pain

A Letter To The Perpetually Dissatisfied

Painting by Kari-Lise Alexander and Rich Stevens

I never knew how to be anything else but intense, everything magnified and unclear. I sometimes wonder, when the illusion of solitude gets inflated, if anybody else has a similar sentence to poetry. I think about all the dissatisfied poets and their self imprisonment. Poets are both the prisoners and the guardians of those many rooms inside our heads, writing our own imprisonment sentences: to be forever attracted to the impossible. There are days when I wish the constant background noise in my head would stop, but then I know, I just need to learn how to live with it. As years go by, life is not getting lighter or harder, it remains inconstant. In my quest for peace how many times did I proclaim victory and then I had to pace down again. I told myself: stop running after peace, maybe this is what makes you tired.

Painting by Kari-Lise Alexander

Painting by Kari-Lise Alexander

Dissatisfaction is deeply rooted inside the human nature, it is one of the main causes of unhappiness and it affects everyone: romantics chasing a love out of this world, rich people who do not feel rich enough, successful people who do not feel successful enough. The more you wish, the more you are prone to sadness.

Nowadays, dissatisfaction is exacerbated by the exterior pressure to prove ourselves, we live in a fast forward world in which everyone is chasing something that they don’t have. But sometimes I wonder where is everybody rushing, because every step we take is getting us closer to the inevitable end that is as well part of the human nature. Why run when you could take a relaxing walk? But maybe one of the greatest causes of dissatisfaction is chasing happiness itself and that is the best example I know of attraction to the impossible.

Painting by Kari-Lise Alexander

Painting by Kari-Lise Alexander

The attraction to the impossible is like a poison that your heart is dripping every day inside yourself. But that is not the only poison possible, there is another one: the illusion of permanence, the desire to keep alive the fire of that illusion.

Illusions are part of our lives, our lives are made of thoughts and desires and memories. But no one can promise us that the present will be forever present. Imagine you reached a high peak of a mountain, the view is beautiful and nourishes your soul, you wish you could stay there forever, but you cannot, you need to start your descend because otherwise your body will die of hunger.

Remember, you are human, you need to go on walking because as along as your steps touch the ground, you are alive. Even if the only path possible is downwards. You will find another peak someday. And maybe as you walk like this, year by year, mountain by mountain, your attraction to the impossible will transform itself from desire to memory. And you will learn that what belongs to imagination should stay in imagination.

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The issue with the perpetually dissatisfied is that they get lost in ideals: how life should be, how love should be, they look at the bigger picture all the time and forget the immediate, they forget to ask themselves basic questions, such as what I really need in order to be peaceful and what are the desires of the persons I am crossing paths with. Sometimes just a basic talk with ourselves can minimise the self torture. Pain is unavoidable in life but we can minimise its effects. Is this love I am craving for really possible or is it meant to stay in my fantasy forever? Talk to yourself about your desires and talk to the person you are expecting your desires to be fulfilled by. Express your needs when you are sure of them and you might be surprised what great relief might come after the illusions we are all condemned to are broken. The fall of an illusion is not the fall of the universe, that inner universe we are constantly creating with thoughts and memories and expectations. Don’t stick to an illusion because you should know you are capable of always creating new ones.

I am tired of chasing dreams, but this does not mean I will stop having them, I just know that there are dreams who are meant to remain dreams. The best dream we can have is the one that manages to become reality and the others, the most unrealistic ones are nightmare material. If we don’t handle them with care, they come back to haunt us and to break us with their forever illusory trait. An unrequited love is such nightmare material: if you don’t handle reality with care and your inner mechanisms breaks.

Imagine one day someone asks: what broke you? And you will have nowhere to escape and you will eventually answer: I broke myself wishing.

Laura Livia Grigore is a poet, painter and psychology enthusiast, with a background in space engineering. She likes to experiment with various mediums and types of writing. Her artwork is orientated on emotions, reflecting her opinion that most of the answers we need can be found inside ourselves, although the hardest thing to do is to be sincere with oneself. You can purchase her book here

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