The Stickies

I have no idea if everyone’s life feels as constantly surreal to them as mine seems daily to me. The number of times I’ve had the creeping feeling that “this can’t possibly be actually happening” leaves me repeatedly bewildered and in awe and a firm believer that actual reality – not the farcical fairy tales we are usually taught by society to pretend to see as reality – is indeed way stranger than fiction. This could of course be just a delirious misperception, guided by delusions of self-importance. Or alternatively simply an ingrained tendency to emotional overreaction. Of course, being in some very concrete sense existentially imprisoned inside of myself, it’s difficult to take a step back and have anything close to a seriously impartial assessment. What I do have instead is the constant impression that I can only be in the middle of some opera and at any moment the proverbial fat lady will enter and start to sing an aria, at which point I’ll be able to see the orchestra and the audience and be able to walk out of the stage and into a reality that makes more sense. But this never happens, and meanwhile I feel like a walking showcase for the Chinese curse : “May you live in interesting times.” I wonder if it’s just me or the generic chaos of the human condition. Maybe it’s just inevitable that if you start paying too much attention you realize how mostly everything that is supposed to be solid and certain is actually made of cardboard, and that the most important truths and decisions in life are in fact completely beyond our understanding or control, and we are left surprised, puzzled and to a great extent powerless even by our own emotions, thoughts and actions.