The following is an excerpt from some brief handwritten notes taken on a recent hiking expedition, revised and edited for your digital reading pleasure.
Back at my favorite writing spot for an afternoon, high above the nearby trees, nestled in a cliffside. More people are out hiking today than usual—friend groups, couples and families alike—so it's not quite as serene up here as I would prefer. Still, the weather is soothingly warm and the occasional breeze calms me as I go. Looking out ahead, a vibrant hue of sky blue peeks out over the distant treetops as wispy clouds cover it like paint streaks on a canvas. This blend of natural colors fills me with a quiet sense of clarity that I can't replicate anywhere else.
I haven't felt much like writing lately. I'm stuck between a busy cycle at work and my own heap of mindless fixations that eat away the remaining free time. Beyond that, I simply haven't been inspired to be creative. It's hard to put into words, and no, it isn't exactly writer's block. I fear that I've regressed to a diminished mental state, a condition similar to what I went through a couple of years ago before I started pulling myself out of an extended rut. I'm not feeling fulfilled with the day to day experiences of adult life. I'm losing motivation to improve myself. There's something missing. How bittersweet it is to accumulate these various material objects I've always coveted, to reach a level of comfort mostly free from detestable pressures and uncertainty, and still feel nothing about it all at the end of the day.
A simple fact of life is that other people provide us with meaning. There may not be a single universal meaning tied to this existence, but we can't deny that we're social animals at the very least—it's in our nature. Unfortunately, the experience of life as it exists in 2025 gives me all the reasons in the world to not let other people in. I have my own laundry list of social hang-ups as justification for being stuck in a box of complacency, but by the same token, it's difficult to find people with enough outwardly relatable qualities to make any amount of effort worthwhile.
I've beaten this topic like a dead horse in my writing, and yet, I can't escape it. I'm constantly relearning how to be a loner, then inevitably returning to a place where I feel down about it, and the cycle continues on. Brief moments of joy echo in a massive, empty room. We commit moments to long-term memory when there's an emotional gravity associated with them. How, then, can I remember anything as I maintain an emotional distance from everything in my life? If I can't remember anything, what do I have to inspire me when I want to be creative? How can my experiences shape me as a person when there's nothing to hold on to?
Life is a long journey of introspection, re-evaluation and learning to accept what you've got. I could take steps to change course at any time, but I'm more afraid of change than I am dissatisfied with these existential trade-offs. And so, this is how it will continue to be. This lasting sense of alienation can still be a well of creativity, I just need to remind myself how to draw from it.