Retro-Blog 1982 (age 19): I Have Always Been This Way

Hayward California, November 1982

I'm concerned and insecure about things right now

Not simply about comforts and finances

I'm confused about my personal value and worth

About the value of any human and all humans

I'm questioning what the concept of "value" means to me

Because right now I feel very worthless and very small

Very insignificant

And it does not feel good at all

It also does not feel right

And I draw a distinction there

Between subjective good and objective right

Although I cannot be sure that this distinction itself

is not wholly subjective

Once the frame-of-reference has been found questionable

the whole structure falls apart

This is what has happened to me

Why do I feel a need to feel worth and significance?

I doubt that I could even adequately define

what I mean by those words

And what of this need for happiness?

It, too, seems to exist somewhere within reality

Yet beyond definition

My intellect tells me that happiness

or a sense or an attitude of happiness

would only be possible if I were to close off

certain perceptions and avenues of inquiry and reflection

This state would not only be objectionable

But also quite impossible to maintain reliably

As experience has proved

It seems that the centralized “self”

and the homogeneous "all"

are irreconcilably variant concepts

A workable proof to the contrary would be most welcome

I desperately need it, in fact

Thus far, the joyless and inaccurate assertions of psychology

and the abstract and verbose mazery of philosophy

and the hypocrisy and silly self-serving

dervishing metaphysics of religion

have failed to provide anything of substance

[Editorial Note, 2015 (age 52): Among the few things to have changed since this writing is that now feeling worthless and small and insignificant feel "right" or "normal".  I don't know if I am more mature, more broken, or simply more adequately medicated, but I am no longer distressed by the idea that I am not God's gift to the world.  It is, in fact, comforting to know that I need not expect any more of myself.  As a further note to the imaginary reader about these retro-posts: they are not likely to be chronological, although sub-sequences of closely related materials may be.]