Anthology of the Self - Entry IX
We Live in a Bubblegum Reality - A Semi-Philosophical Ramble on Anxiety
Many of us live the majority of our life in a bubblegum reality.
First we coat our tongue, our flesh, with a tube of chewable rubber. We fill it with the hot air of ambition, judgement, ideas, accepted realities. Any reality, any condition, any thought, any ambition can be blown into this bubble without question, thus the bubble swells. Now, crisis is always bound to follow when the bubble is popped, regardless of the undeniable presence of the tongue as self. There are two ways this can occur. For one, we keep blowin’. We fill it with more truths than we can verify, more passions than are pursuable, life makes more and more sense and we are happier, though inevitability is edged, though the bubble begins to warp, though the eyes of the face blowing the bubble grow crowded at this size. Without keeping life in perspective, without being able to order our desires, all becomes entirely unfounded in time. The unhappiest man is one who fills his bubble with dreams of the future, and when that future comes, is stuck in comparing it to the past and crafting further dreams of future.
Skepticism is an easy needle to such a reality, as is hypocrisy. Once air enters the bubble, it has lost its means to externally leave without bursting. Everything just simmers there regardless of direct awareness. One can prey on this, for overblown bubbles are ever-present. All it takes is one nesting idea, one needle, maybe a heavy sprinkling of compliments that validate the weakest, most contestable ideas. It is inevitable that in living life one will witness their bubble pop, their self or worldview pending for review. This first means of poppage is softer, more recoverable, for the bubble can be built anew if we can carefully diagnose where we grew too bold or where we really ought to have had better ideas. In studying philosophy, it is often encouraged that one repeatedly rebirth their bubble within their own volitions, very rarely hardcoding those philosophical ideas into the flesh. For as soon as idea becomes flesh, becomes a foundational component of the self, it becomes an unchangeable fact on which one cannot be swayed, a barrier that repeatedly bursts bubbles just outside of our perceivable consciousness. We must leave these great thoughts ruminating on our lips, in a pouch just below our vision, until the day where there are enough pieces to suck the air back in or pop the bubble. The more we can bank with a sense of security and safety, the more desired experiences we can file and let go of, the more ambitions we can move into achieving, the clearer our mind and unburdened we are from a pink mass before our face. Philosophy is the art of fording crises, of open-mindedness into and throughout existential shut down and reformatting, of finding more beautiful air to keep in our bubble.
However, there is a second means, for the bubble exists in visible space, an abnormality not often tangible before most. When one is too tangible, people begin to take notice. What an odd thing to have such a large bubble! So we observe, the eyes swarm in like bees, and knowingly or not, they strike. The bees hum a haunting mantra in a melody of needles as they close in: reality is someone else’s.
Reality is someone else’s.
Our reality is another’s.
There’s is mine and mine is there’s, the unspoken, unacknowledged curse by which all our feelings of hate arise.
I do not experience life through my eyes directly in a social setting.
I experience it through someone else’s.
My mind pours into theirs, filling them with molten metal that shapes into the deepest recesses of my insecurity.
It’s so easy to do, for their true thoughts, the true reason they stare, is intangible to me. These unknowable judgements become drill bits. They’re boring into my flesh. My blood gushes forth with torn arteries. Please stop! Stop staring! I don’t want to be perceived, for see how it makes me bleed, you and your horrible eyes! They will kill me, blowing venom into my pores, carving cookie-cutter shapes into my skin, undeniable, unerasable facts of my flesh! My eyes glaze over, I sprint faster than my heart ought to allow, burn like a comet in pursuit of shelter. Bring me anywhere else, for even the kindest eyes bear demons. Let me hear what they would say if they weren’t so cowardly, oh please God! I pass out in the amniotic fluid of a duvet’s warmth, I contort my flesh into the tightest spaces until certainty of my impresence can be assured. The room is silent, but oh god I must tend to my wounds, for my arteries are painting my sheets and my skinless heart is absorbing all allegiances of vagabond particles from the environment. I rise from the darkness, scanning the environment and running to the bathroom while never looking down. But when I observe my arm, she is pristinely as she was. My skin is understandably still in one piece. I take a moment to assess myself, but then I realize it is naught but my bubble who has been shredded, punctured and torn. A sigh of relief for a rebuildable lifespan, but the heart still lurches as the gum sits their flaccid. All those grand ideas I’d been juggling, those philosophies for bettering myself, those ambitions I was on the path to achieving have escaped and must be found again. I still live, but what for? This is the brutality to leading a bubblegum reality, that the manufactured crises from the assembly lines of anxiety, ever-presence of expected norms that have been instilled in us to the level of flesh when we were more uncritically capable of taking in, will surface through poltergeists and place themselves in the well of one’s iris, in the ire of one’s words.
