[The Cloud]

Just want to do an update to let ya'll following this that I haven't given up. I had a minor realization recently, which I think is key in my miscognition. It came in the form of a phrase;

"I owe nothing for your gratitude."

I don't owe anybody anything for feeling gratitude toward me. It made me aware of how I always play the game of "Who is more thankful?" If somebody says Thank You, I have to acknowledge their thanks in a way that says "Thank you for thanking me". Then it just becomes an endless uncomfortable game of who shows more gratitude, because the one who shows the least is in debt of the one who shows the most. It seems to me that that's the reason that people say thank you so much, as if gratitude was a commodity that could be given in trade. Somebody gives you money, thank you very much. Somebody opens a door, thank you very much. Somebody returns a lost item to you, thank you very much. It's all so fake and artificial, the thanks often aren't genuine and are only given because they are owed as if the word is what is important rather than the feeling. I'm not sure what this means in the larger scheme of things, but I really think that it's essential for me to understand if I am to ever overcome this.

Another thing that I found myself thinking was "I don't know what your question is." I have this idea that I'm always being asked for something by people, but they don't know what it is they are asking and so I can never satisfy their need. Everyone is a bottomless pit of need that can never be filled because it is never defined. Like I'm not talking to real people, and so I can't fulfill their needs as a real person. Everybody else is an undefined unsubstantiated desire not to know the truth, and so I must be a lie in order to support their lie. I act because my act reinforces the act of others. If I was real, then I would put lie to everybody's act, which is a very painful thing for them. They don't want the real me because the real me is worthless to them in their game of pretend. And they all seem to want to pretend.

I've been asking myself what I really want out of people, what it is that I actually desire. I realized that I don't want advice, I don't want sympathy, I don't want pity, I want reality. I want somebody to be real, somebody that doesn't want me to put up a front, somebody that isn't afraid of and won't be hurt by the truth of my existence. Not somebody that is trying to help me or improve me or fix me, but somebody that doesn't care about any of that and cannot be harmed by me. I talk to my friends, my family, the people closest to me, but none of them know how to not be afraid of me, they don't even have a foggy idea of what I'm talking about. Even the ones that know about the act and hate it as much as I do can't set it aside. We're all trapped by each other in an endless self-reinforcing web of deceit. A web that I cling to desperately because if I let go then it all falls apart. I'm afraid of my own power to destroy the illusion, afraid because nobody else seems to wants the illusion destroyed, which is the same reason they are afraid. Nobody wants it for themselves, everybody just desperately needs it for everybody else's sake. Sometimes I get this feeling of incredible possibility, as if I could do anything if I weren't trapped in my own head. But I am trapped, and too afraid not to be.