If one day before I die, I can feel like I belong in this world. Every day, I feel so different than everyone else. I feel ashamed for being alive much of the time. Like I was cursed long ago before I was born and everyone who comes in contact with me is cursed as well. Not fun.
All the swagger in the world, bucket lists, bragging rights cannot take away this pain. No amount of running or weight lifting makes the emptiness of life meaningful, makes the absolute loneliness worthwhile. This solitude remains even with friends. Sorrow sweet as raspberries in
Greek yogurt with honey, without the taste, the flavor of enjoyment, burned away with all the wretched mistakes of childhood, held over my head like Damocles sword for three decades. 'Accountability' is a word I abhor, used against me to always remember my past mistakes, to never
grow up and become a man, be okay with who I am in this life, a life I did not choose but was chosen for me, in many respects by others. I do not blame anyone for this life of boredom and utter disappointment in myself as a person, as a man. I am a failure in every respect, a lie
created from a seed before my birth. No amount of yoga, affirmations, self-love can make this devil go away. No amount of religion, reading books, going to church, temple, meditation can pluck the roots of this tree of sorrow. Hopelessness becomes an atomic bomb detonating always
at ground zero, my character effaced a thousand times becomes a silhouette against a wall. Suffering is a natural effect of living in a world filled with sorrow. This world becomes a nihilist's playground, but schadenfreude is no solution to the problem of never belonging. Peace.
No length of psychotherapy session can ever cure or give to me a sense of solace, comfort or consolation. I have become an obsolete machine, useless and defective as a person. Other machines disregard my presence, sensing the dysfunction of my being. I belong nowhere forevermore.
Simply put I am but a foreigner in a foreign land, nowhere can I call home, no place is not strange, I, the stranger to others who convey hegemony over the landscape, proprietary rights wherever they go, this is their land, the land of their fathers. Infiltrate. Manifest destiny.
Even if I return to India, I am a foreigner in my homeland. To Indians, I am American. To Americans, I am a stranger. My racial profile being neither black, nor white, nor Hispanic, nor Latino, nor indigenous first nations person, nor Asian, but South Asian or Goan, non-existent
as categories go for scholarships. Ethnicity informs my character mostly by how others view me, not black, not white, but brown, foreign, other, stranger, yet assimilated, American. No one sees me as different or special, deserving of financial assistance. I believe self-reliance
and the privilege of my birth and station will allow me to enjoy this one life to the fullest. I know my character and personality are somewhat rare in that I don't fit in well with others. I must let go of constructs that defeat my goals before I reach for the front door. Peace.
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