Chasing Comfort
It can suck majorly to be stuck.
I wear my insecurities and worries like a blanket that soothes me with its familiarity— I think I’m bad at letting go. Every school I’ve graduated from and left has gotten a teary reluctant good-bye from me. I get emotionally attached to clothes, people, ideas, scents, music, basically anything; including emotional states. To be emotionally attached to a feeling can be a dangerous thing. We often hear about addicts and their addiction to a high, chasing a specific feeling, sound familiar?
Noah Khan has a line in his song “Come Over” that goes “Takin’ the wrong meds, feels good to be sad”. And that’s what this piece is about: what happens when you’re in that place where all you want if comfort, but your own sadness is the most comforting thing life has to offer? As usual, these topics I find easiest to discuss and write about when drawing from my own experiences, so let’s dive in.
Instead of a strong compulsion to feel high with drugs, I think I have a compulsion (not quite an addiction) to feel low. Something about wallowing in my own isolation, loneliness, and sadness brings me comfort. It’s not an unheard of idea, it’s probably why we like listening to sad music when we’re sad. When dealing with emotions and feelings, some of us have the instinct to shut down, ignore it, sit in it, or deal and move on. If you’re anything like me and have struggled with depression in the past, present, or maybe in the future, the first thing you reach for is comfort. Comfort can look many ways and the things we use to comfort us can have varying consequences. I’ve learned that comfort is something that you kind of get to choose and how you seek it out matters— comfort can be destructive if we aren’t careful.
Alcohol as a form of comfort can lead to alcoholism. Drugs as a form of comfort can lead to drug addiction. Wallowing in sadness as a form of comfort can lead to a deeper depression, and relying too heavily on any one particular person can lead to codependency. The things we seek to comfort us are supposed to be comfortable, so when you make something like any of the previous scenarios comfortable, you’re setting yourself up to be knocked down— only knocked down in a familiar way. Just because the pain is a familiar pain, doesn’t mean it’t not still doing damage.
Instead of seeking comfort I am making an effort to seek change in my life and learn to let go. When we are placed in uncomfortable situations or are going through difficult moments in life I think it’s important to fight the urge to reach for an easy comfort that’s easy to fall back into, and instead push for difference. When we reframe and seek change rather than comfort in difficult times it makes us more active. An object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest; it is incredibly important that we do our best to prevent ourselves from falling into that latter category, at least for me.
Recently I got my nails done with a cousin of mine, and the man doing my nails said something that stuck with me. I asked him how long he lived in Miami and he said he came across the states from Cali 20yrs ago, and it’s the same to him. He does what he needs to do and he makes himself happy. He said “it doesn’t matter where you are. If you aren’t happy you won’t become happy after moving” which I slightly disagree with (racist places aren’t fun to live, trust me). Although, the more I think about what he said, though the more I feel it pushing me to make changes in my own life.
“It doesn’t matter where you are”, initially I was thinking about this in reference to geographic locations, but I think it applies and rings more true if you think about it as “where you are in life”. If you are in mental stagnation or “seeking comfort” you’re mentally still, an object at rest. You could physically move around the whole world and still be stuck seeking comfort, still an object at rest. If however, you are actively seeking change in your life you’re mentally in a state of motion. You could live in the same place for decades and continue to find joy and meaning, as long as your mind remains an object in motion.
I’m not sure if any of this made sense, but I’ve been “an object at rest” with this Substack for too long, so it’s time to add some external force and get the ball rolling.
you know those toys that can move all around in your hand but the center stays still? they're gyroscopic. I used to think I was like them moving around, pursuing every topic. with my mind still in my head a comforting feeling of ever present dread accompanying me in every city I had my favorite comfy jacket thats tattered but it's state never mattered. My old shoes beaten down with wear and tear but they were my favorite pair and it was always them I chose to wear. My favorite bag torn from how much it's been worn. --and a comfy mood made up of my attitude that I've stewed in for years. When life had beaten me down it was always easy to skip town, but I carried that frown like a prize awarded to me by life. The gyroscope works well. Tell me about all the places you've been about how you travel on a whim in attempt to flee --but have been beating yourself with the same limb plucked from your family tree like a switch you've earned and turned into the mechanism that holds the center still in this gyroscopic ball you are. But what happens if the center moves too? Would it be something new if the pieces were inverted and reverted to move independently so nothing is still? What happens if we will ourselves to change-- inside and out? We're still gyroscopic but I'm interested in that topic. Allowance of movement: external and internal I'll let you know how it goes in my next journal.