A story about our fragmented society

I am bitter. I cannot write anymore. I realise that there is little worth in anything really. I have lost my ability to feel, to empathise. I have become a monster. At least that’s the way it feels. My own mother is taken by religious fervour, and I constantly spend time telling her how much I resent it, how much I resent the fact that I was taken to Kingdom Halls as a child. The truth is I don’t care. I pretend to care. I pretend to be affected. Perhaps I am affected, but I doubt it. I know this is her life. I know she needs her religion to make sense of the world, and yet I get myself into a rage about religion knowing full well that it is futile and probably not productive. I do resent religion, but not on a personal basis; more due to the fact that it is so unbelievably stupid. It claims to be above and beyond, yet it is low, and very often the root of many problems. I shouldn’t argue with her, it is her life and that’s it, but I cannot help it. I am argumentative. I am angry. I get angrier by the day. I used to be the cutesy little boy, polite, helpful, respectful. Now, approaching thirty, all I do is act as a destructive force. I argue. I deconstruct. I reject everything. I make people feel uncomfortable. People don’t like having me around them anymore. I see no future. Most societal patterns are worthless in my mind.

I am bitter. I cannot love anymore. I have not felt anything towards another human being for years now. I am not interested in love. I can clinically distinguish between bodily urges and love. Love doesn’t interest me. I don’t feel for humans, women. Yet my bitterness, my unfeeling has precluded me from sex. I get to know women but have no interest for them. I get bored of talking to them. I get their phone numbers and never call, because it bores me. It exorcises me. The thought of having to work towards the act of copulation makes me feel ill. In an ideal world I wouldn’t even talk to other people. Having to pretend I am interested in another human being is the most degrading experience. All the while I am dealing with bodily urges. It’s a horrible paradox.

I cannot love anymore and will probably never love again. If I did, it would have to be a lie. I see couples and wonder how they get to that situation. What must they have said to get to that situation? How did they agree to copulate on a regular basis? Why do they think of each other as special? They must be lying to each other and to themselves. I forget whether I was lying. Did I think anything of the very few girlfriends I had? How did I ever look in the eye or take them seriously or talk to them after copulating? How does anyone look at anyone knowing that many of the people they talk to go home and copulate?

I am bitter. I cannot get excited anymore. I am able to predict almost every situation and assess the feelings, outcomes, and length of said situations in advance. Nothing is a surprise anymore. I do not care about surprises. I like upsets, but they rarely happen. No news surprises me or shocks me. Music rarely does. Only in my fantasy world where I am still the enthusiastic eighteen year old do music, people, situations excite me. In my fantasy world I am still a nice guy who makes interesting conversation, who looks forwards. I dance. I am intelligent. I am well-read. I am attractive. I am talking to people. Women like me. I smile.
But in reality I am bitter. I make sardonic fun of everything. I destroy everything.

I drink far too much. I am bordering on alcoholism. It calms me down. Only when I drink does some of the anguish and bitterness go away. Sometimes, however, it is accentuated. I smoke to make five minutes pass. I pretend to be deep when all I am thinking about are catastrophes that would bring a bit of excitement to my day. A bomb in the city centre; a plane crash; I witness an accident; I give someone the kiss of life; the stock market collapses; anarchy; society breaks down and mob rules. In my fantasy world I am fighting a war. I am cowering, shooting, whispering to the gorgeous women fighting with me. In reality I walk through town listening to the same old music, staring at the ground, imagining my fantasy world.

I am bitter. I cannot watch TV anymore. I can just about listen to the radio. The internet drives me insane. Nothing I hear or read is convincing. I leave a comment somewhere on the web; no one gets it. I suffer another bout of psychosis. I smoke. I drink. I look disparagingly at the happy smiling faces and imagine a catastrophe.

I walk into a supermarket. I suffer a panic attack. I cannot breath. The music is some New Age nonsense, which is meant to calm people down. I cannot breath. I need to get out. I buy alcohol and leave. I cannot feel my legs; my arms feel heavy and are itchy. The overwhelming overabundance of choice makes me feel sick. I don’t understand. I critique society. I slam capitalism. I have no answers.

I don’t sleep anymore. I suffer from insomnia. I wake up numerous times during the night. Sometimes I just feel horny and get it over with. At other times I have a debate in my head about a certain topic, any topic. At other times I fling myself around my bed trying to find the right position. I am always tired. I look haggard. I suffer from headaches and backaches. I am barely thirty.

I cannot write anymore. I feel as if I am constantly failing. I will disappear one day and no one will mind. I am my life and there is nothing and no one else to it. I often think what I will be thinking in, say, ten years time. I am no state to think beyond the following day. What will I be thinking if and when I am seventy and I know time is running very short? What do people think? People delude themselves. They look at each other denying death, denying copulation, pretending to love.

I look for nothing. I have stopped looking. I am my life and there is nothing and no one else to it.