Ghosts In the Machine

Possible trigger warning? I guess? This is just what I'm dealing with, and I don't know what it is, but it feels very detached and much like ennui. I find myself thinking more about death and dying than about anything else, and I wrote portions of this somewhere else, but this is it crystallized and condensed how I feel and one of the major facets of my depression. In a way, I think I want to simply be heard. But I'd also like to know what's next? More dissociative symptoms? A psychotic break? I don't take meds and have no desire to do so. Ever. I am aware of the rather terminal angle of my descent..and I simply cannot find the energy to care beyond a clinical interest only to see what happens out of boredom.

I am a ghost in the machine, and my name is Michael.

I have no real identity outside that which I have created online, and I've spent years adding layers and facets like a house of mirrors to replace my vanishing sense of self, and each and every single facet is a double or triple entendré, just not always sexual in nature. That is the least of my concerns anymore. The only thing that matters is the online identity because as first friends, then interests, hobbies, attention to self-care and finally, jobs and finances all fall away like dominoes in a chain reaction of cascading probabilities, the less I am inclined to remain within reality and the temptation becomes to create my own own by any means necessary.

It is a hollow simulacrum of life that becomes a one-way trap. Like a Venus fly-trap most assuredly lures the fly with the scent of nectar, then closes the jaws to keep it from escaping a slow, agonizing death, so, too, is the specter of real social isolation, life replaced by a facsimile that lacks in essential qualities that cannot be replicated in an online setting. Which is better? To live a fake life for the sake of social interaction that is lacking within an online forum and being forced to live a lie, or to live a fake life online of my own creation? Living a real life is not an option when there is no more self left that is immutable; when I can simply push and pull and twist and press thusly and simply change shape and size down to the last quirk, the last tic, what is left that can then objectively be called a core self that is unchanging?

There is nothing left to build upon had I even the inclination to do so. Shall I simply adopt guises until caught, and then adopt some more? We may all wear masks, metaphorically speaking, but what happens when the masks have blocked out reality for so long that the inner truth has rotted away into darkness and dust? Thus, the ghost metaphor serves yet another analogy that is accurate and true. Multiple facets, multiple meanings, all of them correct.

The Pattern is alive and conscious, and speaks through the agencies of culture through people whom at the time do not realize the full import of their words and deeds. It is only when one casts their gaze across the past far back enough, and deep enough, that one picks out the Pattern. And this, too, is a trap, because it is one-way: opening one's inner eye to the reality of the universe reveals the truth of the old maxim, what is seen cannot be unseen, and what has been seen reveals only the futility of attempting to recapture what is impossible to obtain once one has become the mask while simultaneously un-becoming the actual true self. Yes, the two may be able to be blended for years in an unnatural a dual-life, but eventually, the subconscious mind rebels, and the truth of the matter moves into the conscious realm of perception where you cannot but help admit that you cannot live both, it must be one or the other, always at the expense of the one not chosen.

This is the nature of the universe we live within; it is binary, just as our brains are analogue. We live between the poles of reality--hot/cold, black/white, negative/positive--and it is within this spectrum that consciousness exists. The laws are immutable and absolute. And so those of us at the very bottom of society, the pariahs, the cast-offs, the felonious with no hope of redemption but unwilling to concede to the darkness nonetheless, all of the lost and the damned, we drift through society at our crappy jobs, unwanted, unseen, many of us having reached such a state through both choice and error along the way, living out a quiet life of desperation in a vain hope for salvation that never comes. Some of us deserve our fate, and recognize this; others labor under self-deluded visions of grandeur to avoid the responsibility that comes with having made too many poor decisions.

I find it a sort of purgatory in and of itself, where pretense is stripped away and one's inner eye is forced to turn inward at itself in the mirror of solitude; the lack of distraction of social callings and responsibilities to friends whom do not exist act as a deprivation tank to focus that awareness to painful sharpness and clarity. Then, we really begin to see how ugly we are as human beings, and it's as though the scales begin to come off one's eyes as you realize all of the poor choices you have made have led you to this exact moment, reading this journal, wondering how it is that this same pattern of happenstance has happened in someone else's life as well.

You begin to see the echoes of that darker nature we all possess in others--in their actions, they way they talk about others, and themselves...it makes you want to avoid others even more because you realize you don't want to carry not only your own mess, but that of others. You want to heal and put it to rest once and for all; society wants to parade it about for the two minutes of bad publicity it will generate that will destroy generations of hard work in a moment because everyone has that same darkness you just realized ran far deeper in yourself than you'd believed...

