Meaninglessness

I was on my way to this friend's party to celebrate his birthday, promotion, and, the multimillion dollar grant that he just got awarded...

So I took M4, got off at around 59th street on Park Avenue, walked down to 57th street where there is the cross town bus that would take me right across the street from the restaurant...

Yet, as I strolled down 57th street, I decided to walk instead for each every step I made brought me a bit closer to 1st avenue and made the concept of taking the bus a bit more strange.... even though I still have the free transfer on my Metrocard... 8-O lol

As I inched away, I glanced through the shops....

Expensive stuffs... even with the buy one get one free discount...

I thought of those people who might frequent these shops and make their purchase for the leisure of the act of purchasing or make their purchase for the sake of making the purchase...

Yet, I did not really feel jealous thinking that some people could afford them... for I don't see the need for having any of those...

Then, I thought of how this really wealthy person that I know of who, despite of his wealth, unfortunately and tragically, cut his own life short... by, I think, mistake...

I thought, perhaps, it is much more difficult for people to accept the meaninglessness in life when they have more because.... how could all that they have amounted to be of no meaning?

And, I thought, perhaps, it is really a bless for me to have nothing much except for all them minor annoyances in life so far.... It is because there seems to be a shorter psychological distance between the concept of having nothing and meaningless when comparing to that between the notion of having many, if not every, things and meaninglessness.... lesser degree of cognitive dissonance, I guess, at least for me... 8-O lol

Then, much later, when I was chatting with this really nice and, comparing to me and perhaps many others, a very well-to-do lady... working in a good paying field, must have gotten her Green card and a few publications as well in her field...

Yet, she looked tired and seemed very burnt out by her living context and reality...

Since she was no stranger to the field of psychiatry, I was hinting to her the possibility of seeking some professional help... Yet, for her, such doesn't seem to be an option...

That led me to one choice.... retelling an old story of a part of my life...

The struggling to move beyond walking more than 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc steps at a time without having to stop...

The struggling to live till the day to come when the nerve pains would become "manageable"...

And, the various attempts I made as I kept on trying to get back to work.... while having to drop out of work again and again because, such, simply, my body couldn't handle... squandering away a whole year of the prime time in my life...

So I jokingly said to her....

"Think about it.... there is always someone else's life that is much worse off... mine for example..." 8-O lol

All them elaborations finally won me a laugh from her...

Yet, I know... that joke could only carry her this far...

At the end of her day, it is dependent on her to decide the kind of measures she is willing take to bring herself out of her existing worldview... (while, of course, what I really saw in her was a version of me years ago before I even went psycho... and, given my thought disorder, God knows whether my perceptions and interpretations are real.... 8-O lol)

Then, just when I was typing them words us... it occurred to me again....

Maybe, all the meaningless nothingness I had to go through did serve a purpose... at least, the dark comedy version of my narration did, however temporal it might be, illicit her genuine laughter and smile.... In other words, thank to her laughter, she had added some meaning to my greatest nothingness of all... 8-O lol

And, I thought of the pencil....