I Am Cognitive Dissonance

 I know what I am. I doubt myself but at my core, I know. It's why I walk around at war. The question has popped up in my mind. How long before I give up? I feel the relaxation. The temptation of death. The few words I know I try to use. Nothing. Everything I do is nothing. Everything I touch feels like nothing. Nothing matters. I didn't choose this. Maybe I didn't consider the consequences of my actions. Maybe it is on me. Maybe it's too late to care. Nothing is enough and I think I know why. I can't comprehend these emotions. I'm not able to maintain a strong relationship. I am not capable of belonging. What is my purpose? If I fail to love and receive love, the basis of human existence, what am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I typing this? I know nobody can help me. At best I'll be able to regain a sense of confidence but it isn't enough. It's never enough. I'll have to do it again and again and again and again. Do I choose to chase this sense of well-being, like Sysiphus rolling the boulder up a hill only for it to roll down, repeating this for the next 60 years? Do I choose to numb myself, chase after death in life, and indulge in failure so I don't have to disappoint anybody? Or do I choose death? I know I will fail. I know I will disappoint. I'm cursed with observing the limitations of my mind. And I mean to say, I'm cursed with observing others surpassing my own limitations with relative ease and I stare at myself, wondering why I can't do the same. Maybe I spend too much time wondering. No, I don't. I don't wonder. I don't think. I just feel. I feel wrong. This is irrational but my feelings overpower my thoughts. I can not hold logic and rationality as a virtue. This is my limitation. I can not use logic and rationality to consider and choose my virtues. How do I choose? Emotion is flimsy, in flux, and deceptive. If I choose to bind my virtues to positive emotions, hopefully, I don't need to explain why that will fail. So what am I? Am I just another human thrown into a mess of cultures, relying on more developed ideas and people to lead me through life, life being the only thing I will ever experience? Am I destined to live in the shadow of more developed people? I'm not special. I'm another failure. One thing I feel sure of is I will never let another person use my pain against me. I am typing this because I can and because I feel like I need to in order to survive but is this space wasted by my use? Should another more intelligent and capable person take my spot? I have not lost the will to live and fight yet but I am close. I wonder how much longer it will take. I don't wonder. The idea pops up in my mind and I choose to consider that one day I may give up and end my life. I consider that it may be possible. I decided to indicate that it may happen. I simply wonder if it's possible. Right now, I would say yes. It is possible. The way I feel and think and behave is not sustainable. My life is not sustainable. Considering how little a human life needs, it seems as if it's a sort of sign. I wasn't meant for this. Biological mistakes happen all the time. It is a damn shame that I believe I'm incapable of being the special person I want to be. At the same time, belief in such an idea would also be a shame. I feel incapable of being who I want to be. Accept who I am? I entirely reject who I am because I desire to pursue great things and who I am now is an avoider, an ignorer, and oblivious. I want to be the opposite of who I am because I greatly despise myself. The opposite of who I am is a great man. An intelligent, kind, authentic person. I am slow, selfish, and inauthentic. I am the opposite of what I consider virtuous because I have so much practice in this cognitive dissonance. It is who I am. I am cognitive dissonance. I choose to do the opposite of what I want to do because I'm a needy child who wants attention. I don't throw a temper tantrum or argue. I avoid everything. Someone desperately trying to pull me out of this state of avoidance feels like a head rush. I have decided that this is what love is because it is what I steered toward as a child. Now, I have no real concept of love. It began to change. Vulnerability. I claimed vulnerability was one of the greatest virtues a person could possess. A world that tries to kill your opinions and ideas and someone having the ability to stand up against them honestly. It doesn't sound like vulnerability but that's what it is. Being assertively honest. Even with philosophy, I consider success as being spoken of in terms of how the greatest philosophers we know were spoken of. How they were spoken of. Not of the philosophers themselves. I have little interest in most of them. The way people speak about them, with awe and envy. It attracts me. I have to be honest and say that I'm not sure how many opinions I've come to on my own. I'm not sure how many original thoughts I've had. All of this could have been written by another person but what does it matter? What will a person get from this? Pity, sadness, sympathy? But yes I do. I just don't want superficial sympathy or pity or sadness. But is my pain worth anything more? What is all of this worth? Why does it matter if it has worth? Because I want to have worth. Because I know, deep down, if I was being sold into slavery I would want to be worth more than the next man. This level of vanity disgusts me. It's frustrating how a sentence can change meaning based on word choice. Which meaning should be prescribed to my situation? Which sentence describes me? Only I can find the words to express myself and either I am a rare puzzle to be solved or a glass onion. One of which helps me feel worthy of being called interesting and fun and the other makes me feel worthless. I don't want to be simple. I want to be hard to understand and follow but there is a massive difference between an intricately woven story with many moving pieces and a ball bouncing randomly around a box at different speeds. They're both hard to follow but one is worthy of attention. I don't feel worthy of attention. I don't know how to unpack that further.