy. (Yes, I'm simplifying. There was plenty of shit, but my balance and grace let me pretty much neutralize most, if not all of it)

I was intelligent and knew it, spiritual and knew it, and knew I was capable of heading out into the world and most likely going to do Big Important Things.

"But Ben", you cry out, "surely this is the way all people feel when they're growing up, and we can all see the freight train of misery coming a mile away, as you go through growing pains of reality!" Fuck you. I'll repeat that, just in case you missed it. Fuck You. Let it sink in before moving down. No, I mean it. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, I don't care who the fuck you are, and I'm thinking of a few notable people in my head right now. If you can't grant me the individuality of my experiences and if you aren't willing to listen to me honestly, then you can just stop reading now. Please take a moment to consider this.


If you want to understand me now, then keep my (simplified) past in mind as you read.
In FYP, I underwent a radical reexamination of all of my beliefs. For everything I thought I knew, I learned two more contradictory ideas, similarly convincing. For everything I was convinced by, I learned it to be wrong. For everything I learned to be wrong, I learned to be possible, but differently. My certainty fell into beliefs dropped into ideas became tendencies. Relativity took over, perspective became more important.

Then I met two very wonderful men. Well, in spirit, anyway. Nietzsche was by far the greater in reputation, but came of smelling like ham. But what he expressed resonated so deeply with me that I found myself hard pressed to explain just how.

Then Ludwig Wittgenstein walked into my life, and it was never the same again.
His beautiful explanations about the limitations on philosophy were the one significant thing I came away with. And it took apart everything I thought I knew, even then. Or at least began to.

That's what deconstructionism means, you know. It's just taking apart what you know,and looking for the assumptions you've made underneath, looking for the holes and the hypocrisy.

My summer was unremarkable. At least, for purposes of this post, it was. I started a new year in school, took courses I wasn't really certain about but because they were good courses to take, I took them. I made a halfhearted attempt to keep up with the homework, but quickly flagged. And thens topped altogether. I didn't study for tests, I ended up maliciously hating my job at Subway, and was stressed and tense all the time, and was frequently incapable of enjoying myself, even with friends.

In short, I began to show signs of clinical depression, something I'm not exactly uncertain about, because I've got a damn good list of reasons to be depressed, and it isn't something unfamiliar to me. But this was the first time I'd find myself wandering the streets at night, standing in the middle of the road, wondering if maybe I should just stand there, see if the car coming would hit me. When contemplating my death was- Mundane. Some I did as a matter of course, something that occupied my thoughts as much as dinner occupies the thoughts of others. Sorry, Contemplating suicide, if that was a little ambiguous.

Either you know what depression is like, or you don't, and trying to describe it has been done by better people than me, and I don't want to waste time here, so I'll skip it.


I ended up at the university help center, looking for someone to listen to me and help me. And the fellow did, partially. But it was me, on my own, who came to a realization. That I was operating without looking at my assumptions. I did not have to go to university. I, in fact, did not have to even try to do Big Important Things. I was one mental step away from being free from all of the bull shit that most people don't even fully realize they live in. So I left. I just walked away.

There are some aspects to this that need detailing, so I will. Yes, there was more than one factor contributing to my dropping out. Trying to work part-time didn't help, and trying to maintain the same level of recreational/leisure time was a very damning nail in the coffin, but most of all here you should know that I know I could do it, If I wanted to. But I had never considered if I really wanted to, I just went.

Once I left university, I started to look over my life, over my beliefs again, but on a more personal level. I started challenging myself even more to challenge society, to challenge convention. To deconstruct what I had lived with. The result was...perhaps disappointing.

I spend most of my waking time (and dreaming time, too), concerned with a basic hunger for philosophical answers. Aside from time where I am not actively involved in a mundane action or playing with my electronic anesthetics, I will find myself staring into space, thinking. I've come up with some interesting answers.

To help you understand me, know this- I waver, most days, between knowing nothing, and knowing less than nothing. I listen to trains of thought in my head, thoughts arranging themselves like airships, drifting by, mulling on resolutions, coming up with answers, deciding small matters. I drift between scorning my life, or forgetting I am alive.

I dream, try to wake up, wake up, wonder if I am dreaming, strive to dream again, and strive against striving, strive to know why I strive. My thoughts rise and fall like tides and waves, leaving behind something in me unsatisfying and difficult to describe, like a shape behind my eyes, a message inside my forehead, a certainty I know to be madness.

To selectively clarify; I have lost most of what I knew. My assumptions are laid bare, and my truths are rendered. Limited. Contained. Wittgenstein does not satisfy one with a denial and replacement, merely a show of logic that leaves you applauding because you don't know what else to do, then shuffling awkwardly out the fire exit of your mind, left bereft of structures of meaning.

I know that I have changed. I know that I am different. And yet I know that, statistically and psychologically, the tendency seems to be to exaggerate one's own importance, to feel special. But how many other people walk barefoot in the city? How many people are found perched on objects above you on Quinpool road, simply because they cared to do so? Who lives in a world where relationships are honest and intense, drama excised, people open to one another at a deep and personal level? I am an anachronism of my past, searching automatically for things I no longer feel I need, looking for things I cannot name, and with a funny feeling the world is about to turn on the lights and say "Suprise!"