TOXIC

CHILLOSOPHY

- What’s the point of your beautiful ass if no one kisses it? asked a drunken older woman sitting on the steps in front of the mall

Fuck, if you knew how many times I wanted to vomit from the words accept, let go, be in the moment. How many times I sobbed, digging my nails into the cushions of my couch, trying to grab onto something permanent and not fly away into a black hole, I didn’t know then that I had already been there a long time.

- Avogardo number, is that you? I asked when there was a knock on my door 6,022045±0,000031·10(23) times

It’s amazing to realize that the root of your anxiety and unhappiness is not the failures themselves, but your reaction to them. To be sad is not to be joyful. Or what other methodologies for proper reactions exist out there? I remember lying there, listening to another stupid affirmation about wealth and luck and flying in space around the planets and inside the planets, such was the assignment. I flew away, no general return. I was still in the same place, all the failures were here and now, all the worries and all the pain. Nothing had changed. I didn’t get an amazing job offer, I didn’t meet the love of my life or win the lottery. I was still there, only with my thoughts in space. I switched my reaction to flying around in silly affirmations to attract silly good luck. But suddenly I began to feel differently. I accepted and let go. I continued to do the things that personally bring me happiness, yes the small percentage I could afford, and stopped looking at the numbers. This paragraph will not end with the grand success of my enlightenment. I’m still there. But I feel differently. So maybe you can, too. I wish you could. I understand how you’re hitting the wall and don’t know what else to do, what incantation to read, and under what star to make a wish that it damn well come true. I do. I want you to know that you’re not alone. Life isn’t fair, there’s no point in looking for something from it that’s not there. It makes sense to look for what’s in you that can help you. Don’t give up on yourself. Let’s get out of this hole together and be happy.

- Three days among the sharks, the migration professor began her lecture, continuing to draw strange figures in her notebook

If you jump into the ocean from a height of 14 meters, you can crash or be hit by the propellers of the ship and a daring meat grinder. If you jump into the 14-meter high ocean during a storm, the high waves reduce the distance and give you a chance to survive. That’s how a man who dreamed of freedom jumped into the ocean during a big storm that night. Success would also be in the event of death, he wrote. He wanted freedom, even if he had to give his life for it. He sailed for three days without food or freshwater. He succeeded. Incredible luck or too strong a desire to be free to do what you love and not lower your eyes without questioning. He had no compass, saw a glimpse of a map, and chose not to wear a life jacket so as not to attract the attention of the crew and passengers of the ship from which he had fled. Instead of the 17 kilometers that he had thought to be the distance to the coast of a tropical country, he swam 100 kilometers. 100 kilometers and three days among jellyfish, sharks, and strong currents. He spent his entire childhood hating the gray wall that stood in front of his windows and imagined the big wave tearing down that wall and opening before him a view of the peaceful ocean and the horizon that would give him choices, the ability to speak another language and the ability to do yoga in a way that would not be dangerous to his life. His name is Slava Kurilov.

- I can’t, said Alice, with eyes full of tears, when we had to each go our separate ways

When the models carried SEALs in their hands during the show, the world concluded that it was the best show in the history of fashion. It’s like dancing to romantic music and carrying the weight of the world’s disappointment on your shoulders when you have something to say, but it’s better just to look at a person a certain way. When you are a scholar in the Middle Ages, but you are destined to burn at the stake. When you cut wires a thousand times, burn bridges, and scream to yourself that you’re going away forever, but you can’t live to see the morning to come back. When you’re surrounded by opportunity and freedom, but focused only on how to get your way in only one particular way. When you’re overwhelmed with pain, but afraid to scream about it because people around you might judge you. When you are. I believe in you. That’s your damn sign not to go away.

Maybe people have to go through tragedy to start doing what they love. Chuck Palannick “Diary.”