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No. 27124
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It’s been more than a year since I last cataloged what happened and is continuing to happen to a 30+ yo weeb. I would gladly describe what happened and is continuing to happen in any other 30+ yo weeb that is not me, in fact I would like to be able to catalog a lot of other people’s lives, but I find myself in the unfortunate position of only knowing my own existence well enough to carry such an endeavor. It’s the price you pay for living in isolation and I apologize for it. So, OP asked what happened to all the 30+ weebs, do they just kill themselves or turn into normal individuals? Well, here’s the current events on my own little and fleeting moment on this earth, under the sun, as a 30+++ yo weeb.
Since my last post (>>25903) I have grown increasingly lost. The more I thought about it, the more I found this condition extraordinary. How a person living on this day and age, where everything and everywhere is so well documented, with huge traffic signs at every corner, manuals about everything freely available with a couple of clicks, experts on every field, street lights shining every dark corner and clear roads and sidewalks leading safely leading to every spot on this earth, how then one gets lost in such an advantageous position?
The thing is, I began to find my actions to be incredibly and insufferably frivolous. I only ever did one hard thing in my life and that is learning Japanese. I did it because of how much I enjoyed manga and literature. Yet, it became an inescapable conclusion to me that consuming this media, or any other, was a completely empty action. I still respect and admire the artists very much, but the act of consuming their art became like touching a soap bubble to me. I come in contact with their art, and the art pops; there is nothing in there anymore. It’s not that I lost interest or have come to believe art to be unworthy. On the contrary, I am interested and still consider their art to be beautiful, but it was like beauty itself was something empty, and I could see right through its colors and stared at art’s emptiness. My emotions towards it, which at first was like a refreshing summer breeze that gave me pleasure, became completely still. Not cold, not warm, just no breeze at all. I wish I could say I had grown indifferent but that’s not quite the case. It just became nothing.
Soon, what began with manga and literature, spread towards all other facets of life. I realized all the things this plentiful and technologically advanced society had to offer to distract myself became soap bubbles. I was always a very mentally frugal person so I immediately noticed this; I didn’t have many interests this realization could transform into nothing before I realized things were missing. Maybe people with a lot of hobbies and things going on in their lives would take a much longer time to notice it, since they can just assume it’s a localized burnout. I had only one or two things standing when this happened.
I spent many weeks feeling like I was floating in an infinite ocean, without being able to see the bottom or the sky. I suffered from depression and melancholy before, but this was not it, that much I could tell. It almost felt like an uncomfortable peace… or rather, a peace I was not expecting or quite ready for. And a peace that entered through all the wrong doors. The first thing it pacified was my enjoyment of art. Usually you would expect or prefer that peace would reach the places where you need it the most, say for example, dissipating your hatred or your restlessness, not that it will completely stop the gentle breeze of your enjoyments. Alas, life continues to be filled with surprises, even for those who barely make any use of life.
At the time I was slowly going through Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad and when I finished reading, I read some articles on his life. I was very touched by it, and his life appealed to me more than his novel. Because of him I read the Lotus Sutra and that too I enjoyed. Not as a piece of literature, but as something else, it felt like it had something I was looking for.
So I began doing some perusing online on my condition and soon enough I gravitated towards reading more about Buddhism. The only thing I read before the Lotus was The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma but it didn’t do much for me at the time, this was many years ago. I read it again and it made a lot more sense this time. Then I read about the five hindrances, the four establishments of mindfulness and the seven factors of enlightenment and it felt like I was already looking at those things before I knew they had names. The more suttas I read, the more I liked what I was reading.
Dare I say it made complete sense to me. I’m not saying I’m enlighted at all, I’m saying those things clicked with me. For example, the first two hindrances of the five I’m happy to say I’m mostly done with, that is sensual desire and ill will. I noticed those things in me before reading about it, so imagine how delighted I was when finding those two emotions neatly in a list someone wrote thousands of years ago. I felt a connection there and decided to keep going this path. I’m slowly going through the Pali Canon.
It’s funny though, how I always manage to isolate myself no matter what I do. I would think that having religious thoughts would bring me closer to people, since many people do have religious thoughts, but I live in a country where pretty much everyone with religious thoughts are Christians or are interested in Christianity, given it is a western country. So then again I managed to corner myself away from humanity. I’m not even trying, which makes the whole thing funnier. I did the same thing by ending up enjoying manga instead of anime many years ago.
