One of the biggest struggles I’ve had in life has been deciding how much to rely on others. It’s hard for me, because there’s no middle ground. Okay, that’s not entirely true: there is middle ground of sorts, but when there is, I know it’s been fabricated; I tell myself I can rely on people because that’s how normal people interact. Normal people “hang out”, normal people “have friends”,  normal people  can enjoy other people’s company for the mere sake of its being better than loneliness.

Let me tell you what’s better than loneliness. Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is better than loneliness. Sibelius’ 6th is better than loneliness. Debussy’s String Quartet. Die Kunst der Fuge. Mendelssohn’s Octet. Dvorak’s Cello Concerto.

When a mother says to her child, “It’s going to be okay, don’t worry, it will all turn out alright,” that’s what music is for me.

Rachmaninov: “Don’t worry.”

Sibelius: “It will all turn out alright.”

Whenever I start feeling that heaviness in my chest from wanting to be with someone, I get scared. I don’t want to be more alone. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, as they say. But it’s hard not to when there’s no middle ground. Sometimes the person must be relegated to the position of A Mere Acquaintance (even though I often pretend my acquaintances are all actually friends). This is the easier route, to be sure. To go back to being alone, with music.

But sometimes I can’t do that. Sometimes I have to try. I get this impossible fantasy that it might be perfect. It might make me feel safe and full. It might last forever. What am I going to do if it doesn’t? Relegate him to the trash heap?

What if he’s not the problem? What if I am, for wanting to much, for trusting too much, for relying on someone else… too much?

In an ideal relationship, would trust grow mutually, at similar rates? Or would it be chaotic, wild, unpredictable?

Let me tell you something — I’ve always wanted to be independent. When I was little, I used to dream of my “ideal life”. Strangely enough, my ideal life was a lonely one. I wanted to have my own glass-enclosed abode in a forest clearing in Washington somewhere, within driving distance of Seattle. The basement would be a haven for music and knowledge. Books would line the walls and I would just learn and create, learn and create all day. I want to create more than anything. I don’t care what, as long as it’s something I could call art, as long as it’s something I could be proud of.

The question is, where does someone else fit into this? I used to think, What is the type of person I would need? What sort of person would fit into my ideal life? Well, perhaps my ideal life wasn’t ideal to begin with. Perhaps it needed someone, but I was to unfamiliar with relying on people to even be able to envision it.

Or is it the other way around? What if I never wanted others to rely on me?

I’m not a stable person. I’m not really grounded. I’m not always even very nice. How could I expect anyone to live with that? How could I expect anyone to live with my taking everything too literally, with arguments that rely only on logic and a view of the world that’s black-and-white (and wrong in so many ways)? With honesty when honesty is the last thing people want? With my obnoxious ramblings?

Perhaps I just need to give more and take less. To be stronger for others. To be there when people need me. For anyone who might ever need me.

Socializing is something at which I’ve never really excelled. Six months ago, I would have just considered myself an elitist, arrogant asshole and gone on with my life. But that’s not it at all. Sure, I’ve never exactly been Mr. Fuzzy-Wuzzy Cupcake-Baker Party-Planner Friend-Maker, but I don’t intentionally try and cause any sort of pain or discomfort to neutral parties. I’m not *mean*. I’m just tired.

Sometimes it just feels like the pacing is all off, you know? Some moments can feel like a thousand years of fire and light condensed into a glimmer of happiness, of emotion, that the world never notices. Only I do. Other times, weeks and months go by when everyone else is making friends, changing jobs, learning, experiencing, enjoying life. And I don’t experience any of that. Only the boredom and the drudgery of making it through the days.

Is it because I’m alone that I experience such a disjointed and scattered existence? Perhaps, I think, if I had friends, real friends, honest friends, the pacing might be a little more even. Less like an emission spectrum and more like a continuous one. Except the element in question would be my happiness and the range of possible wavelengths would be my life.

There’s so much inside me that wants to follow rules, that wants to live by someone else’s guidelines. It’s how I was brought up, I think. But there’s so much I could experience and learn, I could be so much freer, if I went my own way. But to understand what that way is…

It’s sort of like I’m in a forest at night, and I can only judge things by touch, by sound. And I want to be able to see, I want to be able to say, “This is how things are. This is the way the world works. This is how I succeed. This is what life means.” But I can’t. It’s not even that I can’t see the answer, it’s that there isn’t one, and yet I don’t have a choice but to keep trying. To keep failing. Even when I have no reason to keep trying, no reason to keep going, I do. I keep going. Fumbling in the dark. I have no choice, because I’m alive. And that’s what living people do.

Here’s the problem. I’m the person who needs to define everything. I’m the person who starts every proof with definitions and uses nothing but axioms. To me, there is no middle ground. There are the things we know, for sure, unfailingly, and there are the things that are lost in the fog of half-truths and obfuscations. But what do we know, for sure, about living?

There are things that exist. I exist. You exist. Water exists. Air exists.

We know they interact in certain ways. We have the laws of physics. So we can predict things. We can say “if A, with mass m and velocity v collides with a stationary B with mass m’, then whatthefuckever.” And that gives us power.

And that leads to even more, greater, possibilities. We can predict how people will act in times of crisis. We can predict whether entire economies will boom or bust, rise or fall. We can predict the motions of the planets, the stars, the galaxies. We have incredible power of prediction. But what is power without purpose?

What is knowledge without application?

What are people without direction? Without a goal? What are we, ultimately? And this cycle of life and death, joy and sadness, struggle and failure and success and promises and trust and anger and fear — what is it all for?

Let me tell you what I want.

I want to be happy. I want to be safe. I want to be able to eat a juicy piece of fruit every day of my life. I want color. I want the sky, open and free. I want accessible knowledge. I want to learn something, every day. I want music. I want a friend — one is enough.

I don’t want to be constrained by others. All the should’s and the have to’s and must’s. You can keep your expectations, sir. I don’t need them. Why should I care whether somebody else is happy with the way I live my life? It’s my life. Mine! And it’s all I have. So don’t you dare fucking try and take it from me.

Like I said, I’m not a mean person. But caged animals get angry before they get docile. I’m not going to be the lonely tiger at the zoo with sad eyes, who wishes he were somewhere else, somewhere free. I’m going to stay mean as long as it takes for me to get what I want. And I want to be free.