Maybe it's not fear exactly but an undeserving attitude. Because if I left I'd want an upgrade (if I have I hope I got it! Or I'm happy with whatever new compromises the new arrangement brought) which due to being a solitary creature I doubt I'm entitled to for my needs are few and could be fewer. Why have more when you can live comfortably with less? That sort of thing. As it's one thing to entertain wants, but quite another to hunt them down, and often when found they're unaffordable anyway or would bring inconceivable, impractical changes that would upset routine and so are seen as disadvantageous. Unless, of course you're reached a stage (or an age) where you're more malleable.
I haven't. And I'm doubt I'm going to, because you grow used to what you used to and can't imagine different, until of course you change it and then you can't imagine otherwise. Circumstances brought me here (am I still there?) and now I don't think I could go back to where I was before, (before before?) even though I was less shut-in. Does security do that, I wonder...as back then my job was more secure than my home, but in securing a home, my own home, jobs became insecure. Jobs, plural. As if I outgrow everything too quickly; as if I refuse, outside of this box, to be contained in a box. It's a paradox because I like nothing better than shutting myself away. I am very content, to be alone, on my own. And yet...
...the outside seeps in, through glass, through wood, through walls, and wears me down like a rock made smooth by bracing elements and resting ramblers. This should, you'd think, make me more tolerant, in my mind, with my body: I am one with Nature and lively life, but no, it doesn't do that. Roughness is smoothed; hardness is added, and rock-like formations, developed over years in the usual susceptible locations, remain so. The stomach is soft, the back is visibly notched. Kafka felt a physical repulsion, and sometimes I feel the same. He was not one for lively life and neither was Dostoyevsky.
I weather, I've weathered more stuff than I thought possible (and that's not a lot if you care to compare to people that have really been through it), but when indecision weighs heavy all the time, almost one would say obsessively, it's more than enough for one person to bear, especially when there are instances when life, with all its colour and noise, seems unbearable. And where adding any other would make that weight heavier still. That's not depression - that's just a facet of life. We are all different and all built differently. Why is it we cannot accept, good-naturedly, the naturally reserved, more sensitive person? Those allowances are not made; we have to make the best of what we are, where we can, and divulge little about it, or you might find as Kafka did that what you took as understood is later misunderstood or held against you. But then he, as we all do, also had faults which although obstacles were not as stubborn in character and could have been overcome if he'd had more patience, more self-assurance and less fear.
I am not a better mortal than he. Our position, in general, has similarities, and as an example he's interesting (there were others before me like me!), but I can no more change or escape what I am than he could (do I want too?), not without causing torment somewhere. At least he moved around somewhat, both in travel and accommodation, which is more than I have in my thirty-odd years. Then again, perhaps I'm wrong to assume I haven't moved to a more sparsely inhabited part of town, where my complaints have been minimised but like Kafka my misgivings have not.
Picture credit: Conscience (Judas), 1891, Nickolai Ge