Sticks and stone’s can’t break my bones, but dammit will they make a mess of my bubble, keep continuing to foil everything one finally manages to will into action from their pool of volition. We doom each other not by the malice of our thought, but by mere presence of the one who is followed by demons.
None have more demons than the philosophical or the psychological minds. Both make experiments of themself, a trial ground for rhetoric and theories and complexes that we accept as true. We know ourselves too well for our own good and thus it condemns us more brutally and certainly than in an uncritical mind or an arrogant one who fills eyes only with captivation, intrigue and respect. Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is a bubbleless curse where all testing grounds are immediately absorbed into flesh, where all ambition can be bought with a dollar amount one has the means of eventually achieving. This is not a tenable path for the philosopher or psychologist, for above all truth is formed in the crucible of their bubble. Arrogance seems an appealing means of resilience for the anxious one. Ah yes, that fellow over there is sexually attracted to me, that one wishes for my clothing or hair and that old woman over there wishes she still had my body. It’s equally if not closer to the reality of minds when compared to the horrible, and certainly a means of ease even if not a panacea. Yet, there is a foil to this, as well, that I believe is of specific concern to the more philosophical type.
We are unphased by such forms of praise, for these are compliments of the flesh and of material rather than of the carefully cultivated mind and ideas that one may desire to be known by. The most tragic fate of the philosopher is that they weren’t born as a book. The tragedy of the artist, too, is that they weren’t born a canvas. Neither party is observably their craft, they still exist within an observable vessel that exists a priori to all relations. A captivating vessel is certainly a boon, and one can talk a lot if they want their eccentricities and depth laid most bare. Regardless, this is an unsustainable position. One can listen to every word we say but, if the judgments of the arrogant one were correct constructions, it might be that they cease to care. One of blazing soul may consider themselves lucky to be ugly, for the bees smell no nectar. Yet this too may impact our ability to get heard. The unfuckable politician does not win elections, is not the one we’d have a beer with. The ugly are cursed, the beautiful are cursed, and all of politicized identities, too, bear the curse of prejudice underlying all perception. What is one to do?
