Late Night Fiction One man’s adventures through life

Something Solid

I've realized that the only reason I like to be crazy and go meet people and make sure I don't slip into a world of "everyone else" while I'm in public is because people are what make me who I am-- in the sense of, their perceptions of my actions are what assign a certain personality to me. They're all there is in the world; I can dance crazy alone in my room and sing loudly alone in my car but if I'm quiet when I'm around others, I'll be perceived as shy and other related personality types and not the person I really like to be.

Of course I know who I am when I'm alone. But "who I am" really has no meaning to me because I have no need to be one way or the other when there's no one else to pick up on which "way" I am. So if I want people to see me in the same light I see myself, I need to carry that personality consistently throughout all parts of my life.

So tonight I put on a wife-beater and went for a walk in the rain. I made a point to walk past some people in the hallway to make sure this craziness was perceived by someone other than myself. I don't need their verbal validation; I don't need them to tell me I'm crazy or that I'm sane-- that I'm stupid or doing "okay." Proving anything about myself to myself or anyone else is useless. I just need something solid in the world. Because I can see from any perspective, I can think about an infinite amount of possibilities and positives and negatives. But life is no fun when I do that. I become a ball of neutral-- no light, no darkness; no sound and no silence. I live in this world of hypothetical; this alternate dimension that exists but produces nothing useful.

It's this universe of nothingness that I try to avoid daily. In fact, not living in the way I want to is the only thing that depresses me these days because frankly, I'd rather enjoy my existence.