I find myself betrayed by words. They always worked when I was young and too innocent to know of drugs or alcohol as an escape from reality. But just as the next-morning’s hang-over renders an evening of oblivion quite costly, so does the ensuing thump of existence when I turn the last page of a book or write the last word in a journal.
C.S. Lewis would answer that I am searching for perfection, that this discontent in a basically happy situation proves that the human heart was created for something which this life cannot satisfy. Camus would say that I am simply avoiding life’s ultimate absurdity. Machievelli asserts that life sucks: get over it and get the money while there is still time. Aristotle claims that words directed toward reason must eventually yield ultimate happiness insofar as reason is the goal of human nature.
I guess that I have to agree with Lewis. And that is why I am still Christian. Dissatisfaction seems to be an inherent aspect of human nature, so maybe I should get used to it. The books can only take me so far away, the pointe shoes can only distract me for so long, and the reality and weight of existence shall always wait for me at the end.
So I can wish someone lovely things and spin dreams of virtue and happiness for another’s potential life, but the visions won’t change the actuality. In the end, words mean little. Maybe even nothing. They are the reflection, rather than the embodiment of an ideal, and reflections are easily broken.
