nathanael.ink

There are those moments when things wear off and we become one of the crowd again. Or, maybe, such moments in fact propagate the entirety of our lives so that they are not ‘moments’ so much as simply the way things tend to be. Nevertheless, once in a while, I do not feel among the crowd; and then perhaps I enjoy the sensation so thoroughly that I choose to stamp it down in my memory as though it were more frequent. Then again, it’s not as though I treat all pleasant memories as though they are frequent… regardless, the thought that motivated my writing this evening is one of some anxiety. I remember realizing there were some very large questions that I had never asked, so I began asking them, and I found such sweet reward simply by pursing the answers (without always finding them). After only a few years of this I arrived at (within myself) a feeling that I was no longer among the crowd, so much so that if you’d demand I put myself and you on a vertical scale I’d have put my level of knowledge slightly above the masses. It turns out, however, that I value knowledge very much, thus by seeing myself as having gained it, I found I valued myself more than I valued the masses; just as one who possess more gold than the masses. It was a position I fought for: to feel I had answers beyond the status quo, beyond the answers I accepted in my ignorance. It was so sincere a feeling. Unshakable at times. 
But tonight I could not help but lose some apatite for it… listening to music, and feeling my posture say “I recall being as ignorant as the writer of those lyrics”… but, even if that is true, what have I gained? I’m just not sure. Once in a while it gains me a conversation with a thoughtful person, and if I’m quite lucky maybe even an attractive woman. But.. what the hell… All that reading and anxiety for a few conversations? The majority of conversations entail a person or two adamantly disagreeing with me but not presenting any rationality that seems sensible to me.. but that is the thing isn’t it, ‘sensible to me.’ What if it is ACTUALLY sensible to them? Well, that just has to be absurd. I want so to disbelieve it, and in many ways I think I still do disbelieve it, but why? Why can’t I accept this is a possible truth? well… well… I cannot give an answer. I mean, to trust my faculties enough to feel as though I know anything at all (even when accounting for the possible err of my faculties) then I cannot accept that perhaps someones can be other than mine. And SO frequently we all seem to agree. I just have to believe that if me and anyone on the planet had the time and the patience we could work it out… just work everything out.
What frightens me about all of this is that no matter what I do, it may be, that I am ever in the crowd. Maybe I cannot climb out of it into some higher level of confidence, maybe everyone feels just like I do. Maybe everyone is thinking they are just a little bit smarter than their peers, and do things just significantly different enough to be doing things right. That is, maybe everyone is close, but you’ve got it just right… I don’t know if I would say that I feel that way if I were asked, but, at a time like this, I think I might admit that it might be a little bit true. because.. because I feel I’ve fought for it, and that that should somehow justify the sensation of being a little bit more right… just enough more, just enough to be meaningful, just enough for me to take some comfort… just enough, but, maybe, it was always an illusion, so of course I wouldn’t have thought otherwise…