I wrote this during lunch at work on the back of two (2) paper plates.
I think it's my dreams that haunt me the most. Come to ponder it, haunt is even too playful of a word. Let's go with torment. Even when I'm awake, there's a dream-like aura to everything I'm experiencing. Am I really experiencing it though or am I simply just letting it happen? Experiencing it couldn't be much better than whatever this is. Maybe the reason why there are so many dreams that I can't remember stems back to some sort of primal-animalistic self preservation. The mind gets rid of that which it can't handle - or shouldn't handle. So many of my dreams are characteristically bad. Negative. But on the total reverse end of the spectrum are the dreams that put a smile, no doubt, on my still asleep face. Those have been so few and far apart with the passing of time. Even so, they just provide me with torment. A pretty girl that I'm too shy to approach in my waking journeys, will look me in the eye and tell me what makes her smile. When I wake up though, it's gone. Feels like someone is pointing, laughing and saying, "Look what YOU don't have..." At night, I will rewind to one of a couple events that have happened in my life where I originally felt joy, watch it, and I'll wake up feeling just that much more empty. If my mind plays it enough, much like a VHS tape, it will fade. It probably won't always be like this, but the happiest moments in life seem to come and go in the same amount of time it takes for the shutter of a camera to open and close. You can always count on being let down. The happiness is born and then it dies. You are born and then...
I think it's my dreams that haunt me the most. Come to ponder it, haunt is even too playful of a word. Let's go with torment. Even when I'm awake, there's a dream-like aura to everything I'm experiencing. Am I really experiencing it though or am I simply just letting it happen? Experiencing it couldn't be much better than whatever this is. Maybe the reason why there are so many dreams that I can't remember stems back to some sort of primal-animalistic self preservation. The mind gets rid of that which it can't handle - or shouldn't handle. So many of my dreams are characteristically bad. Negative. But on the total reverse end of the spectrum are the dreams that put a smile, no doubt, on my still asleep face. Those have been so few and far apart with the passing of time. Even so, they just provide me with torment. A pretty girl that I'm too shy to approach in my waking journeys, will look me in the eye and tell me what makes her smile. When I wake up though, it's gone. Feels like someone is pointing, laughing and saying, "Look what YOU don't have..." At night, I will rewind to one of a couple events that have happened in my life where I originally felt joy, watch it, and I'll wake up feeling just that much more empty. If my mind plays it enough, much like a VHS tape, it will fade. It probably won't always be like this, but the happiest moments in life seem to come and go in the same amount of time it takes for the shutter of a camera to open and close. You can always count on being let down. The happiness is born and then it dies. You are born and then...
(And just in passing, all disappointment occurs as a result of expectations. Expect nothing, and you won't be disappointed. Not terribly easy to put into practice, but logical enough in theory.)