128. Something Like Transcendence

She wants to be alone. Other people have become too much for her. Out in the world, she feels like she is constantly wading through a sea of drifting bodies, each seemingly alive but really only going through the motions of life. She cannot stand this feeling. Everyone seems artificial. It’s as though they are not quite human.

Or perhaps it is she who is not human. Why is she unable to accept what everyone else accepts? Why does she feel everything that happens to her so deeply? Why does every experience resonate so loudly that it leaves her drained and damaged?

She constantly feels the need to get away from everyone. She retreats into the safety of her home. It’s the only place where she can be truly alone. She locks the door and lowers the blinds, eliminating any access the outside world might have to her. In the quiet darkness, she is able to be herself and to feel her existence more fully. Here there are no words, no images, no judgments. There is just her body and her mind and nothing else.

It’s not that she hates people, but that she cannot seem to handle them. They immediately overwhelm her with their gestures, their words, their behaviours. The things they find important are so strange to her. And her priorities are likewise not shared. But it’s hard to say what she truly cares about. It’s something like beauty, something like truth, something like transcendence.

There’s a part of her that cares about these things and it feels like the realest part. She wants this part to feel nourished and safe, but it takes heavy damage when she attempts contact with others. Contact would not be so painful if she could somehow connect directly with the realest part of them. But she never seems to get there.

Her encounters with others always end in feelings of frustration and alienation. But even more than that, she just feels sad. Sad not so much because of what anyone else does, but because of her own failure. So she stays in her sanctuary, away from everyone and everything. This tiny world of darkness is the only one she can understand and the only one she can bear to live within.