Девица под фонарём

Уж ночь настала.

Всё снег идёт.

На улице под фонарём

Стоит девица и поёт.

И под фонарным светом

Её волосы- будто горят.

Пока я слушал песню

Я встретил её взгляд.

 

В нём доброту и нежность

Почувствовал я вдруг.

И облик был знакомый

Как будто это старый друг.

 

Хотел я к ней спуститься

Но вдруг услышал стон.

Это кровать скрипела,

А девица- просто сон.

 

January 20-29, 2019

 

    A common theme in a lot of my poetry is tiredness. I started to write this at around 3:00, looking out over a sleeping campus. Some orange lamp posts kept the night from encroaching too close and illuminated the slowly drifting snowflakes. Not a single sound broke the quiet of the night, save for the rumble of the radiator. Nothing moved outside except for the huge, fluffy snowflakes. And I just sat there, marveling at the serenity.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

 Until reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, I'd only ever read a single self-help book (The Choice: Embrace the Possible) that genuinely left me feeling like I learned or realized something helpful. Now that number's all the way up to two books. All jokes aside, there is an important theme in this novel: we care about the wrong things. But that isn't the point that resonated the most with me. Specifically, Manson states that " Life is essentially an endless series of problems [...] the solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one [...] Don't hope for a life without problems - there's no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems".
Life is imperfect. He postulates, in a slightly vulgar but very insightful way, that to reap the joys, we need to push through hardship. Although that isn't exactly the way that I'd put it, I do think that he is pretty close to being right. My greatest struggles were solved not by wallowing in pity, or pretending I'm happy, or anything else. I got mad. I hated the issue. So I whooped its ass. It is harder to try something than to play it safe and think of excuses. But the rewards are greater.
For me, the most enlightening aspect was his connection of the "I'll be worse than everyone else" mentality to narcissism. Counterintuitive at first, but actually, it does take a certain level of ego to believe yourself to be negatively special just, like positively. The whole "everyone is special" idea is a sham. Most of us are just human. Nothing special. But this book is. Go read it.

A few more thoughts:

• "Our struggles determine our successes. Our problems birth our happiness, along with slightly better, slightly upgraded struggles. [...] The joy is in the climb itself."
• "Happiness is not a solvable equation."
• "If every project I started failed, if every post I wrote went unread, I'd only be back exactly where I started."
• 

Walden Without Thoreau

Misery abounds

It is everywhere here.

I am losing my mind

That much is clear.

If I don’t escape

I will go insane.

Since I think I’m absorbing

The fear, sadness, and pain.

If I keep my wits,

The corporeal me

Will still suffer greatly

Whilst others look on with glee.

At my wretched figure

In this lowly state.

Turned into an animal

Can’t stop now. It’s too late.

June 12, 2021

 

    I'm no Henry Thoreau, but Walden can be quite inspiring.