2024-05-04

Nostalgia?

How come I don't feel nostalgic anymore? Like, at all. In multiple sense of the word, too.

I don't give a shit about media garbage anymore

I encountered some days ago this video, which is basically a huge amalgamation of dozens of YTP memes, sources and fads. I don't recognize many of them, because at a certain point I stopped caring about YTP stuff, but still. There is so much in that video, and the music has a soft bittersweet tone, something that might remind one of finality. And yet, watching it, I felt nothing emotional.

I tried listening to old Touhou and YTPMV songs I used to like. Even some songs that used to trigger thoughts that drove me to tears.

I thought of scrolling down to my ancient YouTube favorites.

Nope, nothing interests me! I enjoy the music, but only because it's nice music, none of the sort of weepy self-sorry nostalgia that used to grip me in moments like this.

In general… How come I don't cry anymore? In fact, why did I cry? It's so weird thinking back to my crisis moments. Knowing what I know now, I realize I was stupid, but it goes even beyond that, I just struggle to empathize with the old me. I understand what I was thinking and feeling and I still think these are legitimate responses to the situation I was in, but I just can't feel it anymore.

I think a reason why I don't find any of my old interests nostalgic anymore is because none of these things represent anything good in my mind. Letting the music play off my "liked" list feels like slowly going back in time. Every few songs comprise a group that typifies a particular period of my life. And I realize something: For the first time in my life, there's no period in my life I want to go back to.

I don't give a shit about the past anymore

What has ever represented a "good time" for me? Thinking about that question, the truthful answer is that I can't tell. I am the type to brood and to ruminate by nature, but my style of self-indulgence has changed. It's like my eyes have been opened and my horizons widened. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly when that happened. It wasn't during my military service, and it wasn't in the psyche ward. It wasn't even during my time with my ex, or when she broke up with me. I was still such a mess during those first 5 months. It's scary how unbalanced I was during that time. I don't think I've ever fully regained my balance yet, but things have certainly changed.

For the first couple of month I was in absolute shock. I truly understood cheesy phrases like "it's like all lights went out", or "I was plunged into the abyss". It was a depth of sorrow I simply did not know existed, deeper and darker than anything else I've ever experienced. It wasn't even depression – I wasn't lazing around, passing the time with asinine garbage; quite a the opposite, I couldn't bring myself to engage in anything. I had to force myself to watch some RedLetterMedia to cheer up.

I stayed away from alcohol at the time. Didn't smoke anything, either. I went completely raw: No alcoholism, no drug addiction, no internet addiction, no video game addiction. There was nothing to distract my mind. This was probably the trigger – not so much the break-up itself, but the month or two of raw living that followed.

After that… Well, the evil side of me had put 1 plus 1 together, and figured out that if nothing has been enjoyable since the break-up, surely what I need is to quickly plunge into another relationship. I had no idea what I was doing, but I felt initially pretty confident. I was, after all, no longer a completely clueless virgin wandering off into the realm of real adults.

Yet, I was still almost as childish as ever. I went about it all wrong, in that I tried at all. What was I expecting? I think back to the 2-3 women who did afford me some attention at the time, and regardless of how 'cringe' I was (which I don't really care about anymore), I also just can't imagine myself with any one of them. I wasn't myself with them, and everything was just another pile of lies.

Lies

I still lie. On a smaller scale, and subtler, but I still lie to make others think better of me. But I try hard not to. I try to tell the truth and open up. Tell what's actually going on in my life (i.e. my life is a stagnating piss puddle). It's scary. It's painful. I tried that with some of my oldest friends just the other day, and the mental anguish it caused me made me to consider at the back of my mind to cut all contact with them.

I must stop letting all this bullshit get to me. What does it matter what others think of me? What good does it do for me? What exactly am I hoping to gain from lying to my oldest friends, ones who've been there for most of my life? Why do I need to impress them? Even if they think shit about me, or pity me, or disrespect me etc., what exactly do I hope would happen if they didn't? I don't even want to get closer to them because I don't really enjoy talking with any one of them. I never did. At first, out of anxiety, but lately… We've grown apart.

