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INTEREST

Having no interest in anything can make life pretty gloomy. How can someone be so empty, so constantly tired? Passion, interests, happiness, and joy all seem like foreign concepts to me. What does excitement feel like? I have totally forgotten. It is either my emotions are dead or they are lost in a place where I can’t reach. There is something that is absent in my mind and there are only two options: I find it or I do not. Follow me on this journey of mind exploration and self-rediscovery , at least until I lose interest in it. Welcome to The Mind of Kiel.

Lonely Music for a Lonely Mind on a Lonely Night

I have nothing but thoughts to keep me company and even though the nearest human is barely 10 meters away, nothing is as interesting as the thoughts in my head, packets of data moving at speed of light through my synapses. Thinking of lovers who do not exist, pining for ex-lovers I never had, having fun with friends who exist solely in my imaginations. Even though I keep etching loneliness into my mind, my head is the only place I feel alive, the real world doesn’t compare at all so why should I spend more time than necessary here. My head is the only place where I am not judged, it is the only place where I am truly free.

THE 16TH OF JULY

Today is my twenty-first birthday but I do not think that it is worth celebrating. My existential crisis started to creep up on me just before my twentieth birthday. I spent the previous year feeling like shit and even though I’m on the path to recovery, I still have bad days when everything seems bleak.

During the past year, I committed a lot of mistakes, many of which are too late to rectify, I lost relationships that are hard for me to get back, I abandoned responsibilities that used to mean a whole lot to me. I dumped religion. I have lied to myself and others around me. I lived my greatest fear (being average) because I couldn’t think, there was constant cloudiness in my head and any attempt at more than superficial thoughts only led to splitting headaches. It was a hell of a year even though it had a lot of lows.


Honestly, I had some wins too but it was difficult to feel happy about them. I will highlight those that I can remember:

  • I became the team leader of my student organization
  • I participated in the United Nations Millennium Fellowship, class of 2019
  • I passed all of my exams and got some of my best scores despite my low level of preparedness, there were some courses I started reading just a night to the exam.
  • I participated in a research work that will soon be published. A crucial step forward on my career path
  • I met some of the people I look up to and was able to get guidance from them.

Those are the wins that I can remember at this time and there were some losses that impacted me greatly, those included relationships with people, and being abandoned and betrayed did a number on me. I’m not going to highlight my Ls. I’ve learned a lot from them but it’s healthy to leave them in the past where they belong as long as I’ve learned my lessons from them. The most important lesson I’ve learned is that “EVERYBODY LEAVES“.

Everybody leaves, even if they were the ones to tell you to lower your walls and let them in and that they will be there for you. That’s a lie because they will leave you hanging and move on without a second thought. That doesn’t make them bad people, it is just how life is and I have come to terms with that. Entanglements are something you can’t avoid but it doesn’t have to leave you broken.

Some of the things I wish to achieve this year is to increase my emotional intelligence (EQ), it is a problem I have had for a while and it got worse last year. I tried avoiding it by taking emotions away from the workplace and make everyone focus on the job because it is something that had to be done and not because they love it or anything, it’s just something that needed to be done. That didn’t end so well. Commitment to the organization took a massive dip as people won’t turn up for organization events and productivity reduced too. That system of leadership is not one that works and learning how to work with emotions is an important skill I have to learn.

I also need to learn how to check up on people and keep in touch with them. I have been informed many times by friends and family that I only call people when I need them. I don’t see anything wrong with that because that’s how it works with me. I don’t have a lot of social energy and I love being alone but when someone needs me, I’ll show up for them even though we may not have spoken for a long time. I’ve learned that not everyone thinks as I do, so I have to do better in that aspect because the world’s greatest currency is people, and having a good network is of utmost importance.

This is getting too long for me. On this blog, I have only been posting the dark thoughts in my mind as I confront them but from now on this blog will also feature my opinions (Yes! I have those even though it’s becoming a crime in this age) on social issues, my love of music and some reviews of my favorite songs and how they connect with me, my random ideas and musings. This blog is about my mind and my mind is the most chaotic and most beautiful place in the world and I will express It here. Thanks to my pseudo-therapist Latoria (even though you might not get to read this), you’ve done a lot for me.

FEAR MEETS MISERY

One of the things that mess me up the most is rejection. Rejection from friends, would-be lovers, parents, and even organizations. Rejection sucks; it leaves me feeling like I’m not good enough, like I’m never going to be good enough. Rejection is definitely one of those things that paved my way to this ledge I’m trying not to jump off. After facing rejection multiple times, I developed a way to avoid rejection, a seemingly foolproof plan. I decided to not put myself in any position where there is a risk of rejection, no matter how low that risk is. I avoided relationships, I ignored conversations until I’m invited to join, I stopped applying for grants and scholarships. I pretty much stayed by myself and I didn’t experience rejection but what I experienced was worse. Even though I escaped from that painful sting of rejection, I placed myself into the slowly boiling pot of misery. Misery had become second nature to me before I could figure out that I’m in a worse place than where I left. Compared to me, The Grinch is the spirit of Christmas.

I’ve been told many times to go out more; I do go out but with my headphones plugged and my hoodie over my face so nobody can see me. Meeting new people became a job that rivals the herculean tasks and conversing with other people felt like a waste of time because all I wanted was to be alone, in my safe space. I’m not making any promises to deal with my fear of rejection right now but I definitely want to get out of this misery. I want to be happy, but how to achieve happiness continues to elude me.

PRESSURE

To be completely honest, I place quite an unfair amount of pressure on myself. It is true that I have always thought that I am the best at everything I do and that I knew a lot of things but right now, I have come to realize that I know next to nothing. The awareness of my lack of knowledge prompted a full-blown existential crisis coupled with a massive dip in confidence and self-esteem. Battling depression and holding the fragments of my life together has left me a shadow of my former self. Presently, instead of being fully focused on recovering, I am filled with anxiety about how long it will take to get my life back on track; I get worried anytime I am being surpassed by other people and the worry increases when I see them achieving goals I have set out for myself while I seem to be making no progress.

The right steps to take will be for me to close myself to the news that worries me, take a break from the internet and use the time to actually learn the things I thought I knew and many other things too. However, it is hard to learn when there is a constant ache in your head and a hole in your stomach that nothing seems to fill, when it feels like the world is pressing down on you with the full might of its weight and getting out of bed requires double the amount of energy a footballer expends running round the pitch for 90 minutes. Life is hard and I really do hope that it becomes easier.