So little by little I’ve become a secret Buddhist. By secret I mean I didn’t tell my parents or siblings and I’m not visiting a temple or anything like that, though there’s one in the city I live in. The main reason I’m keeping this a secret is because my family is very anti-religion. They believe everything about religion is a political tool, a brain washing apparatus for the powerful at worst, or a bunch of idiotic fairy tales at best. I can picture how hilarious they would find the concept of pure lands, Devas or rebirth. Couple weeks ago I bought a small Buddha in a touching the earth position made out of resin and my sibling immediately questioned me about it. I told him I wanted to have a small piece of Eastern artistic imagery. He shrugged and told me I should have gotten a wooden kokeshi instead. They have no idea the changes going on inside my mind, which I find very amusing indeed. Basically I don’t want to shock them with all this Buddhism stuff, they’ll see it as nonsense. If they ask me directly I won’t deny it, but I’m not saying anything on my own, either. We’ll see how that goes.
Currently I’m a very indiscriminate reader of suttas. I already mentioned the Lotus and the early Buddhist scripture, and I’m trying to read something of everything in between. So, with all of this, what are the actual effects in my daily life? Not much to tell you the truth. If before I was floating in an infinite ocean with no bottom and no sky, now I can kinda see the moving sand underwater and a wide sky above me, but they’re still completely out of reach. It gave me some clouds I can gaze on while time goes by, slowly eroding everything and everyone. It’s a very interesting state of mind. Everything I look at, I see its end first. I can’t escape thinking “this will end soon”. Every time I look at my brothers, my mom and dad, I can’t escape thinking “they’ll die, they’ll end soon.” When I look at the walls of my bedroom I can’t escape thinking “they’ll be ruins, they’ll end soon.” I look at the road outside my window, I can’t escape thinking “it will be dirt, it will end soon. I look at the sky and can’t escape thinking “this world will die, it will end soon”. I look at the sun and I can’t escape thinking “this star will cool, it will end soon.” I look at myself and I can’t escape thinking “this body will rot, I’ll die soon.” and everyone and everything I look at, I see its end first again and again. It’s possible this is a way to prepare myself for dying. You keep remembering it until dying is part of your mind as much as it is part of your body.
It’s funny though. As a person who now has come to trust in Buddhist scripture, it would seem natural that my goal would be liberation, and yet I seem to fail quite badly at wanting to liberate myself. I feel myself so utterly scattered, mingled in with the elements I can’t find anything to liberate. Yet, when I read about it, it seems like something very good indeed, to be liberated. At least I don’t feel frivolous anymore, though I’m not sure exactly why, nor the exact moment or thing I realized to have the feeling of frivolity removed. My alignment with these ideas is a work in progress, but I can tell it’s very fruitful and a positive force in my life. I’m slowly realizing my profound interest for the Eastern cultures has finally culminated, and the flower that blossomed from decades of this interest is Buddhism. I kinda wished I had learned Chinese instead, since I would have direct access to the Chinese Buddhist canon but I fear it’s too late for me to learn yet another language. I don’t find any strength to do that again so I have accepted I’m stuck with what I already know.
It’s nice to have found something like this to serve as a guide and illustrate life for you. I was never a religious person and I never cared about it at all beyond the artistic value of religious texts. It’s amazing, you never know what is going to happen to you, even if you are locked away inside your bedroom, your mind keeps on turning. You never know where it will end up. I wish everyone would be able to find something like this as well but with the current cultural climate in our society, being able to put your trust into any religious ideas can be very challenging. For me it was actually quite natural, since I always lived on the margins of society, somehow I never attached myself to any modern ideas and confidences that would block me from it. For people like my siblings who have grown utterly sarcastic, confident they know everything and have a taste for mocking this sort of thing, this would be pretty much impossible.
What else can I tell you? We’re a fleeting shadow, cast at a passing cloud in a sky that will only exist for a single night. Be compassionate, do your best to not be the cause of suffering for yourself and others beings and learn to be infinitely patient somehow. Other than that I really don’t know. I wish everyone the best of luck. The world is a tough place.
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