brent steenbergen

the contemplation of existence

So today I go to the shops to get a mothers day present. I fucking hate shops, and so this quickly turned from what would be a good present to how can i make everyone else in this place disappear  I felt like I needed some form of sensory deprivation. So there is this problem i am doing something I hate so I can spend money at a place I hate so that they can continue to make more of the things I hate, and if i don’t do it I’m an asshole for not getting a present.

So later in the day I head out to a look out area, and i get out of the car and look across the sea, then over at Newcastle, head down some stair and look out to the sea again. And through it all i was just contemplating existence  and it got me wondering, where are all the others, why am I the only one out here. It can’t be because I am the only one, there must be more, but where. I feel like thoughts like this can only be achieved with the expansive view that only high places provide, so where are the others.

I looked to the sky then, and as my eyes hit they barrier of blue, i came to the conclusion that what i am really seeing, by only looking at the sky, is an area that we can only truly perceive as an infinity.

It is a land of what, opportunity, yeah i guess it is, and for that it is. It is a land of hope, a land of dreams, of of lives we want to lead, of people we want to be, places we want to live, food we want to eat, clothes we want to wear, in these respects it is, and that is a problem.

Its all the future, things we see ourselves as in the future, we will get there one day, i will be like them one day.

But we won’t, we never will be, we are below what we want, and somehow we always are, because what we want always grows with who we are. its a problem of the land and with us.

It is a land of false hope, a land of a carrot on a stick, and we know this, but we don’t care, or we pretend not to notice, because we want the carrot.

Amanda Palmer said it well.

It’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I’ve just forgotten how to see
That I am not exactly the person that I thought I’d be

But that’s not what I want
But that’s what I wanted
And I’d be giving up somehow
How strange to see
That I don’t wanna be the person that I want to be

I don’t think i want the carrot, and in a world where most don’t want the carrot the world would be better and i would be happy. But everyone wants the carrot, and by the way it all works that puts me at a disadvantage.

So i have to pretend to want the carrot, and its funny, the way it ends up. A false dream in a land of false hope, the problem is, the rewards will be false as well.

fake paranoia

recently i have had this feeling, this feeling of fear and anger an regret and a multitude of other emotions. it is this feeling of fake paranoia. i get this feeling like i have done something so terribly terribly wrong, and someone is so so close to figuring out what it is, or so so close to catching me. but i have done nothing (maybe thats the problem) and there is no state in which they can catch me in the act for there is no act. there is nothing. and yet, its there. these uneasy feelings, these butterflys in the stomach. maybe its a precursor, a sign into what is to come. i hope not, for then i will have a reason to actually fear, to actually be angry, but worst of all, to actually feel the regret.
regret is strange, it is one of the few emotions that somehow manages to sneak into our lives when it wants, and it is the only thing that truly haunts us, and everyone around us equally. its this feeling of blood flowing through the veins, for it starts in the chest, and as you think about the events that you regret, it continues through the body working its ways to the fingertips, as i write it is in my forearms. why, why is it there, is it the fake paranoia, or is it the already nervousness and regret, however minimal, that is already felt from what is said in the lines above, even tough to an extent they are already forgotten. that regret, seeping into the present from the past of events we forget. its just there. thats all it is. just there.

we dont like to be fully understood

Miles:I don’t get you

Alaska:That’s the whole point

i think we all have a bit of this in us, we hold back secrets form people so they dont understand us entirely, but we want them to use what they know to understand, which doesnt always work. i think in this was we want to be gotten but not by giving, but we still dont want to be fully gotten, we want some at some point for someone to say “i dont get you”. we want some form of inner being that only we see and understand, at least to some degree.

think about it, there are things about you, however minor that only you know, and only you will ever know, no matter how close you get to some one, there will always be those small yet significant secrets, all in the hopes that no one can say “i get you” in the way that they know all.