In Lieu of Silence.

Sorry to reprise a tired old whinge, but part of the reason why I’m so down these days is because my life is empty. I feel like a consciousness rattling pointlessly around inside an empty shell.

‘Ah, but,’ you might brightly exclaim, ‘consciousness is ultimately what being alive is all about. As long as you’re conscious, you know you’re alive.’

‘I'm well aware of that,’ I might tiredly reply, ‘but consciousness is also the means by which you’re informed that your life is empty and you’re not very happy about it.’

And on that note, the priestess remarked recently that she found it perplexing that I seem to despise people so much. (She’s not entirely right, but close. It’s complicated.) She said that I should make the effort to allow more people into my life. I’m inclined to agree, but how should I go about it? Should I stand on the market square in Ashbourne wearing a sandwich board which proclaims:

Vacancy

Worthy companions required.

Must be on my wavelength and definitely not ordinary.

Please approach and declare your credentials if interested.

I somehow doubt it would work. If you’re going to meet people you need to go to places where people sympathetic to the prospect of being met are located, and there’s the problem. I don’t join clubs, you see, or forums or classes or any other activity contrived to cater for that shared interest, group dynamic thing which irritates the hell out of me. Furthermore, the distractions offered by the culture in which I live have long since lost their appeal, and there's no point trying to get out of an empty space by stepping into a vacuum. And then there’s the fact that the vast majority of people with whom I do occasionally find myself in conversation lead me to distraction because the effort of remaining polite and trying my damndest to look interested becomes an intolerable burden after about ten minutes, even though I’m quite used to the method and generally well practiced.

That’s why I live alone. That’s why I only ever want to do precisely what I want to do at any given moment. That’s why the close and consciously intrusive presence of people in my physical orbit feels like an unconscionable invasion of my private space. I’m told that I identify with the sigma male, so there’s no hope for me, is there?

(And incidentally, it’s hardly surprising that the priestess finds me difficult to comprehend sometimes. As well as being a priestess, well endowed with all the accoutrements necessary for such an elevated position and worthy of deep respect for being so endowed, she’s also a woman of the world. She does things like business trips, and dinner parties, and ten-day silent meditation retreats, and hiking trips in the north of Sweden. Having a life full to bursting point and the vigour to take it all in her stride would inevitably make a person like me seem a little odd.)

Other Notes:

The vicissitudes of life will insist on slapping me in the mouth on an almost daily basis, and it isn’t helping much.

Tomorrow is scheduled to be – based on reasonable projections – the scariest day of the week. The only saving grace is that I’m twice likely to be within a couple of miles of a certain special person’s familial abode. It isn’t much of a saving grace. I might report on the outcome tomorrow night, or I might not.

I watched the film Iris last night, a biopic of the writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch. I wish I hadn’t because the way she ended up is one of my greatest fears. I found myself earnestly hoping that the universe will be kind enough to take me to the terminus before I get to that stage.