Polished Mirrors, Hollow Rooms

I sit weary and tired from directing AI to get various stuff that needs gotten done at work, obsessively cleaning and compulsively checking if my space is pristine and odour free. At times, it still feels like I simply cannot maintain it the way I need it to be. Why I need it to be a certain way? is something I don’t really have an answer to. All I have when I ask myself that question is a pretext. A pretext that says, I need to feel clean and so does my space. It’s a chase , I chase a feeling that has no definite bounds to what constitutes feeling clean.

I met my therapist after a sickness induced hiatus and it felt like I walked away with a mixed bag of emotions ? feelings? I am not sure.

I have disconnected from the world at large and reset my boundaries with immediate and extended family for over 2 years now.

I often feel, I need to isolate more.

I have often been asked, if the need to feel clean and the need to isolate myself share an underlying perception. I don’t know. Does cleaning obsessively and compulsively checking if I and “my” space are clean, translate to “I don’t like what a/any relationship would expect of me or vice versa? similar to how I can’t stand dust and other contaminants in “my” space? Do I feel I am pristine when I am by myself? I don’t know.

The thought of having nothing or nobody influence how I feel probably began way back in childhood. From the time I can remember, I resorted to banishing my sibling out of a shared room, compulsively cleaning it etc. My room also kept me insulated from other inhabitants in the house I grew up in, be it parents, my sibling or any relatives. It shielded me, it was my sanctuary of sorts. A sanctuary where I could dream, fantasise and be what I wanted to be, without knowing what I wanted to be. A sanctuary probably to just be.

The stark contrast between what is portrayed and what actually is, is not that subtle to grasp. It is quite overt. To quote from a gripping, indulging series (drama),
“People tell you who they are, but we ignore it - because we want them to be who we want them to be.” - Don Draper.

We want to stay delusional, feel like we matter, and will stop at nothing short of putting on a performance , an act, to portray as much.
We are absolutely fine deceiving others, and more insanely, deceiving ourselves. We weave narratives, influence perceptions, lie to ourselves. Often, we begin living that lie. An act that shielded us from judgement, is an act we put on for eternity.
Once a lie becomes an identity, we spare no time for the truth that actually is.

We convince ourselves that a lie that offers us validation, and a ton of sympathy, is in fact, our salvation from the suffering that the truth offers.

Relationships more often than not, be it love, familial or otherwise, is essentially two actors trying to wiggle enough room for their acts to triumph.

What would fitting in to a society that condones such arrangements then mean? Yes. I just did call relationships, arrangements. Some by choice, some enforced.

To me, being in an arrangement where the actor triumphs over the being is not being in anything at all. It is sacrilege. Delusional. Insane.

So Do I suffer because of the lack of numerous tethers to numerous platforms where I need to put on multiple acts? . Would the lack of such provisions institute a suffering at all?

Does Isolation then necessitate suffering?

While Isolation is something we crave with exposure to humanity as it exists, Being human also means we as vigorously crave connection too.
While Isolation promises autonomy, instinct craves connection. To reduce it to a tug of war between autonomy and connection is an understatement. Is it just that? is it more?

If we were to seek connection, it would be transactional. If connection were to simply emerge, that would squarely be delusional again.
Nonetheless, a connection, however formed, is utilitarian. The motivation would be that while isolation did provision for autonomy, we never know what to do with autonomy. We often choose to get back to pretence for a bit to “feel” like we exist, and our existence matters. We did exist in isolation too, probably in a more “self”-ish way even, but existence without an audience troubles us. So, we choose to surrender that autonomy for a bit to feel like we belong. And that feeling is only loaned via validation, which forms the premise for the connection.