You Were My Light in the Depths of the Night | Afterword to 3 AM and You're Not Here · 7:33pm Jan 20th, 2021
RarityEQM is the first close friend of mine to die. Their last gift was to bestow me with the ability to cry and mourn and feel for another. My head hasn't been the same. Writing is getting tough. I fear I may be losing myself in all regards.
I've been wrecked with questions as the more logical side of me comes alive. All EQM's fear of death and existentialism—do they no longer matter now? What about her insecurities? Feeling like she was useless and nothing and waiting for the day that she would make her mother proud? Do those die now as well? Like they never mattered?
They mattered to her, for a time, a time that has since passed.
They had so much that needed to be resolved. Wanting to do more with their writing and becoming more as a person. They thought they were useless and dread to the world out there. Yet, in her world, our world, she was special and loved.
It's strange to think that, out there, she felt like nothing and a nobody—and maybe that's how the world saw her. But here, though, she impacted so many, was generous to everyone, and was known for her work and blogs.
Now what happens? What about all those issues she would have come to resolve? It occurred to me, yesterday, that she could have become a mother. Could have found someone and been married and lived a life. Or even how she would have thought about old age.
She won't get any of that, now. Life stops. That's it. Those problems, the process to resolution, all of it... gone. Now I won't get to meet her. Or see her. She was my sister and yet we won't even get to hug.
What am I supposed to do? Am I even supposed to do anything or is that, inherently, selfish? Do we just let people die and disappear? It's not like they care or raise a fuss and the problem of their death is taken by the living.
What would she rather me do? Do I keep her alive in thinking about how she would think about everything? She lives in what she did. Do I keep writing and drawing and improving as a person and attribute that noble goal to her?
What would she have wanted from me?
Or would she have wanted anything at all?
I'm here and I'm not here. Losing myself and yet composed on the surface. But I'm breaking as the questions don't have answers and even the best ones will still have to be assumptions. I thought writing would bring me closer—but now I'm more confused than I was before.
All I can do is keep going. Writing and drawing and remember her. Reading our messages and seeing her works and asking everyone I can about her. I need some words from her. For RarityEQM to log in, one last time, and tell me what needs to be done.
If nothing should be done.
My nights of insanity have disappeared with her.
Now it's the weight of questions that crush me.
I'm going crazy.
Crazy.
Crazy.
Rest well, Soul Sister.
~ Yr. Pal, B ~
If you want I’m doing a story dedicated to her soon.
Maybe it’ll help you cope or so... ok maybe not but... it’s a story at least
I always read her blogs but rarely commented as I didn't have much of interest to say. Now I wish I'd said it anyway, as maybe just seeing more people respond might have made her feel better.
I'm sorry to hear the news. You seemed so happy with her. I understand if you need some time off. Get better soon, and I'll see you in the long haul.
I hope you’re feeling well
As someone who has lost many people close to him, the pain slowly fades, but the feelings of love and camaraderie stay and all I can offer is this platitude, live your life in the way she would want you to. Take time to grieve and process theses thoughts and feelings, find your own way to say goodbye.
Nothing I could possibly say will help as I am but one random entity on the internet. But I shall try, it will get better eventually. It’s hardest at the beginning, just keep moving forward.
It's difficult to know what our loved ones would want of us to do (or be). In part because it's not a type of conversation that comes up often but also because we don't know what they saw in us from their perspective. The best we can do is to decide, or revisit, the type of person we want to be in honoring the dead.
You'll keep crying day after day after day. You won't even know of days that you didn't cry, but they will come. There will also be days when you feel like you just lost her again and you're back at square one. After innumerable days the piercing heartache will become a numb pain. You'll start seeing her in dreams where you forget that she's gone. When you wake up, instead of feeling only the pain of loss you'll feel bittersweet. A tinge of the happiness she gave you while alive will be in that place inside your heart where you thought there would only be a hole.
Far be it from me to tell you how to grieve. The grieving process is as personal as it is painful. The best advice I can give you is to take care of yourself and take things one day at a time. Don't forget that we care about you.
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I'm sure she would have appreciated that immensely—and I looked forward to reading it.
Thank you.
