Yes, yes, I know it seems as though I can’t get enough of the Smashing Pumpkins this year. But tonight, tonight has been speaking volumes to me over the past 8 months.
This particular line, the title of my post, more than the one I love to trip on (believe in the resolute urgency of now) really rips at my gut. In the middle of a song about living in the moment, they drop this excruciating, hard to accept brick at you – the more you change, the less you feel. And you can’t help but realize how true it is.
This post has been on my mind for a while but I just can’t seem to find the right words to say it with. I’ve had many conversations with friends over the past few weeks about it too. All about the fact that we’re unable to feel like we used to. That inability to feel those intense emotions we used to feel when we were younger. The rush, the feel, the thrill of the chase and even the pain of loss all seem mellowed down versions of what they used to be. But the biggest grouse is if I am actually able to love again. Or hurt intensely again as a result of that love turning sour. Am I only meant to have that one great love in my life? Isn’t it possible to love again? To feel those things that made me realize that I am alive? It’s saddening to grow up if this is what growing up turns you into. Or is it simply a mind block? Or is it that the person I will be able to feel those things about hasn’t quite come around yet?
A friend was telling me that he ended a relationship that was near perfection to him because he realized that he really wasn’t feeling it. That amazing gut-wrenching feeling that he felt with the last person he was in love with simply wasn’t there. And I couldn’t help but nod in agreement and get quite worked up about it because it’s exactly the same with me. The more we change and the more we grow up, the less we are able to feel. Our minds tend to over power our hearts instead of it being the other way around, the way it used to be. Another friend told me that when he broke up with a girlfriend years ago he was shattered but when he recently broke up with his last girlfriend, things felt so very different. Yes, he missed the loss of the familiarity of having her around, but he said it was all very adult and he didn’t feel like his world was ripped apart.
With me, I doubt it has anything to do with inner strength or anything like it. I just feel that as I grow stronger as a person, my heart grows weaker. At the soul, the core of my being was someone who used to get a rush out of things and all I feel now are mediocre emotions. I listen to love songs, watch soppy movies, pine for Heathcliff… all to no avail because they just make me long for what I have lost even more so. Every nerve ending used to be charged with emotions. Not to say I was emo or anything like that, but my heart used to be my strongest asset. I used to feel for people, for causes, for everything. And now all I have is a consciously forced push in that direction because heading in the opposite one will surely be the death of me. I can’t be cold. That for sure, is not in me to be. But lukewarm is a far more saddening state of being, don’t you think?
As oxymoronish (I coined a word!) as it may sound, it is really heart breaking that my heart may not break again.
so true. sometimes i’m ashamed of getting so jaded but also glad for it because it makes me feel strangely safe and infallible.
I was talking with a friend about this only some minutes ago TMS and, for me it’s the opposite. The more I learn and the more I change the more I feel.
As I learn and experience things I find that I get to see them with greater depth and meaning than before. Some things change with time and familiarity but almost always the change is positive.
Delilah – I agree with the whole feeling of infallibility. But sometimes I wish it were not so.
RD – I guess when some of young uns’ turn your age and start balding, the feelings will set in again eh? 😛 On a serious note though, maybe in my case it’s just a temporary thing and I’ll turn back into my old self again in a while.
true…somehow as I am growing up things just don’t feel the same…the randomness is somehow missing….the thrills are somehow lessening….i always felt it was just me…glad to know others too feel the same..is this what they call growing up??? the rush when u had the first crush….the first kiss…even failure….where’s it now??
btw, after a long time got back to listening the Pumpkins….have been listening to “Tonight” on infinite loop past few days….googled for “The more you change, the less you feel”
and found ur blog…..this song lyrics are gonna defins my next 5-10 years…live in the moment….starting from tonight 😀
btw, Nice blog..