I’m reading a poem by Chen Chen about an incident when he was 13 where he ran away from home after telling his mother he was gay. It was haunting, beautiful, sad as such poems can be. And my primary reaction to this beautiful poem is; are you happy now? Did you get to enjoy your life so far?

I think things like that. Deep thoughts about peoples happiness. I'm pretty sensitive in this way. I'm always wondering after the happiness of others, or at least that's what and who I am at my deepest core level. A boy who looks at the world and wants to see everyone smile. 

I think that I've been trying to harden my heart to survive the pain of sympathizing/empathizing with others for the last 10 years or so. I got my soul ripped out and then twisted and stomped on by life and learning, so I've been trying to fight the pain and sadness by numbing myself to the worlds problems. My most authentic self is a person who is drawn to the pain of others, who thrills at the poetry of longing and at the grand gesture or sacrificial deed. Nothing pleased me more deep inside than to empathize with the suffering of others or to help alleviate said suffering in some way. But increasingly my toleration of this is fading. As the fantasy of others pain has become more of a reality, and as the sufferings of my own life have become more noticeable and acute, my willingness to tolerate anything that would evoke emotional pain has diminished. 

I think the bargain my soul was prepared to make in life was: let me accomplish certain goals (education, vocation, love) and in return for these I'd bear the pain of the universe and sacrifice myself for everyone. Let me be fulfilled in these ways and I'll pour out my self as a living sacrifice. A martyr if necessary.But instead, my shortcomings and failings and weaknesses and lack of opportunities seem to have outweighed my virtues and talents, such that instead of doing and being great, I'm living a life of drudgery. And I think a life of drudgery is the thing that my psyche most loathes. It's the thing my soul cannot bear to live a life of drudgery doing things that I don't find enjoyable or inspiring, for a paycheck for the rest of my life.

What happens when a loving, sensitive, melancholic, people pleasing, empathetic little boy has all of his hopes and dreams, all of his verities and certainties and expectations crushed by life and his own failures? That's me.

I often feel like a ghost, like a shell, like a half of a person. i'm desperate to lose myself in something greater than my self. To lose myself in the pain and pathos of others. To represent something powerful and meaningful and good and true and beautiful. But I can't find a place where that's possible. Everywhere I look is half of what I want never the whole. And I'm sorely disillusioned.