It’s a strange feeling you know, to feel a world of possibility brimming beneath your fingertips and yet remain unable to get a single thought out.
Well I suppose if I can’t actually write then I shall have to just put down every single thought here without much thinking. Just write. Remember teachers used to make us do that, just keep writing even if it’s the same word over and over again. It’s kind of funny how a task I used to hate so much has now become my only salvation towards writing again. That’s another strange thing I suppose, I miss writing dearly, so much so that it feels like I have lost a good friend that I so wish would come back but won’t. I have ideas, words I wish to speak, ideas to ponder but must be written on paper to be justified and remembered as such, yet I still can’t. I stare at paper after paper, computer screen day in and day out, and yet I am still unable to put word to thought and thought to word. Worse yet is that it is painful. It is as though I am watching my spirit deteriorate right before my eyes and I am unable to do anything. I am victim, judge, executioner, and witness all in one. I’ve felt closer to a recovering drug addict lately, as though my head was clouded for days and now I am hoping for any sign of clarity while still feeling the withdrawal symptoms taunting me back to blissful numbness. And is that not what the human nature wishes? Do we not wish to be numb?
Now that’s a thought worth thinking isn’t it?
What does it mean to be numb?
Look up the definition of the word in any dictionary and they’ll say something along the lines of losing the ability to feel and what not. I mean that definition isn’t wrong after all, has the internet ever lied to us before? But then again, those are words on a screen or a paper that try to dictate an aspect of the human condition in the most simplistic way possible. But we’re human beings, since when is anything we do ever simplistic. We crave simplicity to give us some semblance of control and order in this world but in the end it is only an illusion that will slowly fade away with time. So perhaps it is in the pursuit of simplicity that we become numb. In this scenario the proper definition would be the omission and ignoring certain emotions and situations in favour of focusing on easier topics. In other times we can choose to be numb to forget things that happened previously in which case it would be described as detachment from reality for the sake of self preservation. Either way, in my ramblings I hope to convey that there are many definitions of numbness because it is a complex and subjective emotion that changes from person to person and situation to situation. Now why bring this up now, you might ask? Well to be perfectly candid, I have no clue. Although I can say that the current ways of the world may have a hand in this. For example, and perhaps the biggest and most prominent example, Covid would be a reason to feel numb. And it is not just the two years of Covid itself that have stirred such emotion but also the revelations that have come with it. For two years we have been told to be calmly fearful yet hold a tentative and fearful calm. For two years we have been told to go out because life can still go on but please stay inside because life is drastically different. If anything Covid has just shown us how incredibly contradictory the world is, and that is perhaps the most draining of all.
These past few years we have seen that a pandemic changes everything and nothing at all, that people win and yet
everyone loses in war, that actions are cruel but you can find the loophole to justify them when looking at the motives. Contradictions are perhaps that worst affliction the human mind has been cursed with and this year has shown that there is no escaping them. There is, rather ironically, simply a yes and no to every situation that happens simultaneously. And it is these contradictions that make the blissful numbness so appealing. For is it not a constant struggle to continuously argue within one’s mind what is right and what is wrong when many situations are equal and justifiable in both? It’s painful even to face this overwhelming typhoon of endless questioning that threatens to take us over. So why not, right? Why not just become numb to it all. I guess that even the dictionaries and internet searches got it right, that numbness is losing the ability to feel although I guess here it is more voluntary than cause and effect. Or maybe it is just an aftermath of everything going on and people did not wish to lose their ability to be in touch with themselves and the world. See, even figuring out the whys and hows of numbness is full of nothing but contradictions. I wonder if I should just go numb to understanding what it means to be numb as well. Now wouldn’t that be something.
If you’ve managed to stay with me for this long, then I must commend you on your mental strength. There is neither rhyme nor reason for this, it is just simply a train of thought from a person who thinks and speaks in contradictions as well. Simple. Ironic again because the thought process behind this, though only written as a train of thought, was not simple at all.
Well there’s my two cents on the subject of numbness as a sort of reflection of the past and present, thank you for reading my little ramble here.
And the stars shut down and shy away from such a fright