One solution is more lax internalization with regards to defensive ideologies. One ought to embody certain ideas that safeguard them from anxiety and stand by their truthfulness, not on scientific grounds per se, but on personal grounds for the sake of more motivated pursuits. Believing whole-heartedly in your ability to do an act can make critique of such an act acceptable, but not capable as registering as a threat to the skill and the ability to perform the skill. It’s a form of arrogance, certainly, and one that if used haphazardly could sow the seeds for personal problems. Considering oneself ugly where they originally feel that they are not are not may motivate one to work harder to instill their ideas and put aside a priori judgements of image as the only means of appreciation. Considering oneself beautiful on originally feeling one is ugly may grant one the confidence to present socially. As expressed prior, both of these sides come with destructive caveats, so a medial condition is more likely to be of benefit, but how do we approach that? Do we forget that we have a body at a deep level? No, because it can’t truly be moved into acceptance without frequently being shattered or getting in the way of solving judgements made of one’s body (i.e. blindness and complacence to physical discrimination). Perhaps we have to condition ourselves to act and be regardless of our bodies. This seems to be the closest to truth when proposing a solution, but is the very crux of what anxiety creates and inhibits. We do not tell a depressed individual to just start feeling again. We do, however, move them into a position to acknowledge the source of their depression and construct a life in knowledge of the fire, within which it will be weakened and ideally quelled. Let’s begin with our problem, then. One is unable to act because they are crippled by an unknowable presence of judgement in other thinking things. If one is unable to act on a matter which they might otherwise desire to, we have a problem within the will. If a presence is unknowable, and even upon asking, may be completely inaccessible, then it’s possible that such an object can be rightful stated on sensory grounds to not exist. This is not completely true, because indication of an idea or intent can be drawn from present expressions and stares. Without an expression, we are able to fill ourselves by any means into this head. As such, neutral concepts such as people-watching, wandering eyes or other acts of only vague interest can be placed in. There is still harm, for one might still not want to be seen outside of their worldview and reality, but there are means of filling in that are minimally destructive to the ability for a thinking body to exist in a social space. With regards to the more direct, the uncomfortably long expressions and more endangering signs of physical intrigue, ones where we feel we are being instilled with the physicality of a predator or a prey, while still off a certain vibe or aura, is more substantiated. Fear seems to be a valid mindset, especially when you’re a body society has a record of endangering (particularly women and racial and sexual minorities). Regardless if the basis for hatred is vapid fear mongering, emotionality often dictates the reactions and unpredictable capacity to act on these reactions. Homophobia may be a good word for working through this complex. One has a phobia of someone who is homosexual, has a fear of finding themselves in that person. All demonstrated hate is ultimately subconsciously motivated by an instilled fear and desire to protect their own self/worldview. Here, the anxiously subjugated may be in a position of power over the presumptuous bigot. A response of kindness for one, an “anything wrong?”, may cripple them as they have you. Regardless of the difficulty, one will not be able to rise above subjugation while they fear the bigot. The bigots' power and stranglehold is predicated on fear. If they are not a bigot, they will fear awkward for staring. We have one less starer in the world. If they are, we have disarmed their means of intimidation. Perhaps the anxious individual ought to train themselves to raise an eyebrow in the face of stares. Potentially, we have to listen to them spew something you don’t agree with. Either we receive a compliment, disarm the situation, or let them offload their opinions to which we respond with utter indifference. Silence is more crippling than any word, as I am about to demonstrate.
Worst than all of this is utter silence, where one knows there are unflinching eyes on them, especially in digital spaces where their desired self is more plainly visible, but those eyes don’t tell you they are there? Indifference is, here, a dejection of friendship, of intrigue, of admiration extra corporis. They read my post but did not like! It’s something any individual has done countless times to appreciated material. Hmm, I think the cutest answer that I like the most is tbat they don’t want to be seen or known either. That perhaps they smiled, but didn’t feel quite anonymous themselves in doing such an act. Maybe they had it going in the background. Maybe they only like things for curated reasons rather than an extension of their pleasure. This seems a solved mindset for the anxious mind to appropriate. What of silence in physical spaces? To read a poem and receive no applause? To go back to the prior paragraph, one might take it that they are almost certainly in the wrong in the eyes of those people. Either we learn to improve our craft from this, we find new people and change the context of our performance or we try to initiate conversation. Such is the most damning, this utterly thankless means of expression, but most expression is thankless, is indifferent. Perhaps they are chewing on the ideas you offlayed, cooking up their own response or a path to internalization. Such is so in the context of the classroom or a place of worship, to deliver and receive thanklessly, but ideally in an eventually demonstrable way. One must always consider the context of their performance before they anticipate reactions. Such has it been understood.
Post-Note: I don't fully stand by this essay, as it's far too individualist in it's scope. I don't believe it should be the full onus of the individual to interpret malice and dejection. Much of this arises from a systematized lovelessness and unawareness of how and when we bring discomfort to people. As a social problem, it ought, too, be socially resolved with openness and a willingness to listen to and learn from this openness. Hope you enjoyed and I