Eel

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i had the most absurd dream ever when i took a nap this evening. it started as me waking up from bed because i heard a knock on the door. when i opened it, it was one of the high school students at the place i work, and they told me that they invited 17 other students over to have a party in my house. in the dream, i remember verbalizing my total disappointment and bewilderment, but i could feel the excitement coursing through my body. like i was happy that 20 something bodies were going to instantaneously fill the house...which they did. all the while, the snippets of the memories i hold dear to my heart appeared as slivers in the dream. the ever curious hookah pipe, which is always for some reason present in all my memorable dream get-togethers. probably because it is present in all my memorable real get-togethers. sitting in a circle and listening to people laugh and converse, breathing in the same substance that the other guys are breathing. remembering how light i felt eating takis while passing a bong around with my college friend's fraternity brothers, or how i got a hookah started for shoaib and affan in our farewell party, or even moving that pipe to shawn's house where it was shared by a ton of people.

was just reminded of the taste of cinnamon toast crunch with vodka. never again.

i feel that we are all born with limitless potential, and as we grow up, holes are poked into our soul which can never repair. and our potential leaks out slowly like a crack in the plumbing, just waiting to burst, on the day we happen to use all of our potential at once. but i know that's not even true. and i know that to compare potential to shit water in a leaking pipe is probably not the best analogy for it. but the holes in our soul are definitely real. the jury is still out on whether these holes are reparable. in my case, it always felt like an incredibly thin and long follicle, or a nearly invisible piece of metal string, which goes through and through the center of my heart. it does no damage if i stand still and do nothing. but once i start moving around and making plans, it's etching patterns in my heart chambers and damaging me in ways i can't imagine. the fear is often that i am making the same mistakes i was so desperately trying to avoid, while wasting more time doing things that truly do not matter. the plight of the directionless.

but isn't that life? or being an adult? you're constantly told that doing the things you don't want to do is part of life. we are born, without choice, and flung into a world of accountability and endless labor. no one specifically asked for your presence to be created because you didn't exist, not even your parents would know how you would end up coming out. but here you fucking are. and now you've gone through the elementary years where life was just coloring books and playing at recess. it's bills and utilities, commuting and working, groceries and loans, payments and debts, time management and critical thinking, self-regulation and juggling, maintenance and upkeep.

they say ignorance is bliss, but even if i lost my knowledge about these things tomorrow, i would probably be in a much more shitty state. because it is infinitely easier to pack a bowl and get stoned until my brain melts than it is to do the hundreds of daily tasks that are required for us to stay "happy and healthy." how does hollywood manage to make even amnesia look sexy? the thought of forgetting all the painful memories, or re-experiencing everything again as if it were the first time, or reconnecting with people with no knowledge of how you or them interacted in the past... if only we lived in a vacuum, where messages we've unsent or deleted became unread and forgotten in real life.

that couldn't happen, as our brains are designed to process every bit of information, and make it meaningful to us as quickly as possible. if we hear the word "apple," we might picture an apple, but our brain will fill in the rest. is it red or green? is it sitting on a plate? is it with other apples? does it look clean? has it been bitten? no, our brain will just determine that on the fly, just like it does with most of our thoughts. and then there's the mindfuck of referring to my brain as "a brain," as if it's an object, and not the powerhouse of my own personal consciousness and the lifeblood of my thoughts and feelings. i used to always take up issue with the words "my brain makes me...(insert thought or action)" because it felt as if it was an omission of accountability. as i grow older, i understand now that our brains do make us (insert thought or action). they are incredibly complex systems that are able to communicate in more ways than one. and i no longer become upset hearing those words, perhaps because i have an understanding of my own brain, and how it quite literally drives us. we just aren't even aware sometimes that we're in the passenger seat.

a long, thin string beckons to carve some more pseudo heart muscle. if i can get used to the pain of tattoos and needles on my skin, i guess that just means i need to find something worth carving in.