Hey, Jealousy

They fault people for jealousy; they say we shouldn’t be jealous. Well, I think being jealous is just fine, and the more we’re in touch with our jealousy the less hateful and passive-aggressive we’ll be.

Of course this is all leading up to: tonight I’m jealous of Chayes. Vaughan went all the way to Wesleyan (farther than Yale, and I’ve invited him to all of my shows!) to see her directorial debut of House of Blue Leaves. So I am completely and sincerely jealous. I’ve wanted Vaughan to go out of his way for me forever, but he hasn’t, and he went out of his way for Chayes. Jealousy ensues.

And I’ll claim this jealousy so it stays exactly what it is. If I don’t, I’ll wind up feeling bitter towards Chayes, or somehow otherwise negative, and I don’t want that at all. She has no fault in this; she’s not competing with me. She just got something I want. Not to mention that she has a passion in life.

On that: I want a passion and all of my passions are gone. Over the past three and a half years, a combination of Yale and my own slowly growing depression has drained me of everything I loved coming into college. I loved theater; I no longer love theater. I loved math and physics; I no longer have hardly a passing interest in either. I loved sex (in the broad sense); I now find sexuality repulsive. I loved people; I no longer think everyone is basically good, rather I think everyone thinks they’re basically good, but they’re really just self-centered and therefore self-righteous.

I’m jealous of anyone who loves anything. I have no love. I dislike many (not all) of my friends. I no longer appreciate any art (visual, theatrical, poetic…I’ll take some music, but that’s because the response is involuntary). I’m irritated when I’m around people and I’m depressed when I’m alone. Even my favorites of friends have started to piss me off in the smallest of ways, and that’s not good at all. I don’t feel like anyone really likes me, but I don’t like me, so what do I expect? I’ve lost my skill for performance, because I don’t think the audience is worthy of me or I’m worthy of an audience. I’ve lost much of my humor because nothing seems funny anymore, everything seems forced and self-conscious. Eye contact just seems silly.

People are dirty, smelly, noisy, greasy, ugly, self-centered, insecure assholes. Nobody’s internally consistent and we all blame other people for being hypocritical. Sure, I’ll take the label hypocrite, if you give it to me. I try to maintain some sort of consistency, but my personality won’t allow for it. My mind won’t allow for it. The politicians who painfully try to pretend they have a brilliant and simple logic are doomed to lie. We’re all hypocrites; there is no way we’re made to be rigorously consistent.