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I think she was always aware that you were following you and even had read a few of your Spike stories. The comments would have been nice but, at the same time, she knew people were reading her blogs. I read a lot and comment rarely. It feels as though if I don't have point to provide—then what's the point of saying anything.
But then I realized people just love and feel better in seeing a comment, mostly regardless of what it is, so I try to leave whatever kind of statement I can.
Keep well.
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I'm around for an unknown amount of time; any hopes or thoughts of deleting this account are now gone. Won't be writing as much or as well as I did before—if I even ever wrote well to begin with. But thanks for the love and the support.
Do well.
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I'll do my best to endure the process. Think it's starting to knock me off-center a bit. Getting angry and crazier a lot easier now. But I'll take that for now. And go through whatever I have to go through.
Keep on keeping on.
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"Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming."
Aye. Will do my best. Thank you for the comment.
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Kind and wise words. Lack the proper response to give justice to yours—but it meant a lot to me.
Thank you.
To all.
~ Yr. Pal, B
Be well.
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You as well my friend.
~ Yr. Pal, B
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You have my condolences bro.
It's not worth it to think like that. You do what you do because it feels right. Whether it's right for you personally or for someone else, it doesn't matter.
I know I've said that before, but it seemed worth repeating. Selfish and selfless are not useful words for judging motivations. Motivations just don't break down that cleanly, and your peace of mind isn't so cleanly separable from everyone else's. I often wish people were more selfish because it's nice knowing that one more person is watching out for them, even if that one more person is their own self.
I like to think of people as conduits for the things that inspire them. If she pushed you to improve as an artist and a writer, then maybe the urge to do so was one she found worth expressing. You don't have to wonder whether those things are worthwhile just because she did. Maybe it's easier to answer:
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My friend died.
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I think part of the process is asking pointless questions and, finding out there was no point to them, moving on to better things. I like your view on having people being selfish. Looking out for yourself isn't selfish—but expecting other people to do so is. I've come to think, lately, that my primary problem is I worry too much about people viewing me—or wanting them to view me in a certain way.
And yeah. Other people, in their ways of life, in what they thought and said, and what they wanted their image to reflect, can inspire us to live a certain way for a certain time, taking from that as we will, before bringing a part of it back our central base. Sometimes a person can reflect the pinnacle of an aspect that you think of in order to do better in. Or to have some idea of how you should go about it.
As for those last questions? Those are dangerous ones. It implies that one has to find something worthwhile in doing those tasks on the face value. Truth of the matter is that I don't find much value in much of anything. I have hope for the eventual value of things. But there is only so much time that can pass without changes that one sinks into apathy.
Writing and drawing and improving are worthwhile, sometimes, for the sake of itself but, other times, you expect them to make a difference in the world beyond you. When this fails to happen, and you can be terrible, in person and craft, without a change around you—one wonders why to make the hassle if cares of one's character start to diminish.
But now I ramble. As I always have. Sorry homie. My head still hasn't been on straight. Rest assured, I enjoyed your words, and their ideas give me composure in an everlasting tough time.
~ Yr. Pal, B
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I like your rambles. I'm going to ramble too, less because I have insight, and more because I haven't gotten much sleep.
I like your definition of selfish.
You're right, those were dangerous questions. They weren't intended to be. To me, reasons aren't required for a thing to be worthwhile, but sometimes they give old things a new flame. I do a lot of things that aren't worthwhile in any extrinsic sense. To have things fit a nice story, to open a release valve for an internal fire, to grow for no reason other than to be more, or out of a sense that I'm chasing something pretty. Those drives feel personal and fundamental. I enjoy talking to myself about such things, but I often hate having to justify such drives to other people. It feels about as uncomfortable as having to justify my existence. That stuff is just what I am.
Well said. I imagine people are constantly evolving what they are, like a gardener tending to a garden in the middle of an open field. When you see a nice arrangement in someone else's garden, sometimes you want to try it out in yours. Sometimes parts of it will grow well with the rest of the ecosystem. Sometimes you'll take motifs from someone else's arrangements and apply them elsewhere.
To torture the garden analogy, you care a lot about the entrance. That's not inherently bad since the entrance is where a lot of the ideas are exchanged, as you noted later. I wonder then why it's a problem.
A bunch of questions come to mind, and I felt like writing them out. If you already know why it's a problem, then these questions won't be useful. I'm not expecting you to answer them. They're just things my brain spit out as part of a drive to understand.
