The hard part about living isn't about intellectual stimulation, but emotional stability and assuredness. That is something that I am fast starting to learn as I trudge through yet another year.
Technically, we are now approaching the traditionally disliked portions of the year. And this year, strangely enough, is turning out to be no different from previous years.
I like being alone, most of the time. It's quite relaxing to just be oneself, to read, to figure things out, to not over-stress about the social pressures of the world. But then, there are times where even the alone person starts to feel a little lonely, to actually crave for some kind of human contact, to talk about the things that were read, to discuss things that were experienced, to just share a yarn or two. Then, there are the times where physical contact is craved, to hold someone dear in one's arms, to cuddle, to hug, to snuggle, to just feel the kind of warmth that comes with being with a loved one.
Those are, as far as I can tell, the key ingredients to actually staying mentally sane.
I get my talk on with people every now and then. Granted, there are not that many people whom I actually talk ``serious stuff'' (or at least things that are of direct interest without necessarily providing a ``productivity increase'' in the monetary sense), but I do get to talk with them at least once every quarter. It's not enough, but it's not as shabby as it sounds. Such talk takes time to gather information and analysis, and is probably best spent at the rate of a symposium.
But the physical contact, I don't get it much, if at all. Not since 2009. It's a side effect of being withdrawn, in many senses, from the wider world. It sucks to live in a repressed country where even a hug is suspicious, let alone getting close. And in a place where repressed love is the norm, people like me who like physical contact just get no air time, especially since I'm not that gregarious or rich enough to sally through the repression.
And that's the chief reason behind my general low affect, if there's any reason to be found.
I don't lack money. Okay, I, like everyone else, wish to get more of it, but it's not something that is actively hampering me. I am pretty stable in terms of employment and my intellectual curiousity---I've not reached the point where I feel like I'm not doing anything useful or interesting just yet. But I miss being close and secretive with that special someone, and sometimes that drives me nuts.
My usual remedy is to just go run or do hard physical exercise to burn it all out of the system. It works, until I sustain injuries of some sort, or if the weather gives me a big fuck you in the form of the Sumatran haze or unrelenting rain. So it's not exactly a permanent solution.
I'm fast reaching the start of the fourth decade of my existence (do the math: if I reach thirty next year, that's three decades that had come and gone, with the fourth one beginning). Maybe this innate sense of ``missing something'' will dominate this upcoming decade, the way the innate sense of ``where do I fit in the world'' dominating the decade that just passed me by.
Hell, maybe I don't even get to live that long, dying from a broken heart or suiciding from an overload of despair that is not easily removed through the physical exercises that I attempt. Who knows?
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