joyful

joyful

Wanting to escape from something means that you want to be somewhere else.

I didn’t know what I wanted to escape. In high school, I found my solace long ago in foreign streets, where I wouldn’t be hindered by anyone telling me what to do. It was a simple, express freedom. Sometimes I would relieve stress in other ways, escaping through rebellion or whatnot. Now, although those freedoms are at liberty to me and I can go where ever I want, I still feel like I want to escape. it wasn’t always clear what I had to escape. This sort of desire to escape these days feel like the need to make money, or to live in a house. I want to be prominent or worthy. I want to make my family and peers proud, as well as having nameless faces look up to me. Other times, I want to escape loneliness. Not so vivid, it’s a dull emotion that I feel these days. However, something very deep within me tells me that one day, when I have all those things which I want today, that I would still feel that emptiness in my soul. For me, “wanting to escape” or “escapism” is just another way to say I want to fill the emptiness of my soul. I know I am at least partially an empty person because I don’t feel any lasting joy in my life.

What I really want to do is feel joy and be happy. What I really want to escape from is the emptiness of my own soul. Sometimes I fill this emptiness with temporary things that make me feel temporarily good. I get drunk, I smile and laugh, I enjoy time with peers and family. However, there is a dull throb within me that desires some deeper sense of emotional satisfaction and inner peace. This is not to say I’m not grateful, because I am. I feel deeply indebted to everyone around me for everything. But the problem lies within myself, because I know that what I have will not change or affect this emptiness I feel within.

I feel like I belong too closely within this world. I am already accustomed to it’s daily conventions. Years go by in the form of wandering hours. I desire things which I know won’t give me joy, but rather comfort or an ego boost. Relationships seem like a way to escape loneliness because that place with someone else, regardless of who they are, seems better than where I am by myself. But I know what I really want to escape is this emptiness in my self.

I am an empty person. I must be, because my happiness is governed by my surroundings. Inside, there is no real me which is happy or sad. My emotions are a byproduct of what goes around me, or a realization of this emptiness in itself. I think that this emptiness will subside in the near future because I will accomplish my goals and feel good and be with amazing people. But I know it will not, because the human is so adept at becoming used to circumstances. and reverting back to the mean primary emotion.

You can escape life by killing yourself. It is an irreparable move in which you escape, but causes everyone around you to feel sadness and loss. In a way you transfer your escapist tendencies into sadness to those around you. You escape life because it is too hard to bear and you realize that although things might get better, you won’t and maybe don’t deserve to be. Fear not friends, I would never kill myself because although I am not brave, I do think I will not always be empty. You cannot find peace by avoiding life. Instead of emptiness, you might find blackness — an unknown which might potentially be much worse than emptiness.

Innate sense tells me that I can find joy in God. However, I have not found it because my hope lies not in a desires for a heaven or salvation, but that things around me will get better. In many senses, although I have the capacity to rationally understand my place in relation to God, I choose not to, because I am a sensual person. I want to feel money, ownership, and accomplishments because those will make me feel good. I am cheating myself out of true joy because of this.

I don’t hate myself. I like who I am. It is not amazing but it could be a lot worse. And I sit here, knowing that no matter what I do, these hours will pass around me and go forth even I choose not to. I could sit here and do nothing for the rest of my life if I choose. But I want to be somewhere else —this is the nature of escape after all. But to where? Is fulfillment of soul found in a place? Perhaps in people or love. Or maybe it doesn’t exist and everyone joyful is pretending to be happy. I don’t think so, but it’s a possibility that the natural state for a person is unbelonging. Truthfully, I don’t feel like I belong. I want to be somewhere else, both mentally, spiritually and physically. Self betterment, whatever. But my mind will revert back to it’s emptiness. Not perhaps in the bitter and angry moments of my adolescence, but maybe duller. More boring and trite. The dullness of my emotions I attribute to this.

I value my life as well. I think I live very privileged and find myself a casually intellectual and fair person. Does something have to happen to get me to understand myself better? It is possible to push a human into forcing himself to understand himself. But there is no force in my life. Just the constant feeling of under accomplishment and desire for worth.

A statement I live by is: it’s not what you do, it’s how you live it. This means it’s not what or whose life you live, it’s how you live it. It’s not who you date or what your job is, but how you love and how you work which has importance. I already know, it’s not what I do that’s important, but how. But every ‘how’ is only as strong as it’s ‘why’. Why do you love, why do you work, why do you live, why do you breath, why do i write, why do I want to be happy will be the guiding principles behind how will i love, how will i work live breath or be happy.

All I know right now is that I want to be joyful. I have determined that this is more important than being great because greatness will only be great to me if I find joy in doing it. Everyone has their own perspectives of greatness but I have found mine. It is true that I want to be great, both for the world and for myself. However, being joyful in what I do is something I wish to communicate greatness through.

I don’t drink or do stupid shit because I hate myself either. It’s just a natural reaction to desire to be somewhere else. However, understanding where I want to escape to will be a worthwhile investment for myself.