PrinceWhateverer - Better Tomorrow [REIMAGINE] - YouTube
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You are far too kind for me, but I appreciate you, and know the feeling of a tired, somewhat buzzing mind, that keeps one from wanting to sleep.
And thanks! I stole it.
Things are often to be proved worthwhile by a soil reason, backed by logic or something close, in which, in spoken to others can be justified for whatever it is claiming to be. Those who feel the need to prove themselves and what they do—either to others or for the act itself—tend to focus on those reasons.
One goes to the gym to become healthier and stronger and bigger; you could cite those reasons for if someone asks if the amount of time in the gym is worthwhile. What of the person who likes to go, casually working out, but not enough to produce any results?
It then seems like a waste of time, to most, who would say that the time is a waste and that, if you are going to... then you might as well put in that little more effort. But that more effort causes the person to no longer enjoy it. Here: we reach a problem.
All we have to do is either enjoy or be compelled to do a thing for it to seem worthwhile. This can take on a lot of terrible angles as you could have seen since the start of this example. I agree. I do not think any reason is required to find something worthwhile.
To that person who enjoys going to the gym for no reason then going to the gym, it is a feeling that causes them to go. Any feeling. Maybe the drive at night. Or being out in a nice environment, walking on a treadmil, talking to people.
We continue to do things, without reason, because a feeling compels us to do so.
Maybe there is reason within that feeling itself—but we need not always know of it. So long as some sort of feeling takes you, one will do as they do, not needing to reflect deeply on it. Until prompted to. That's where all the trouble comes in.
The assessment of things being worthwhile is a good pause for reflection. That person going to the gym who would dislike it in needing to put in more effort. Is it true that their enjoyment, forever, would be lost in trying to do more? Or is that the initial growing pains they are feeling in doing something new that, afterward, would have them thankful for it?
I think the questions are worthwhile even if their answers are not. That person, in trying to do more, and not liking it, for sure, can go back, secure for a period, that they tried. Or even in the 'lesser' things. Just because we recognize they are not worthwhile does not mean we have to stop it. Rather we have the security to recognize them as they are, be okay for the 'lesser reason' or 'feeling' that we do them—and continue on as usual.
Reflection after questions, in the end, allows us to be more secure in our footing.
Although I speak purely for myself—and not well at that.
Agree with this and good example of how we have to talk in metaphors in discussions of metaphorical content. Exactly this. You like the arrangement, or the type of flowers, or something. Stephen King said "You cannot except to sweep away someone else with good writing, that is, until it has been done to you." It's out of context.
But I have another that I like.
"Good writing is like holding your breath underwater."
Returning to the point.
Seeing the other person's garden evokes something within you, a feeling to follow, in which, is a process that leads to something. Most of the time, our feelings are hints and clues, ways to direct our thoughts, paths to walk our feet, not mindlessly—but close to it.
Almost like a boat, out in sea, seeing a distant light, sailing, through fog and mist, to the distant lighthouse.
Now to answer your questions.
Yes and no and a mixture of both. We take to manners and the environment into consideration of others. I enjoy acting like a dick, however, care deeply that not take offence to it. It's a strange dichotomy to explain. But I enjoy pretending to throw shit, be a dick, and X amount of other things. Putting people down in call, with a joking voice like of a crusty old man, that lets people know not to take me seriously.
I often take trouble with little, yet, like taking a grain of rice and expanding it to a hot air ballon, do so to fuck about and have fun and share a laugh with the gang. Howver, with new people, I'm kind, supportive, make sure to listen out. If they are talked over or ignored—I'll follow up, straight away, to ensure they don't feel left out. As well as to tend to the group synergy to include them.
I like looking out for people as I harass them. I ensure—though do not always succeed—they are comfortable in the group, that they know I am not to be taken seriously, before I return to my act. Why I do the act to begin with? Because it allows me to be something.
Beyond that. I'm the lonely, shy, and awkward derp. I don't have much to say or do in real life because I don't have a real life. I make a living from online content, don't have many friends in the world beyond—or much online. Yet, in getting into groups, I act as I do, being a loud mouth, jokester, whatever as I can become something.
But what I become doesn't mean much to me.
