Guideposts

I prefer having good friends with high intelligence. I never wanted to get married because I knew I’d become bored with the same partner year after year. Or maybe I’m just an introvert and prefer solitude? I have loved a few people in my life. I know I am different from most people in being androgynous. Maybe less so than I think. Social norms and rituals make us feel like we have to jump all the same hurdles. The honest person struggles with that more than others. It seems to me that schizophrenia is a symptom of modern life. It is a mirror held up to society, and it seems to say, This is you. The thing I like about Anne Sexton is how honest she is about feeling lost and helpless. She begs for a world where people can just spill their guts and admit to being weak and human. It could be that schizophrenia is a little like that. Sexton contemplated religious conversion, but had to confess that believing is not the same as needing to believe… When we are honest, not one of us fits the round holes of society perfectly. So we do the best we can. Some of us write about our lives in hopes of broadening the human reality. Of raising consciousness. The better we write, the better the guideposts we leave behind.

Advertisement