"God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter — they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfilment and companionship — but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering." ~ Sylvia Plath

I used to enjoy going shopping but these days it causes a strange restless angst in me. Like what am I doing here? What purpose does this serve... these clothes, these goods? How is it enriching my life in any way? It strikes me that these things one buys are to compensate for the meaninglessness of life. A nice buy makes you momentarily happy, it fills up your thought or heart space, you look forward to eating a nice meal or wearing a gorgeous dress, it takes your mind away from the things that have no answers, no solutions, no respite. When I was younger it worked but now it's as if the illusion doesn't hold. I see through it... all the shiny happy made up faces around me... blissfully unaware. I can't help but notice how enchanted they are, all these people. With the material world around them. Tons of varieties of bread, cakes, grapes, meat, it goes on...I am overpowered by the insignificance of this varied plenty. It all feels like a means of escape...a feeble one… of filling ourselves with emptiness galore only to feel emptier the more we fill it.

I enjoy just walking in nature nowadays than walking around in structures offering artificial or material gratification. These structures confront me with the question of meaning whereas the walk, nature... sort of seems to put me in touch with it... in some sublime sense.