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DorianP — A Warning from the Other Side
Published: 2007-02-04 22:43:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 81; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
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“I will never really change, unless the pain fades away.”That’s what I knew on a dreary February afternoon. After hundreds of pointless attempts to change the world, I decided I had to do something about myself, in order to create some kind of balance in the very core of my existence.
So I decided not to care anymore. I decided to go through the moves every day, but I should never ever feel again, never even think again. And if I thought, accidentally, I should only care for my own material well-being.
I have cared about others before. They’re now broken, not even caricatures of the people, the humans, they once were. And all I got in return for trying to help people and trying to mean something for them, was bitter tears at first and later on either plain indifference or even anger.
So I decided not to care anymore. I decided to become one with the crowd and keep my horizon as narrow as possible. I built myself a half-decent life, with a half-decent job and half-decent friends, and I did not think. I drowned myself into the stupefying pounding rhythm of everyday life, and I was ok with it. I did not love it, nor did I hate it. I didn’t love or hate anything at all, actually. Both love and hate are painful, and if there was one thing I had promised myself to avoid at all costs, it’s pain.
So I decided not to care anymore. I decided so much, and my new way of life worked out perfectly.
I don’t think, I don’t feel and I do not yearn, until the moment I close my eyes and sleep overtakes me. At that moment, all promises and decisions are like ants in the avalanche of dreams, and all pains, desires and anger return to the surface once again.
In my dreams, I even love.
And for excruciating hours, I am being tortured by the very pain I suppress so successfully by day. I can see the faces of those I used to care about: I am at the center of a circle, and from all sides I hear the maddening cries of all the people I failed.
They say that I failed them by changing myself, but can’t they see? Can’t they see that it’s so much easier my way? In broad daylight, I would be able to simply ignore them, but right now it hurts… it hurts so much… As if all the pain I suppress by day returns with a vengeance at night. And I wonder. Why can’t I resist them? Why can’t I stop the thoughts and emotions in my dreams? I can only cry with them, torn between anger at my torturers and sadness for the failure I have become.
Lately, it is also happening when I’m not asleep anymore. In the crowd I want to be part of, I recognize the faces of long past. They stalk me, talk to me, smile at me and threaten me, and everything starts to hurt like in my dreams.
I really can only hope there is someone out there right now who hears my cries, for I am, to my misfortune, still human.
Because this I know for sure: I will never really change, unless the pain fades away.
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Comments: 13
Wow! Rillingen hier...
Het is pakkend. Iets wat je niet wil dat je zelf zou doen, maar stiekem gebeurt het toch, vaak zonder dat je daar zelf voor kiest. Dit stuk is als een vinger op de zere plek. Goed. Meer!
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Meer? Dat zeggen andere mensen ook, maar het probleem is dat ik het niet altijd wil. Dat de vinger op de zere plek is geldt helaas ook voor mijzelf. Dus tja, ik weet niet of en wanneer ik meer van dit soort dingen ga schrijven, het is teveel een confrontatie met mezelf.
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Misschien proberen onderwerpen te nemen die niet zozeer voor jou een zere plek raken, maar misschien wel bij anderen?
Of schrijf je juist zo raak omdat het jou ook raakt?
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Ik ben bang voor het laatste, ja. Zelfs al raakt iets me niet direct, dan nog weet ik me er wel zodanig in te verplaatsen dat ik mezelf soms bang maak
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You know, what strikes me in this is the fact that you have somehow managed to ironically exchange the experiances of reality and dreams. In day light we feel various emotions and go through different experiances both good and bad. But when we retire to bed at night (ideally) we are supposed to rest.. to forget.. to block it out and sleep. What happened to your fictional self seems to have done the opposite.. which is very intresting.
I don't know if we are capable of blocking emotions, but God, sometimes I wish i could. But i do know that in many times we do pretend.. we pretend we don't care and we pretend it doesn't hurt.. and that, i know, is our human fear of being hurt.
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And that is also what the main character is doing here. He tries and pretends, even manages to convince himself, but does not actually succeed.
Oh, and my dreams are often a lot more confusing and various than my daily life 
Thanks for taking the time to read and post such a well-thought comment!
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Your most welcome. It was a pleasure to read your writing (again). You have a unique style that seems to not bore me, which is saying something
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Thank you so much! Wow, don't know what to say on this...
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Perhaps the key word here is "change".
The speaker has enforced a change within himself, by consciously shutting out all external references or supporters to his happiness.