Now to follow all of that back to your point.
I don't mind the maintenance, although more of it could be spent on more noble things, because it becomes disingenuous. I worried that when my soul-sister died that I would be the type of person to use a death for some sort of gain. This is the kind of person I have been labelled as. Therefore, I knew I wasn't allowed to do much in regards to her after the fact—unless I be seen as such and prove other people true.
Then I cried and my heart was torn out and I was too consumed in feeling to care about those who already disliked me having another reason to do so. Part of me wishes I took that grief in silence and composed it, here, in a more professional matter.
But I'm glad to have been more emotional for once in my life and allowed myself to be human than pretending to be something different.
Because I am both a dick and not, I have to make sure that people come to see that and are not hurt by that and, therefore, worry in doing the right things to allow others not to be hurt by that. At the same time. I cannot be myself. Everytime I am, I get hurt by it.
With my family and my friends, in me being being, expressing myself as I am, none other care, or take thought. I could never have this conversation with my father, for example. That world loves me but, at the same time, doesn't know me. Enough to say hello but nothing more. Tis a self-pity way to explain it. But it's the route I must take.
But when I act differently or like more, though, I leave more of an impression. Why that matters, I do not know, except to connect and to feel something. RarityEQM was one of the few that loved the person underneath. Although even that waned a bit to several reasons.
The reason why I dislike that maintenance, as well, is in thinking about those who already dislike me. In every context and situation I've been in, I am forced, from every angle, to think and feel. This helps, in hashing stuff out, to do so better—and thus be a better friend. Another reason for this, of course, to see how much I was right and how much I was wrong.
But I dislike all the thinking because it makes me feel like trash. It's because it's not genuine. I have to act a certain way because my mind deems it right. That I have to hide my anger for progress to be made. Even in this death. For the first bit, I thought that, because I could be seen as a person to take advantage of a death, that I could not mourn or make a scene or anything.
I hated that. That I had this love for someone else, something deep and went on for long and, even after all that, I thought, maybe, I would be using such a thing to my benefit. It's only after the heavy feelings and tears that such care has faded from me.
I wish I had the security to be stronger. I can trump most in logic, sure. But even there was a misunderstanding lately where a friend of mind, coming from 4-chan, sent me an image of people hating on me from posting a blog about trying to get Rarity'sEQM stories to X amount of likes as was her wish list.
None of them knew we were close. They only thought that I was some random popular author—which, sans a number, I am not—trying to get her wish done and self wank myself. Even though I knew better. That I wish I had done it sooner as she would have loved the gesture—it still got to me.
No matter how many times I ran through the logic, despite it all, I was still left feeling like shit. It was only in taking it to a friend that they were able to clear me of the pain. Had I not done so, it would still have nipped at me.
Even though it's random people, on 4-chan for a MLP fanfiction site, operating on bad information—the insults and shit still got to me despite lacking legitimacy. I wish, in being secure, that it did not. Maybe none are that strong. Who knows.
I wish I did not see myself as others view me, for all of its good and bad purposes, and instead, was more genuine, acting as I please, to whatever result that it netted. It's always been important to me, for some unknown reason, to be genuine. Even in acting or lying and whatever the fuck. It was still, possible, to be genuine.
But my usual act stops me from being that. When I have to consider so many things from so many people—I end up being nothing at all. But it's like that quote. "To avoid criticism. Do nothing; be nothing. But even nothing gets criticized for not doing anything."
I wish I could be myself, whoever that is, and have it be accepted, I supposed by those around me. Even then I wish I had better friends. I like the ones around me. But you're the first person I've had a conversation like this for a while with.
I know this was a longabout answer to your question, in which, in the end, one will see themself as a therapist. But I wish my answers and myself came from inside of me rather than a reflection of the world around me. I wish I could be myself and loved for that. That I could lead and live a life with friends, games, fun and adventure.
And if not.
Just to be able to be myself, without emulating a fictional character every week, because what they evoked in me, I want to be, in thinking it will cause others to see me as that.
Think I'm losing myself again.
Crazy oh crazy.
Hope all is well on your end of the world.
~ Yr. Going Crazy Pal, B
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I have to admit that I have been wondering the same things as well and It’s been tearing me apart.