This is what it is to be a ghost in the machine, forever looking in from the outside like Ebenezer Scrooge at the window of the pub. So when I smile and laugh and maybe comment on your comment on a page here or there, don't be upset if I fret over the superficial nature of it; do not take my madness personal. I have glimpsed the Pattern, so I'm a little cracked to begin with, and I have reasons that cannot be fathomed without conversations you likely wouldn't understand without a lot of energy wasted in someone that is not really worth the time of day once you have done all of the above I have just advised you not to do.

This is what it is to be a ghost. Anonymous. Horrifying to behold when actually seen in the flesh in those brief glimpses the subconscious mind picks up on and hides from the conscious awareness. Easily forgotten because I have never developed anything other than masks and walls and illusions. And yet, I can be anyone and anything required in cheap trade for the smile of a beautiful woman, the amiable chat of pretending to be friends, of anything that I can use to buttress a glaringly ever-increasing need for the illusion of normalcy since I know I will never have the real thing.

Genuine connection will never happen, and I am wise enough to know it because the Pattern has drilled it into my head over and over by means of the institutionalization that has dug long and seeking claws into my id to use against me anything it finds within. And I'm sorry, but my arms are too short to box with God.

To you and all others, I am just me, the tranquil surface of a lake surrounding the island that I have become, and I will simply fade back into your subconscious, quickly forgotten except perhaps in dreams as a background character and random face; perhaps that is as it should be, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. Soon, all that will be left of me are my digital echoes online for as long as there is an internet. Like those proverbial tears in the rain, it will all be gone, and all of my experiences and unique insights from having a rare view of humanity from outside of itself will vanish into the sands of time.

A winter's day...in a deep and dark December...

Dear Michael2Wolves,

You write so beautifully.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

Thank you kindly, Yao Wen. Some days, my voice comes through more strongly than others, and the words simply flow. I think I have given so many pieces of myself away, though, that words are all I have left.

Thank you for sharing. I agree, beautiful writing!

WOW! I am new here, and I find your writing truly intriguing and touching. Though I must admit, I should read it a few more times to fully grasp its depth. I too can empathize with the reference to looking in from the outside to "reality". This is my first dive into the alternate reality of online "connection". Isn't it ironic that, in a world with 7.8 billion people, we are more and more searching into the realm of virtual existences to find said "connection" and establish ourselves as beings in "communities". As well, I have given so many pieces of myself over time that I find words from the depth of my soul are all I have left, and while I can still be cordial and appear engaged in the world around me, internally, I feel void. I love my two children, but that too is a long story. A longing for a connection that may never be achieved. I have felt this way my whole life, and at 48 years old, it has been a long search. While I have made choices that have led to my current situation, those choices stem from a groundwork of traumatic childhood experiences, neglect, and subsequent roads that I have traveled as a result of trying to find some existence my heart tells me I should have, yet they were still my choices, somehow. That existence is nothing material, other than perhaps affording a home where I can be me, not tolerating toxic relationships. A place where I can be at peace with myself in silence without the noise of other's issues, chronic falsities, and negativities . I have enough of my own I would guess. I too do not take meds, nor do I drink or use recreational drugs. As painful as reality can be for me, I feel to deaden it with medication is to give up on who I am. I have been who I am since childhood, observing, feeling, and waiting. Perhaps some would consider it a form of arrogance or self-righteousness for me to believe that my struggles are real and not a manifestation or chemical imbalance that needs "treating" . That being said, to each his own. I am sure medication helps some, so they should have the help the desire. I am just me, putting myself out there, a silent observer, yet one who will reach out with my virtual hand to others. Perhaps somewhere in in the cosmos there is somewhere I belong, and until I find that location, I'll just "ride it out".
Thank you for sharing your feelings, thoughts, and words. You were heard!!!

“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Krishnamurti

The Woods, White Buffalo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0mlPCr_s7U

Six months later, and my feelings haven't changed on this; rather, they have only found justification with every passing day. I cannot be me because the me that wants to emerge is odious to myself. And the arrogant condescension of the entirety of society towards me when I know fully well that but for chance and circumstance, they would be right here with me, is insufferable.

The irony here is that I've created this online persona because I cannot tolerate my real-world one, and have come full-circle to hate the online persona as much as I do the real-world one. Nothing but Patterns. Over and over.

i can relate to what you're saying as i often feel like a fraud in my online circles as well. Please do not be hard on yourself as it is clear that you're struggling and you shouldn't blame yourself for that in my opinion. i Apologize in that i don't quite remember clearly if you're currently seeing any therapist although i suppose you don't but perhaps that may be useful to you if you can afford it of course. Please do not give up. Sending many Safe, warm hugs to BOTH you, @Michael2Wolves, your Family, your Friends and ALL of your Loved Ones! Keep fighting and keep rocking NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, OK?!