On Becoming a Ghost
I am growing more and more tenuous as this winter drags on. My self-confidence and sense of overall certainty are quickly receding from my mind like the fading image of a dream upon awakening. For the most part now, I become extremely insecure and nervous in the midst of conversation with others and even at the very prospect of socialization. I mumble out words, my sentences trail off into babbling and then silence, I feel more and more distanced from the real world and continually smothered in the heavy obscurity of my own mind. I can't crawl out from this abyss of blinding doubt: doubt in myself (and the very existence of a self), doubt in the power of my will and free will in general, doubt in the efficacy of language/communication, doubt in the authority of reason/rationality...but scarcely one thing can I be confident in nowadays. I can't help remembering the sense of security and self-esteem I had only a few months ago: why can't I reclaim those feelings? Why have I so dramatically regressed into this shadow of my former self? I felt like something so real then...I was someone distinct and definite. Now everything is blurred along the edges: dawns fade into dusks again and again yet nothing juts out from the smooth flow of perceptions and so days pass like papers from the press. My brain is stuffed with overcast skies, crowds of nameless faces, domineering buildings that keep out any glimpse of the free horizon...My libido has plummeted while my lethargy has overtaken me. I don't understand how I've come to this, I feel at the mercy of something beyond my control...I used to be so alive with praise for life and existence and brimming thoughts and inspiration. Now I feel so much weaker, so much more evanescent, as if the quietest wind will cause me to vanish into the air...