god, this is paragraphs of word salad. oh well. i don't care. if i'm indulging the urge to
try to communicate something that i think might be good, & it can only be a bunch
of word salad, then fine. i guess that's the best i can do. here is the word salad
that is analogous to the actual thing i want to communicate. this is as
good as it gets. whatever it gets across is as good as it gets

new metaphor: i'm stranded in the ocean, miles from land. i have anterograde amnesia. i have no choice but to
struggle to stay afloat. it's tiring, but i'm not afforded even the slightest break. there is something unspeakably
beautiful floating in the sky. when my head is above the water i stare up at it, going "oh my god oh my god oh
my god." when i'm under the water, i forget it's there. each time i breach the surface i rediscover it

i want to believe that the beauty of life is so unbelievably pure, & cleansing, & can't be
tainted in any way, & doesn't cede any ground, & that fixing it in words is a disgrace
to it, to the extent that even calling it "pure" with no elaboration is a disgrace
because it risks evoking your idea of purity instead of the pure it really is

or, well, maybe it's not that it risks evoking your idea of purity (implying that it's been made flawed or
shallow.) on a good day, i think both of us probably get the unbelievable purity. the problem is that it
feels really difficult to deliver to each other, to affirm to one another. if one of us tries to express
it, it introduces a risk where we each have to trust that the other has that sense of purity

i want it to be something i have to find or build for myself, & be frustratingly alone with if need
be. i want it to be so pure that it'd be a mistake to try to deliver it to anyone, even if my empathy
would urge me to. i want it to be so pure that it'd be a mistake to try to point the direction
with a bunch of pretentious wordplay about how i can't describe it

ok, i'm not actually pointing the direction toward a particular thing. i'm not a total narcissist who thinks
i know the meaning of life. i just think finding happiness might require a sense of privacy & sanctity
that feels absent in people i interact with sometimes. & i often have to remind myself, harshly,
that it's a requirement for me too. there's a really frustrating sense that everyone has this
vague thing burning inside, & might want to express it, deliver it to others, but it's
inexpressible. expressions of it are compromises. frankensteins. & then i want to
find that burning thing outside of myself & i see frankenstein after frankenstein
until i'm totally deluded & couldn't identify it even if i saw it. i am trying
to find a way to prosaically approximate these feelings

bad things (cynicism, social media, mass media, individuals' sadomasochistic expressions of negativity,
self-dissective thoughts when isolated, earnest attempts to portray or aestheticize love that end up
making a shallow mockery of it) can feel so disgraceful that they make me feel separate from
the goodness, & ignorant of it. if the goodness is incorruptible, seeing all these bad things
in its presence is still so striking & insulting in comparison to it that it almost makes
them feel like they present any competition. then, when i regain my view of the
beauty, it feels insane that i could've forgotten it

this whole piece of writing is a mistake. it's a compromise. i already said i'm not supposed to fix "it" in
words, & the more i try to pad that, the more words it takes. it's like. having to delve into making the
mistake, having to pay that price, make that compromise, so i can end with: this whole thing
is an attempt to explain why it itself is what leading by example doesn't look like? or
maybe it's not breaking its own rules, because, like i said, it's a compromise?

it's just. [the thing "purity" fails to signify]. that's it. getting caught
up in all this nonsense is masochistic, it's actively removing me
from [that thing that "purity" fails to signify]. that's it