Communication Breakdown

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

What is it when the monotony of life gets at you? What happens when you feel like your stuck in an endless cycle of daily tasks and the same conversation with the same people- the sort of people that say so much and nothing at all?

People will tell you, society will tell you that it’s life and you just need to suck it up. Life is painful and you just have to deal with it- just like the rest of us. Why do you think the drug problems are increasing at an exponential rate and have been so for the last 3 decades, why the pubs and bars seem to be more and more full come the weekend and the fear of the next lockdown is driving anxiety levels in the country higher than ever before.

It’s easy to feel like your losing it. I often think part of this feeling is in the balance society is trying to strike towards our obedience. About how we are supposed to just “suck it up.” They communicate what they want us to believe, to feel, to love- and we obey. Chase this thing, work towards that goal, make sure you’ve done this by then, if you don’t do that there must be something wrong. And so on…

This is the way the world communicates these days. Either through shouting and telling you that you’re wrong without offering any sort of explanation, or just not at all. Fuck up and i’ll come and tell you how much of an idiot you are later. It often feels like the latter is used more, because it feels as if your life has been written out for you before you take your first breath.

“Have this by then..”

“why haven’t you done that yet?…”

“if you haven’t done that- what have you been doing?..”

It goes on, but even thinking about it is just draining. The world doing all it can to weigh you down and write you off, this pursuit for you to be nothing more than a statistic, to not cause problems, to do as your told and tell everyone how great it is this way.

So what is it? What makes this feeling that something is missing when you find yourself just going through the motions? As i understand it, at the heart of it is a communication breakdown. Between you and society? No.

Between you and you.

The part of you that is presented to the world, the conscious aspects of your personality are very easily influenced by the pull of the “easy route,” of the pull that is “falling into line.”We are pulled to this because we look at other people and think they are happy- so will imitate them in an attempt to get that good dose of happiness we think we want so badly. We think moments will rectify our lives, the achievement of that goal will mean life can really get “started.”

Yet, in the vast chasm of our obsessive consciousness, so lost in trying to figure out to be happy, be rich, to have women in your bed or keys in your pocket, there is something else, a calling, a voice, a niggle you are just unable to ignore. Some call it a soul, a voice inside your head, or perhaps in contrast to consciousness, the unconsciousness.

I know this is a vague term. Frankly- all three of them are. What is that feeling though? Things are going well, your job is manageable, you’re trying to be sociable and as present as you can. You continue to work towards your goals and have a general idea of how you intend to progress and eventually achieve them. As it stands, you have nothing to feel upset, sad or depressed about- from the outside. From the outside people would and do assume your happy with how things are.

I’ve waxed lyrically about all sorts of things over the years, but this has always played at me. Like a voice in my head screaming, shouting, doing all it can to attract my attention. A persistent and sinking feeling i was missing something, so close to me yet so far away, hidden just beneath the surface of what felt familiar.

It eats at me, however hard I run, it persists- just behind my eyes. It’s corrosive.

Except it’s not. It’s a communication breakdown.

The person you want to be, the way you want to feel, what you want to achieve and the legacy you want to leave lives just beneath the surface, the aspects of your unconscious personality you don’t think the world should see because you’re scared the world will try and take it out of you, that you wont have as many friends or because you won’t be accepted. You fear the opinions of others, so keep your true nature locked away, hidden beneath the surface and do all you can to break ties, to breakdown the communication between what you see and all that you don’t- even if its mentally exhausting because the alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.

Take music for example. If a guitar string isn’t properly connected at the top and bottom of the instrument, would you be able to play that instrument properly? Would the great musicians and lyricists of the last 5 decades or so be able to sing of the pain, torment, love and sadness they feel so powerfully without the added level of communication that a well played guitar provides? The guitar is an extension of their personality for it provides them with a connection to themselves that words cannot express.

It is the same here. Your conscious and unconscious mind need to talk, they need to communicate. That information flow needs to be consistent and moreover than that persistent. The breakdown can be repaired- more than that it has to be for you to gain true knowledge of who you are and what you are capable of because in truth its so much more than any of us can possibly imagine.

That voice inside your head, the very nature of your being is calling for you to be brave. The communication breakdown is a difficult thing to fix, the repeated and constant assault on your senses throughout daily life in society is becoming a much harder thing to combat. Someone i know once upon a time told me a story about persistence. She talked about consistently working a plan to the same method, over and over again proving to give no result. So simply put- do something different.

Offer that olive branch to yourself. Tweak that guitar string- hear the tension rise and see if it sings a note that feels like you- unfamiliar but you all the same. Nobody is expecting a full solo straight away. Start on that path with a single note. A breakdown isn’t the end of everything you are.

You can rebuild and come back stronger.

Learn to recognise that person in the mirror. And listen to them.

Yours, with love as always.

D.R x