Insomnia and Unsavory Internet Prowling

As much as I loathe "the internet" (with the obligatory quotation marks, as this is a concept that --I know, eye-roll inducing-- is a huge one that I cannot succinctly wrap up without sounding like the Unabomber's successor and a gigantic hypocrite- yes, this is a blog, I know) I have become one of its late night drifters. I imagine it in alternating metaphors: it is a lonely diner, with flickering lights and bitter coffee, populated by sallow waitresses and society's flannel-clad detritus; now, the recesses of the ocean, where only grim-faced predators stir. Or perhaps a dark stretch of road, where the only light to be glimpsed is the stark twin beams of your own headlights, consistently illuminating nothing. 

And yet, here I am. Moment after moment. Cradling my computer. Staring into its screen, laid out on my bed, blank-eyed and possibly drooling. As if I may, sifting through the endless, exclamatory shit, divine something inspiring, sensational, transcendent. What am I looking for? I am looking for diversion, sure. News, sometimes. Interaction, ehh, perhaps. But really, I am looking for reassurance. Direction. Answers.

Big concepts, these. Which is why I, and so many others, believe we may pry them from their ethereal, abstract vapor and conjure them into real-ness. Actuality. We have become obsessed with ourselves, of course, but also with others. If we scroll through enough photos of others' events, others' self-documentation, we will find ourselves to be creative enough, exciting enough, unique enough, inspiring enough, beautiful enough but also- normal enough. What arithmetic this is, what complex calculus of self-inventory and projection divided by another's avatar. 

It is a big lie. I am a freak, and so are you. We are all uncompromisingly, relentlessly weird. Nobody can relieve you from your you-ness, the burden of your own odd bundle of preferences, revulsions, desires, aspirations, and terrors. We seek relief from our own internal freakshow by staring at the habits, projections, facades-- the composed realities-- of others. A mosaic of mutually confirmed prosaic normalcy. 

Somebody recently told me I needed to be okay with being weird. I don't think this person had any idea how profoundly their statement, said as an aside, impacted me. It was a matter-of-fact statement. A command to stop the burlesque of being something I'm not. It was relieving, to be called out summarily and without any to-do at all, and instructed to desist in the smoke-and-mirrors act of being bland.

What does any of this have to do with the internet? Simple: I stare at it trying to find myself somewhere. Because all the forces I feel, everything I conduct, my million aspirations-- I am striving to find the blueprint without taking risks. The route without the action. I am trying to find, in the crystal ball of today, my calling, my future, myself. 

Here's where I am: in my parents' plush guest bedroom, with a swollen face, posted up following a long overdue removal of my wisdom teeth. I can feel the congealing atop the four caverns in my mouth, and my tongue is tempted to explore them, to push the healing clots aside and bleed. I am, rationally, resisting this urge. I am shouting into the diner, the ocean, the dark road.

I am, always, hoping for something to materialize from these depths. Something to relieve my insomnia and my doubt. To rise up from all the disparate metaphors and take shape, to be real.