59 — Empty Mirror

100 Sonnets — Sonnet 59: You Just Gotta Open Your Mind, Maaaaaan

Ocean Atlas,” world’s largest underwater statue, in the Bahamas

So we’ve been tripping on Camus and absurdism and Buddhism and a lot of pot here for about a week — not that any of that is new in the grand scheme of my life, just moved to the front burner and fully boiling at the moment. We have reached a thrilling new stage of masturbatory meta-analysis with regard to this philosophy though, and masturbating just isn’t fun unless you do it with friends, so here we are. If the kind of “whoa, lemme blow your miiiiind, maaaaan” conversation you have to be pretty stoned yourself to enjoy is irksome to you, might want to check back in tomorrow!

I’ve mentioned that I have a phobia of deep water — it’s not anything IN the water; I don’t fear drowning or sea creatures, I simply fear the black vastness of the sea, the void, the specific and yet unknowable emptiness. Or at least… I did up until recently.

Part of this re-connection with my absurdist roots for me has been learning to lean in to negative experiences rather than detach from them. I dissociate a lot, and my OCD often comes in the form of circular existential ruminating that occasionally makes me totally disconnect from reality. What I’m coming to understand through the lens of Camus’ Sisyphus is that these horrible, enervating moments where I stare at everything I…