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Sometimes I imagine that I am in a bubble. More specifically, the bubble is more like a cocoon, closing me off from the outside world and vice versa. I imagine that I would be safe in my bubble, my cocoon, and that no strife, nothing at all, could touch me in this bubble. In the bubble, I am Buddha, and the hard shell around me is my nirvana.
In real life, there is no bubble and no hiding place at all, no running. Please do not misunderstand. My life is not bad, and I have no reason to complain, not really. I am not starving, there is no war here, and life is no worse for me than it is for the average person. But. But. But. It is hard to explain why I want to be in this bubble when everything looks just fine.
There is thirst. What for? I do not know exactly. It is the thirst for something I have not yet tasted. Sometimes at night, when everyone around me is fast asleep and I get dressed to go running, I feel like the thirst is a little less intense. The cool air and the relative silence, the loneliness combined with the way my body feels when I can just run and run is like a drug or like a haven or like a dream.
There is longing. This happens when I stop and raise my head up to the sky. I cannot see it, and I do not know it, but I know that there is something there that I long for. It feels a little like being homesick.
There is regret. Things I did or did not do. Decisions that seemed right at one time and turned out to be wrong, words that grew hard and bitter long after I had spoken them. Chances I had but never took, burning a nagging ‘What if?’ onto my uneasy mind. Words I never dared speak, small at the time but giants now that live in my breast and feed on my innards. It makes me think of what a prison must be like.
There is loneliness. My thoughts in my head. Other people with their own thoughts in theirs, and even though we can talk, we don’t quite have the skill to really convey meaning. But without meaning, what is there? Just one set of thoughts next to another and nothing else. And nothing more.
For all these reasons, I wish I could be in that bubble. In the bubble, I would know a peace that I cannot even contemplate here. In the bubble, I would lose my thirst and my longing, forget about regret and loneliness.
The only thing I fear about the bubble is that there could be something, something really meaningful, irreplaceable, something truly singular, outside of it.
