I am an artist, really. Or at least I am an individual with an artistic temperament. My moments of highest joy are those I have spent alone. And that is the triumph and tragedy of my existence. Despite the gratifications afforded by my splendid isolation I still long for the Other in my loneliness: the Other who might complete me. Failing to find that Other I live in perpetual disillusion and frustration.
I am a rebel individualist divorced from established dogma and institutions, a lonely incorrigible seeker of new norms. For me life presents itself as a struggle for individualism; I experience my life at times as humorously petulant and at other times as a mystically yearning estrangement from the world and the times. I sometimes feel, in my grandiose moments, that I belong to the highest and purest spiritual aspirations and labors of our epoch.
My spiritual and emotional struggles can be traced to my alienation from my family in childhood. The roots of my estrangement from established institutions and settled norms began in the peculiarities of my early family life. Like most parents mine were no help with the new problems of puberty to which no reference was ever made. All they did was take endless trouble in supporting my hopeless attempts to deny reality and to continue dwelling in a childhood world that was becoming more and more unreal. I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine. It was my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought up children, I managed badly. My parents seemed wedded to some vague suggestions of old-world, Victorian morality with its belief in the inherent sinfulness of man, in the necessity of breaking the will of the individual, and with its uncompromising renunciation of all that is of this world. My family was the first of many social structures which were to rouse the rebel in me.
5 comments:
one of the first books i read as a child was mary shelley's frankenstein. i recall those words you reproduced from the book, under the title 'a despairing letter to my sister' in an earlier post.
I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate in my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.
that is what you need my friend, company. go out. perhaps to a bar. just sit around and make conversation. you'll discover untold joys you never cared to learn about. or perhaps you should travel. do something to keep that mind occupied -- all the time.
Hi! saludos desde mexico.. thanks for your comment in my blog and im living in the us so hi from the us too... quite interesting "Who am I? =)
Yes, my earlier post "A Despairing Letter to My Sister" is in fact an extended quote from Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein.
Dude, there is comfort in conformity. Drink the Kool-Aid and you'll be a much happier person.
Hi Gary,
I have just stumbled upon your blog(s) and i'm very excited to know that there are other people out there like me, who share similar experiences and realities!
As I read this entry I really engaged with the rich vividness of your experiences and the pain and cost that has come with having been denied by your parents. It is a painful and wonderful tragedy.
I have been learning a lot about myself in the past few months and am still coming to terms with who I am, what I am.
I can see that you're a lot further ahead of me in your journey towards understanding and accepting these realities about yourself. I'm grateful for your articulation about these deep, confusing aspects of ourselves.
I will be back to read more and perhaps reflect back some of my experiences also.
regards,
steve
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