I had a feeling that I could not express. I felt it creep up as I walked down to the lake near my house. It is a spot that I avoid, especially at night. I have bad memories of my visits there. I had only visited it when I was brooding, and the lake is the perfect place to brood.
Is it desperation? Or loneliness? Neither pinpoints it exactly. There is a feeling that grips me, as I stand on the gravel drive that descends towards the shore, steep enough that it seems to drive right into the water.
The wind is overpowering. It gusts across the whole expanse, funneled into this little gravel drive by the surrounding low, dense thicket. I get the feeling like I am standing in front of an ocean-sized aquarium, and a wall has just broken, and the weight of all the water is smashing against me.
I cant see anyone else, and though there are houses that overlook the lake, I get the feeling that there is no one else in the world, just me and the ripples in the lake that never end.
Tonight I went there, because I was walking around the neighborhood, and passed so close to the lake I could almost see it, but then was seized with dull dread. As if it could ruin my mood for the night, just standing on its edge.
I went almost on a dare with myself. I felt that I was in control of my mind, there was no need to avoid a certain environment, just because I was afraid of its influence on me.
But I felt it, when I stood there, that feeling. And now, I can't even remember my emotional state before.
Tonight I saw one pair of headlights in the distance, and I felt briefly ashamed of my romanticism. Whoever that other person was, where they also coming to the lake and brooding, staring across its waters from the other side? Or were they teenagers, escaping to an isolated place to explore each other's bodies, completely oblivious to the lake?
Was I just inventing this feeling?
I didn't feel that it came from me. I felt like it was a feeling that originated outside myself, from the environment itself.
I was wrong, I am not in control. I was wrong to even try to control. The environment can change my mindset; it can wholly determine it. Whatever the reason - maybe some cue set by evolution - that lake, with that wind, and those ripples, and the sense of sheer vastness, makes me feel...
It isn't necessarily bad. That was why I succumbed to it, and stood there for some time. I even indulged in it. It felt like the thing to do in that moment: take it in, even enjoy it. I need not rush to bliss and happiness all the time - there is pleasure in nostalgic pain, triumph in loneliness.
Yes; that's the perfect phrase; I've found it: triumphant loneliness. A celebration of supreme isolation. With the lake spread out beneath me, and the dense thicket both to the side and below, I feel that I have just conquered a world that is abandoned. An empty victory, but a victory nonetheless.
****
Perhaps this speaks more about me than I've let on. I have recently been turning my attention towards financial goals.
Pursuing financial goals is necessarily a solitary task. It may be done in the presence of others, even involving others, but it accomplishes only one individual's goals - yours.
Even if your job requires you to talk to many people in a day, can those interactions really be compared to true social interaction? How many genuine moments of human empathy does one actually experience in a typical workday, or a week, or even in a year?
The rest of the moments - you might as well be talking to robots, that simply resemble human beings.
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