I'm Thinking of Ending Things

by Iain Reid

Everything is impossibly fragile.”

“Depression is a serious illness. It’s physically painful, debilitating. And you can’t just decide to get over it in the same way you can’t just decide to get over cancer. Sadness is a normal human condition, no different from happiness. You wouldn’t think of happiness as an illness. Sadness and happiness need each other. To exist, each relies on the other, is what I mean.”

Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.

We can never really know someone else’s thoughts. And it’s thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.

We can’t do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say. But we can think whatever we want.

Anyone can think anything. Thoughts are the only reality. It’s true. I’m sure of it now. Thoughts are never faked or bluffed. This simple realization has stayed with me. It has bothered me for years and years. It still does.

Now it’s my heart. I’m angry with it. The constant beating. We’re wired to be unaware of it, so why am I aware of it now? Why is the beating making me angry? Because I don’t have a choice. When you become aware of your heart, you want it to stop beating. You need a break from the constant rhythm, a rest. We all need a rest.

The most important things are perpetually overlooked. Until something like this. Then they are impossible to ignore. What does that say? We’re mad at these limits and needs. Human limits and fragility. You can’t be only alone. Everything’s both ethereal and clunky. So much to depend on, and so much to fear. So many requirements.

People talk about the ability to endure. To endure anything and everything, to keep going, to be strong. But you can do that only if you’re not alone. That’s always the infrastructure life’s built on. A closeness with others. Alone it all becomes a struggle of mere endurance.

Interaction, connection, is compulsory. It’s something we all need. Solitude won’t sustain itself forever, until it does.