ALL YOU MUST GIVE UP

Misery loves company

We don’t often contemplate things deeply enough. A human weakness. 

With that single sentence I feel I may have already lost many of you. 

You’ve given up. 

Misery loves company. 

And who are most often the most miserable, if not the lonely?

Who out of most, desperately seek company, if not the lonely?

Attention. Applause. Look at me. I swear I’m good enough. 

I’m smart. I can sing. I can dance. I spend many agonizing, grueling, tantalizing hours, alone, even when surrounded by others. 

Aren’t you impressed? Aren't you proud of me? And all I’ve accomplished?

More more more more more more more more more more. 

More.

We don’t often contemplate things deeply enough.

A human strength. I browse this platform, this “space”, this earth. And I have found in me the strength- the courage- to be disheartened. 

Mostly because of I realize how deeply I’ve bought into it, and how lonely I’ve become as a result. 

It is why I seek you, my fellow loners, in your cubicles, at your desks, curled up under your bedsheets, in your offices, your boxes of expertise. Your minds. Your very own prisons.

I press my face to the bars, in kinship. 

We are all of us, cellmates. 

Helpless commentators. All tragically seeking escape. 

Trying, often with great futility, to enlist others in our efforts to, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase, bust out. 

Ah, but there’s no way out 

The oldest and more seasoned among us will say. The criminals, who took and took. Who wanted more and more, and were finally caged by our own naked ambition.

…There’s no way out. 

Because, if you would listen to us, you’ll know all writers are really, are cautionary tales about the dangers of loneliness.  

We are, to ourselves, a grand cosmic joke. Beware of those who take themselves too seriously. Who do not laugh. They are miserable.

They will, all too readily, tell you all you must give up, to be somebody. 

That is, and they will be the first to admit it to you, the path to misery and loneliness.

But if that is who you are, then be welcome brother, sister, and be not disheartened. 

You are, after all, in good company.