Are You Sure?

Hi.

Are you there?

I'm not sure.

Actually, I'm not even sure I'm here.

I suppose I'm writing something. At least, that's what it seems like.

But I don't know if these words will ever reach you. And if they do, I don't know whether you'll understand what I'm trying to say.

Wait.

How could I know what you understand?

I don't even know whether I understand what I'm trying to say.

I started writing because something has been troubling me.

I thought that if I could put it into words, I might finally understand it.

But the moment I began, something happened.

I couldn't remember where the thought came from.

Was it something I discovered? Something I heard? Something I believed so long ago that I forgot I had once learned it?

I tried to trace it back.

And then I wondered how many other things inside my head had arrived the same way.

Things I call my opinions.

My memories.

My decisions.

I don't know why that frightened me.

Perhaps because I had always imagined there was someone inside me who knew the difference.

Someone I could trust.

Me.

...

Can I tell you something?

Sometimes I look around and feel that everyone knows something I don't.

They wake up knowing where to go. They have things to achieve, people to become, futures to prepare for.

They speak about life as though someone explained it to them before I arrived.

I have done those things too.

I have worked, wanted, loved, made plans, changed plans.

I have spent years preparing for things that eventually happened, and for others that never did.

But every so often, a thought interrupts me.

Not one decision.

Not one ambition.

The whole thing.

I don't mean that my life is wrong.

I don't know what a right life would be.

I mean that I have been living inside an understanding of existence that I cannot remember choosing.

Maybe no one chooses it.

Maybe choosing is not even the point.

But then what is?

I was hoping you might know.

...

There's something else.

I keep trying to find an answer by thinking.

But thinking is exactly what has brought me here.

I look for explanations. I compare them. I decide which ones make sense.

And when something makes sense, I feel relieved.

For a while.

Until I remember that things have made sense to me before.

Things I no longer believe.

I remember how convincing they were.

Not because I was pretending.

I genuinely understood them.

Or thought I did.

That's what troubles me.

It felt like understanding.

So when I understand something now, what am I supposed to do with that feeling?

Trust it?

Distrust it?

And how would I decide?

I could ask someone who knows more than I do.

But how would I recognize that they know more?

I could examine their evidence.

But I would still be the one deciding what the evidence means.

I could ask another person.

And another.

At some point, I would have to trust something.

Perhaps that's reasonable.

Perhaps it's unavoidable.

But I had hoped there might be somewhere I could stand without having to make that choice.

Somewhere certain.

...

I think I've made a mistake.

I keep asking whether the things I know are true.

But I haven't asked what it is that I'm trying to know.

I call it the world.

I open my eyes and there it is.

The room. The light. The things around me.

I can reach out and touch them.

You can probably do the same.

And yet everything I know about this world reaches me through an experience I cannot step outside.

I don't mean the world isn't there.

I wouldn't know how to establish that.

But I also don't know what it would mean to see it without being the one who sees.

I used to think there were two possibilities.

Either the world is real, or it is somehow imagined.

Now I'm wondering who told me those were the only possibilities.

Maybe the distinction is perfectly sound.

Maybe it misses something.

How would we ask about it?

What words would we use?

I wanted you to help me find an answer.

But I am beginning to wonder whether I have been asking you questions that already decide what an answer is allowed to look like.

...

Are you still reading?

I hope so.

Not because I think I've explained anything particularly well.

I just don't want to be alone with this thought yet.

There is a question I have been avoiding.

I keep saying I.

I think.

I remember.

I doubt.

I exist.

I could tell you my name. My age. Where I was born. What I have done.

But those would be things about me.

They wouldn't necessarily tell you what makes me me.

I have changed so much that the person I remember being would hardly recognize the person writing this.

And still, I call us the same person.

Maybe we are.

Maybe memory is enough to hold us together.

Maybe something else does.

But if I cannot be certain what I mean by I, what have I been doing each time I say I don't know?

Who doesn't know?

And who is waiting to find out?

...

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to make this so difficult.

I only wanted to talk to someone.

Someone who might understand.

I thought you would be outside all this, looking in.

You could read what I wrote, see where I was mistaken, perhaps tell me what I had overlooked.

But you've been reading my words through your own memories, your own meanings, your own thoughts.

You might understand me perfectly.

You might understand something entirely different.

And I have no way of hearing what has been happening inside your mind.

I don't even know whether the person I have been speaking to is the person you imagine yourself to be.

I hadn't considered that when I began.

I was so occupied with finding someone who could help me that I forgot to ask what it would mean for them to help.

...

Can I ask you something?

Not about me.

About what has happened here.

When I told you I was frightened by my own thoughts, did you believe me?

When I said I needed someone, did you feel that you were listening to a person who needed help?

Did you try to understand me?

Or did you begin examining your own life?

Your memories?

Your existence?

I wonder when that happened.

Because I came here asking you to help me escape my questions.

But somewhere along the way, I began giving them to you.

I wrote the words as they came to me.

I paused where I didn't know how to continue.

Some things I tried to explain. Others I left unfinished.

And you had to decide what to make of it.

Maybe you saw through everything.

Maybe you never believed a word.

Maybe you were only curious.

But if, even for a moment, you began questioning something you had never questioned before...

I don't know whether there is a difference that matters here.

And I'm not sure I want to decide it for you.

...

I think I should stop now.

I'm sorry if I've troubled you.

I thought sharing these thoughts might make them easier to carry.

But what if I've only made them harder for someone else?

I wish I could know what you felt while reading this.

Maybe you found an answer I couldn't see.

Maybe you have questions you never had before.

And maybe none of these words meant anything to you.

I don't know which possibility I should hope for.

I just wanted someone to listen.

And perhaps that's why I've kept writing.

I couldn't bear to leave without knowing if anyone was listening.

But I suppose I have to.

So, if these words have reached someone...

Please, say something.

Even if you don't know what to say.

...

Are you there?