A Clear Pool

Sometimes I wish I could disappear. It's strange that I feel that way at times when I am technically unseen. To disappear one would have to be seen, right? Maybe more than disappear I just want to fade. It's not that I wish to be seen by others and then become invisible. Other people are not really the problem. Fade seems like a more accurate term. Perhaps the idea of something solid withering away into nothing is more like the wish that I have at a time like this. I smell the incense burning and it makes me feel introspective. That inward gaze is the thing that I wish to be invisible to. I wish I could live my life without really looking at myself. I am envious that other people can forget and get away from me, when I am so inseparable from myself. To other people I can come in and out of their lives at any time, separating and rejoining with their company, off and on. But when I am alone, technically unseen, the only thing I have to look at it myself. That can be a kind...

Someone recently expressed their surprise at my tolerance for unfavorable situations. That person may or may not have meant it when they said they were a little envious of how tolerant I can be. Maybe to some extent tolerance and open-mindedness became the same thing to me over time. But if changes to your personality are things that you can feel surfacing from deep inside your guts, then this is something that is changing about me. When she said that, I felt a little flattered, because it took a lot of work and pain to become like this. I thought that it was a kind of earned trait, something I worked hard for. But I told her that I envy her personality just as much... because this kind of tolerance is something that continuously causes suffering in my life. There is a quote that says: Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional. I've realized from a young age, maybe I was born knowing, that pain is something that can not be avoided. If you fall, it hurts... that's just a...