I can I know

Stuck. What do you do when the walls of motivation are closing in tight, crushing, not stopping, and you are on the wrong side of them. You’re not sad. You’re stuck. You’re not depressed, you just can’t move. And the inability to move feeds into everything you are trying to run away from. The walls get closer, tighter. You’re good. You’re numb. You’re paralyzed. That’s not good. But you are good. Just don’t think. Don’t move. Barely breathe. But also take the deepest breath you can. Inhale. While you still have the chance. Feel the crushing tightness and let what happens happen. Because it’s happening anyway. Don’t think. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. It’s the only way. If you stay perfectly still, then the walls won’t see you and you can stay safely inside the minuscule space between concrete and concrete and concrete. If you move, you’ll be flattened. If you stay perfectly still, the walls will eventually lose interest and begin to expand again. If you move, you’ll be crushed alive.

Sometimes the only way to be is to convince yourself that nothing truly matters. In the sense that nothing you feel and nothing you do has any real impact on the world at large and therefore is not worth losing energy over. You say to yourself, I am not a person and what I feel does not matter. Nobody cares and neither do I. Is this good advice? Absolutely it is not. It is terrible advice. But it works. I am not a person. I do not feel shame. I do not feel good. I do not feel bad. No thoughts. No shame. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Sometimes the only way to be is to convince yourself you do not matter at all. Sometimes, the only way you survive is by letting yourself believe terrible things. If you stay perfectly empty, then the people won’t see you and you can stay safely inside the minuscule space between shame and shame and shame. If you feel, they’ll get you. If you stay perfectly empty, the worst will eventually pass you by and you’ll be free to be human again. If you feel, you’ll be crushed alive.

There is another option. There is always another option. What if you don’t care what others think without losing your own entire self in the process. When the walls are closing in. When nothing you do can possibly matter because you are zero percent in control. What if, in fact, you are still in control but only just of yourself and nothing else. You’re good, or you’re not. You feel shame, or you don’t. The details don’t matter as much as what you do with them. Sometimes, the best way to be is to feel all of the things and don’t stop moving. If you stay perfectly still, you get lost in the space between who you are now, who you used to be before, and who you can be one day in the future. If you move, you learn to get up again when you’re crushed. If you stay perfectly empty, you get stuck in the space between knowing and doing and learning and growing. If you feel, it’ll be the most painful thing you’ve ever done. And then you’ll do it again, and again, and again. You become alive.