Now I believe in change, but not when it's not backed up by sincerity and innate potential. You can set yourself unrealistic and unrewarding goals, and even seemingly achieve them, but if the "new you" is incompatible with who you truly are, then you're bound to snap back, as the speaker here does in his dreams, and eventually also while awake. "Change" might be best described, perhaps, as "increased adherence to the Self". And change which takes us further away from our Selves will only lead to problems, and eventually, a reversion to the old ways, prior to the change.
Good piece, Dorian, and very smoothly written. Nice and cohesive, although I find it hard to see this as anything other than a Journal, albeit it one which takes on the guise of a first-person narrative.
Greetz'n'hugz
Jo (Just)
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May I remind you once again that this is not autobiographic? This is a Dorian that is broken in a way I will never be. It is written in one subconscious "session". I only altered it a bit to make it more cohesive.
It was my aim to present you people an attitude that is wrong in every aspect, and still present it like it's a real option. This is only to stress how bad it really is. It is not the way I am, it is the way I do not want people to be, even though I can see it around me too often.
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Ouch. This hurts. This gives me knot in my stomach. It's too close to my own experiences.
I never took a conscious decision not to care anymore, but when I started the quest into my own mind, I realized "nevermore to feel the pain" is the one big goal of my life, to which all other objectives are second. So on the one hand I can fully understand the narrative ego's decision, on the other hand I full-heartedly disagree. I think the point where I deeply disagree is the decision not to care anymore about people, to care about nothing than his/her material well-being.
You've described that very well, how the shadows and suppressed emotions come back in dreams and nightmares to haunt him. That's where this attempt will end up, because emotions don't come with an OFF switch.
I'm not quite sure whether the change is desired, and the n.e. deems riddance of the pain necessary for the desired change, or whether he refuses to change before the pain fades. Is getting rid of the pain a means to achieve change, or is change a means to avoid pain? In the crucial sentence, the first and the last one, riddance of the pain is presented as a prerequisite to change, while in the course of the text it becomes obvious that he has changed to avoid pain. Which didn't work out, the pain came back with a vengeance. The whole thing sounds to me like he got himself caught in a vicious circle: Unable or refusing the change before the pain fades away, but the strategy he pursues now only multiplies his pain.
This story reminds me nastily of my own dreams of despair: Accusations and rejection I could not understand filled me with pain and despair, instilled in me the desire to change myself in order to please others and finally be loved and accepted by them. Which never worked out and only added to my pain and despair. (And that is the pain I never want to feel again, and yet feel all the time.)
The next never deals with where the n.e.'s pain originated from. I suppose the n.e. doesn't care and just wants to get rid of it. Neither does it become clear wherein his failure lies. Did he fail those people by not caring anymore? Or had he failed them before, possibly causing his pain in the first place?
The n.e. wonders why he can't stop the pain at night - but I, as a reader, wonder how he could stop his emotions during daytime. I believe it's just not possible, and you can only pretend that you don't care. I think it requires a great deal of lying to yourself, but the n.e. genuinely seems to believe he stopped caring during daytime. A strategy that obviously doesn't work out. However, the n.e. is "unrepentant", he doesn't regret his decision and regrets being human instead. His armor is failing, but he doesn't notice, maybe lies to himself here as well, lying to himself it is easier that way.
His attitude is failing, but very consistent in itself. The only odd thing here is his hope for someone who hears his cries. The admittance of yearning for someone, even though he's stopped yearning according to an earlier sentence. An introduction to the admittance of being human, with feelings, yearnings, and desires?
The unrepentant attitude makes it hard for me as a reader to identify with the n.e. because I see how his strategy is failing. I even feel a touch of "serves him right" instead of empathy about his suffering. That might have been your intention as author, to reach the reader via the portrayal of his drastic stubbornness, rather than identification with the main character. The warning clearly comes from you as the author, not from the n.e. since he hasn't reflected his strategy and its results to a point where he would issue a warning against it.
My comment has become a weird hybrid of a reply and text analysis. You've really hit a nerve with that text, and that is good. About things to improve, I could only tell the n.e. to change his attitude ;] don't know anything to improve about the text. I feel Fiction > Perspectives might be a better category, it's not really what I would call a horror story. The main character experiences some horrible, hard-to-bear emotions, but it doesn't instill fear in the reader.
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Many thoughts on this one. Will reply later, ok?
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Alright. I wrote this long comment in one big stream of subconscious writing without caring much about cohesiveness - very much like you wrote the original piece
And with my rambling thoughts the result is very incoherent indeed ;]
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