This is some late night journaling (slightly edited) that I thought interesting enough to share however leaving out some more personal sections which is (partially) why it lacks some cohesion.

”The principle must be established that for a man who does not cheat. What he believes to be true must determine his action” - Albert Camus

Self-sabotage and I have always shared a familiar comfort. The relationship, toxic in nature, bodes necessity. Knowingly, actively, deteriorating my own living standards, perhaps (indeed), knowingly, as a form of forced discomfort or struggle.

If met with the question, stated simply, “Are you happy?” and one does not return in a simple affirmative, then the answer is no. Contrarily, it is an absurd method of thinking that happiness is but a spectrum rather than a switch whether fleeting or long-term and content (with a focus on the latter). This is, however, how I have known myself to gauge real happiness. As in times of a truly content mind, my answer is always nothing but certain. A battle persists between the divisions of my mind that treat happiness as a toggle while the other treats it as a spectrum. Both sides denouncing the absurdity of the other.

I am a different person not simply by the day but by the flip of a switch within the day, month, minute, or hour. The environment not only forms but deforms, melds and divides my mind. As if hydrophobic to my surroundings—my mind beads like water into various pieces. Occasionally colliding and melding or dissecting upon conflict or over-encumbrance, as if to lose track of itself. Droplets acting with a disconnect to one another despite the memories of all vaguely intertwining and persisting between one another. As if to remember through the second hand. Like the droplets meet to discuss their experiences in a noisy room, naturally missing beats, lulling in time, with details often missed or overheard. Despite my efforts, with every milestone comes a new set of struggles that seem to stop at no ends to deceive me into believing I’m still at ground zero. Like an elevator leading to floors that are indistinguishable upon first glance, but with further effort to inspect, is full of new paths, experiences, and relationships. One must not fear the uncertainty that they are on the same floor that they came from despite that first glance.

I have no urge for death nor suicide. I do, however, yearn to regain a lack of fear associated with such, as I once held while sitting under an olive tree. How I miss the sound of cicadas alongside the relentless summer sun, far from this place. If not a lack of fear, I’d appreciate motivation from it rather than paralysis.

I wish to know what its like to have a mind that functions correctly. I want to know what its like to wake up in the morning and not struggle to get up. To not feel as though I’m wading through a thick mist to access my own memories. To feel like the same person tomorrow as I am today. To feel like my own person. Some days I feel real and think clearly but most days I’m just drifting around. Doing my best to guide a body through the day from a third perspective. I want to know what its like to feel well rested, to sleep consistently for once. I wish to feel a consistent connection to my body and mind as if its my own. I wish to feel a consistent motivation for living rather than directing myself based on pure logistics aimed at arbitrary progress with a vapid sense of motivation to make it somewhere. I often function off the knowledge that drowning is bad rather than swimming because I want to. I don’t want to swim—the entity I inhabit requires that I direct it to swim. As I’m writing this, I don’t feel like I performed the actions contained in today. I feel as though I watched myself perform those actions. The person that went to work yesterday was me but is not currently me. I want to be me and I want to want to be me.