you seem sad but you're telling lies

there was that scene in 'high fidelity' that i didn't really understand. rob was sitting in the rain, after leaving the funeral, hiding from laura. he's talking to the audience, and he says that being noncommittal is like suicide in tiny increments. walking home today from brunch, i think i sort of figured out what he meant by that, at least from my own perspective.

i think i've been killing myself bit by bit. all of us do. we're much more than our physical selves, so suicide entails not just the death of our bodies, but of our personality. when you can't seem to figure out what you want, or who you are, you're just opening yourself up to having parts of yourself destroyed as you go along.

in my recent ponderings over who i am, and what i want, it's becoming increasingly obvious that i have no idea what the answer to those questions are. but i can also feel parts of me rotting away. at some point i learnt to care about someone else, but having had no one to really care for for a while, that part has atrophied. having not felt safe for a long time, i've let myself become paranoid.

we're just constantly evolving constructs, a physical frame that personality traits get tacked onto. interchangeable and not entirely compatible parts. it brings to mind the question of whether a boat, having had all its pieces and parts replaced over time, is still the same boat. nominally we might be the same person, but i can't help but feel like i've died.