It’s that season again, when everything feels scattered, when I can’t piece things together, feeling animalistic and irrational, lying there without reasoning, without making sense. A beastly animal left inside a small room.

If a camera were to observe the way I behave, what would it make of me? A meaningless piece of meat with no value whatsoever, inhaling and exhaling air, consuming food, overwhelmed by a desire for corporal pleasure.

But why suddenly? I had been feeling like a nun, or a monk, or whatever, having absolutely no desire. And then the wave hits me, telling me to seek pleasure, haunting me everywhere. Is it like this to be a man? I suddenly feel compassionate.

Abstinence was never difficult for me. I had imagination (and also porn), I could deal with it. But what if that’s not enough? What if knowing pleasure is as important as imagining it? Forcing yourself on others is violence, but what if the wave itself is violent? What if resisting it becomes intolerable? And you want to release yourself from it, how can we?

As for me, imagining helps. Creating a story helps. Narrating the story to others to share pleasure, helps. I learn more about myself through it. To talk about desire is an act that frees me from prohibiting it, and I manage not to punish myself for it. I can desire without ruling it out of my life; it’s always a potential in my story. I could ,and do have the power to act upon it.

But the narrative has to be real, not fiction. I need to exist without performing it, or at least I want the spectators to believe they’re listening to real stories. I narrate them to others and try to see if they feel it, the “it” I’m feeling: where the mystery lies, where desires reach irrationality, where innocence falls.

Collecting the words between you and me, capturing the fine line that connects us.

I want to be as disgusting as you and hence, we can all feel compassion. We are free to be you and me.