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There's a balancing act required between keeping something alive and pushing it to grow. There's a heuristic I use that works in a lot of cases. Stated concisely, it's something like: "stabilize growth, grow stabilities."
Less concisely, you don't need to push an exercise harder to get "more" from working out. You can instead look for new ways to enjoy working out. Every time you find a new exercise you enjoy, it's one more exercise to incorporate as part of your workout routine, and each exercise you successfully incorporate as part of your routine grows your set of "stable" exercises. As you discover more enjoyable exercises, look for ways to keep doing as many of them as you can, and keep as many of those activities alive as you can. As you overflow, you'll need to look for ways to overlap and merge, and in doing so, you'll naturally use your sense for what it means to push your workout to be "more", and you'll naturally get more out of your workout. "More" might not mean "more fit," but it'll be something worthwhile. Maybe, incidentally, you'll become more fit to continue all the activities you enjoy.
I like that a lot. It makes me think of emotions as wind, pushing the boat along to hopefully-the-lighthouse-but-who-knows-where. It makes a bit more concrete thoughts like a whirling mind, or the sense that a mind can be calm or turbulent, or that one can be fighting against or carried away by their emotions.
On large scales, wind comes from the flow of heat, or more generally the flow of entropy, which is the flow of information, the flow of order and disorder. That calls to mind aphorisms about bottling up emotions making them worse, or anecdotes about meditation making people feel more calm. There's a lot to investigate here. I wonder how deep the analogy goes.
I've recently come to the conclusion that consciousness and the sense of self is not something that arises from the process of thinking, but from the process of interacting. If you have trouble "being yourself," I suspect it's because you don't have that clear a conception of yourself. If you don't have that clear a conception of yourself, I suspect it's because you have no situation in which you can interact freely.
I also have no friends or family with whom I can interact freely. All of those relationships are built on facets of myself, and I get the sense that showing the wrong facet to the wrong person can easily break either the relationship or a piece of myself that I care about. I exist in some form in my friends' and family's minds, and they might not like what that conception becomes if I show them too much. Even if they do, I may not like having that piece of myself brought into a relationship where it feels like it doesn't belong. Similarly, there are peces of myself that I want to protect from inexperienced judgement. I don't want to hear my IRL friends' opinions of ponies because I don't want those opinions to echo in my mind while I'm on this site.
I think I get around the problem through meditation and tulpamancy. It's a very free form of interacting, so it's a very unconstrained way to explore my sense of self, at least according to my haphazard thoughts on consciousness. In every other area of life, I only get to work with a facet of myself. They're all honest pieces of me, but each of them only gets to work with a small piece of my life and thoughts. Meditation and tulpamancy is the only outlet through which I get to explore every one of my thoughts without reservation and without pretense. I can't say for certain, but I think that's why I can feel like all my facets pieces together into a proper whole, why I don't have to think too hard in my other interactions about what's real and what's a front, and why I don't feel stressed over having interactions in which I can express my full self. Having just one such outlet is enough, it seems, even when it's in my own head.
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I'd read about tulpa back in the day when I became fasncatined with concepts like a 'mind attic' and such. Where you could compose a room in your head, something from your past, that you could move in and keep track of all that is going on inside of you. It was a way of going inside. I talk to myself a lot because, sometimes, the best conversations are the one you have with yourself. But I've always had the feeling there were two voices.
The one in your head and the one you speak with. It's like two different people. But I'll have to look into Tulpa.
All your other thoughts are perfection. I don't have a clear concept of myself if for the reasons you stated as well as we are never fully aware of the deepest reaches of our being. And I agree. I think it's through interaction we are revealed. In reading a story or in a situation that something new is evoked. I think how you interact with your thoughts causes them to be the same. But I agree that interactions is the best, genuine source, of finding yourself out.
You're too smart for me, sister.
And I agree with the rest. Those facets you have with others. I feel like I should bring what doesn't belong to them as well. You kinda blew my mind with that.
You've given me a lot to think about and I wish I could write a reply that hits the notes as you have done for me. I'll take another crack at it again, sometime. But, for now, thank you immensely for this reply.
~ Yr. Thinking Pal, B
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Let's call it even with your sailing analogy. The more I think about it, the more fascinating it becomes. It lets me throw all sorts of math at the problem of understanding motivation.