Steamrolled

My mind has been extremely noisy in the past few months. Constant cycling of thoughts… Should I quit my PhD, why did I get involved in it to begin with, why do I make endless terrible decisions for myself, why can’t I maintain friendships, why is it easy to fall into pleasurable experiences but difficult to accomplish meaningful ones, why am I so tired, why do I feel out of place in my own life, why am I afraid of taking risks, why is my life so devoid of beauty, why is it utterly empty, why do I not have an entrepreneurial spirit, will I be enslaved to a 9 – 5 my entire life, why does culture survive on art but not fund it, why must an artist struggle, why am I robbed of the experiences I desire but given ones I care little for, why do I play out the same day each day, why am I so isolated, why am I so distracted, why can’t I finish projects that I start, why have I lost my desire to be around others – why why why.

These are great questions, yet I have no way of answering. I am fragile, afraid, and incapable. Each day I push forward towards more of the same bullshit nothing. More nonsense. More of nothing. Biking to work, basking in the smell of shit cooking in the sun at every other block peppered with trash on sidewalks and streets. Get a coffee, watch the piss roll down the sidewalk at the corner of St. Catherine and Guy, to finally sit before a computer screen for hours on end. Then back home with a sore back to hastily abuse the remaining waking hours. All of this without having a single meaningful interaction. My vitals may be present but I’m symbolically dead.

My life is a sequestered prison in which each day I bang my head against tasks which neither themselves move, nor move me. Nobody is benefitted by them, and I suffer in their completion. To be constantly exposed to the effortless and the talentless who capture grocery store pranks or show their feet and churn out millions certainly doesn’t help. There are acquaintances which have much less to say of themselves who have built a life, and here I am with many supposed abilities struggling to tread water.

What happened to me? How did I get here? Why can’t I get a grasp on my life? Why do I struggle to live the life I expect of myself? What happened to the dreams I had as a young boy? I always imagined I would be great. I thought once I had finished suffering my family’s nonsense, that my time would come. Truthfully this hasn’t happened. Rather I feel I have been steamrolled in this life. The fantastic hopes for the person I always wanted to be are hanging on by a thread and I’m more willing to sell myself to the devil of our times to survive.