It's quite the opposite with the people at the mental program I'm in now. I don't consider any of them friends, but speaking with them feels so much more pleasant than any conversations I had in my past. The conversations aren't very interesting. We share very little in common in terms of pop-culture/media bullshit. But I now realize it doesn't matter, what matters is being on the correct wavelength with the other person. Before all this, I wasn't even aware that that "wavelength" existed. I truly struggled to empathize with others. In many ways, I still do, but somehow, finally putting down some of my mental shields has allowed me to try and find real enjoyment in the act of talking to another person and getting to know them. And not in the autistic way of learning a bunch of trivia about their lives, but in the more genuine way of getting to know how they think, how they react, who they are as a person.

It's not perfect. Not by any means. I still get awkward if the conversation goes quiet, and I still sometimes overthink certain responses. It all feels a bit precarious and I feel like this feeling will go away soon enough. I don't expect to remain in contact with any of the people there (and I doubt I even want to). But on the other hand, it's miles better than any other social circle I've ever been in. Not because the people are better or more compatible with me, but because it's just nice being real. Just for once in my life: Be real.

I don't try to be funny around those people. If a good wisecrack pops up in my head, I just say it, but otherwise I do not actively scan the conversation to find "funny" things to say. I was always stressing over trying to be fun to be around, or interesting. Now I don't care, and I still managed to establish decent semi-friendships with some people there. I never needed to put on these shows to begin with.

It's funny. I used to be semi-obsessed with finding "my place in the world", to find "my people", a perfect social circle that would perfectly mirror me, or at least an idealized version of me. I thought that there, among fellow morons who spend too much online without being annoying about it, I would get to be comfortable. It's what attracted me to my ex to begin with – she was a crazy 4chan person like me. But nope! Little of that actually matters. I only cared about that bullshit because I was afraid of not knowing what to say. Shared interests, recognizing memes and understanding internet speak, I thought these would save me.

But as it turns out, the kingdom of God is within you.

Body Dysmorphia

I don't even get that neurotic about my appearance anymore. I mean, I still have strong insecurities, and I still get awkward about certain things in public. But somehow, I find it easier to repress. I still hate catching glimpses of my reflection, but least when I'm not in front of mirrors or anything like that, I can think of this sort of stuff without trying to hide it. So what if I'm ugly? So what if I gained weight? This is me. There is no other me. I can only try and change this real me, which is why I signed up to the gym. And as for my face? I can't change it, so I might as well not think about it.

This is probably part of the reason why I don't get nostalgic anymore. My past is so high-strung. Every moment had a low ambiance of discomfort and dissatisfaction underlie it. My rose-tinted glasses broke. None of the "good periods" of my life, not even highschool, have actually been any good. My "best moments" have been the moments when I managed to obtain momentarily relief from this deep discomfort. Even my time with my ex felt good in large part because it was a prolonged 2-year vacation from my insecurities.

And when that vacation ended, and I was sent back to my 'mental home', I realized I couldn't live there anymore. I wasn't willing or even able to go back into that cage. There is no happiness in this. There is no long-term satisfaction to wasting time on the internet. There is no point to any of the shit I forced myself to consume to try and build an identity for myself out of scraps of media franchises and false interests. Maybe I'm finally growing up.

I do have to wonder, though. As much as I love bullshitting about the "transformation" I'm undergoing, there really are a lot of substantive differences in my mental processes. The old habits are slowly creeping in again, but their presence feels tenuous. I'm back to spending a fuckton of time on my computer, not really interacting with others or leaving the house. But it doesn't feel the same. I don't feel trapped here. It's a place I entered by choice, and one that I can leave whenever I want.

I thought of getting another job soon. We'll see where life takes me.

Postscript

I think part of it all is that I can't construct false narratives anymore, at least not of the type that would drive me insane with self-pity. A gray future doesn't seem so scary anymore, and so the past doesn't look so pink by comparison.