Fear and Loathing...My Hunter S. Thompson Non-Obsession

So here I am...back at another point in my life where I feel confused, hurt, angry, and overall rejected by life. I have such strong feelings, yet I fail to grasp their true effects and act on them as I'm told normal human beings have the ability to. I feel an overwhelming drive to do great things for not just myself, but for my family and the world; however, there seems to be this invisible divide between myself and the rest of the world that is preventing me from doing this.

I feel a strange kinship to the great Hunter S. Thompson at times when I feel like this. It amazes me that a man with such a huge capacity for human compassion in which he was capable could lead a life of altered reality, pointing out the absurdities of American depravity in a mixed form of crudeness and truth. He is a man that was capable of appreciation in his time of greatness, and is revered even more strongly in retrospect not only by his peers, but even by his adversaries. He was and is still often misunderstood in his motives because of his contradictory behavior that at times stood directly against his deepest desire for creating a better place for the America that he lived in. He allowed his selfishness to rule his actions, which he felt was his only way of living his life in a way that was true to his ideals, yet he truly cared about the people surrounding him.

I feel like Hunter at times. I feel like I have a strong moral desire to help those around me, yet I seem to have a selfish desire to do what I please at the cost of those around me. This is not intentional, of course. I feel like my inability to connect with those around me is somehow in a direct line with Hunter's constant self-inflicted chemical consciousness, the main difference being that my altered consciousness is not of my doing. I feel like there's no control at times.

Viewing myself from other people's observations seems to infuriate me. I see how I act, and wonder how I can feel the way that I do while acting in such a way that negates my intentions. I'm now taking on the opposite of Hunter's approach to life, searching for chemical solutions to make more sense of the world around me in order to become more at one with it instead of resisting the status quo. It's as if the world around me runs on a much different wavelength than I do, and I'm grasping desperately for some understanding of it all. It kills me, because I don't feel comfortable at all with the status quo.

Why am I doing this? Is it because I feel that without deep, sustainable human connections I will never attain the goals that I desire, or is it a search for some relief from the constant dissonance that I seem to introduce into the lives in which I play such a strong role? I don't know if I'll ever know the answer that those questions, but I do know that my desire for a larger role in society will never cease, even in the most triumphant moments of my existence. It's an insatiable drive that I have no control over, and despite the hardships it brings, I love it.

I feel that finding a balance between my desires and enriching the lives of those closest to me will be my life's unattainable goal, which I will strive endlessly for resolution. The bitch of it all is that I fear finding that resolution, for fear of becoming bored with life. There always has to be a goal in life, and the unattainable is the most exciting of all to achieve. But what's left after the unattainable is within your grasp? Do you let it go to keep the chase alive, or do you revel in your victory? The problem is, what's left after the victory party but an empty room needing to be cleared of the discarded streamers and party hats?