even sober, i'm still too drunk

some people get drunk to feel things more deeply. i was born that way

have you ever felt intoxicated by your own mind?

like there’s an unbearably deep current flowing around the curvature of your brain, like there's a weight pressing down on your thoughts but also endless fuel feeding the fire of everything you feel?

that's how i feel 99% of the time.

when people talk about being drunk, they never fail to mention how philosophical it makes them feel. how the alcohol loosens something inside them, lets them dive into questions they usually avoid, makes them feel everything more intensely. how when you overdose on that philosophical nature, it can be more harmful than beneficial.

that's how i feel 99% of the time.

every day i wake up, i feel like i've had too much to drink.

and i know it's sad, but i can’t figure out how to turn it off.

there's this constant circulation happening in my head—thoughts that follow some endless track, looping and spiraling deeper with each pass. it's like being caught in a philosophical undertow that never has a ‘last stop’.

and while everyone else needs substances to access that raw, unfiltered state of feeling and thinking, i'm already drowning in it. i'm permanently tuned to a frequency that most people only pick up when they're six drinks in at 2 AM.

the thing about being naturally philosophical is that it sounds like a gift until you realize you can't use it selectively.

that same depth that can produce beautiful insights becomes the thing that traps you in cycles of overthinking until your brain feels like it's going to combust. the same emotional intensity that helps you understand the human condition can overwhelm you with its relentless weight.

i watch people around me exist in what seems like this lighter dimension—worried about surface-level things, able to turn off the deeper questioning, capable of just being without constantly analyzing the being itself. they get to visit the philosophical realm when they choose to, when they're ready to dive that deep.

but me? I don’t get that privilege.
and there's no off switch. i’ve searched, i promise.
there is NO shallow end of the pool.
i’m just drowning.

living in this headspace is like having a superpower you never asked for and can't control. you see connections others miss, feel emotions others gloss over, ask questions others haven't even thought to think. but you also can't escape the exhaustion of all that seeing and feeling and questioning.

it's the difference between choosing to swim in deep water and being born unable to breathe anywhere but the ocean floor.

and here's the thing that gets me—everyone talks about depth like it's automatically beautiful. like being a "deep thinker" is some kind of badge of honor. but they don't tell you about the weight of carrying all those thoughts, the way your chest feels heavy when you're staring at the moon at 3 AM thinking about the futility of existence while everyone else is sleeping peacefully.

they don't tell you about the loneliness of living in your head, of having conversations with yourself that are more meaningful than most of the ones you have with other people. they don't tell you that sometimes you'll envy the girl who only cares about her nail appointment because at least she can sleep without questioning the nature of consciousness.

when drunk people get philosophical, they're experiencing this temporary liberation from their usual mental constraints. they feel profound, connected, deeply alive.

but when it's your baseline, when you wake up already submerged in that space, it becomes less about liberation and more about learning to function while you're constantly drowning in your own thoughts.

when your natural state is what others only experience occasionally, it's hard to find people who understand the bone-deep exhaustion that comes with constant depth. they see the insights, the emotional intelligence, the ability to discuss existence over coffee like it's the weather, but they don't see what it costs to live there permanently.

they don't see the nights when you can't sleep because you're thinking about how temporary everything is. they don't see the way you analyze every conversation afterward, looking for hidden meanings that probably aren't there. they don't see how you can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone because no one else seems to be living in the same existential reality as you.

there are moments when i look at people living in what seems like blissful ignorance and feel this deep, aching envy. they worry about normal things: what to wear, what to eat, whether their Instagram got enough likes. they're not constantly questioning the nature of reality or feeling the weight of every human interaction like it might contain the secrets of the universe.

people used to justify this to me by complimenting me, saying that i was mature for my age—that my high emotional intelligence was just a sign that i was growing up faster and better and smarter.

how did i go from growing up to breaking down?

how did something that was supposed to be a gift end up being what holds me back? how is it that my intrinsic ability to see things for more than they are hurts me more than it helps me? it turns out there's a difference between being wise beyond your years and being trapped by that wisdom. what felt like growing up was really just learning to see all the things i couldn't unsee.

and once you see them, you can't go back. you can't unknow what you know or unfeel what you've felt. you're stuck carrying all of this awareness like a weight you never asked for but can't put down.

it’s trading the simple world for one where every thought spirals into ten more thoughts, where every feeling carries the weight of universal human experience, where you can't just exist without examining the existence itself.

it's like being fluent in a language that everyone else only speaks when they're under the influence. you're always ready for those deep conversations about meaning and mortality, but most people only want to have them when they're drunk enough to forget they'll be embarrassed about it tomorrow.

the rest of the time, you're speaking a dialect they don't quite understand, living in a reality they only visit when it serves them.

and honestly? i don't know if that's okay or not. i don't know if being naturally intoxicated by your own thoughts is something to accept or something to fight against. most days, i'm just trying to survive it.

some days the philosophical nature feels like it's going to kill me. like an overdose of consciousness that makes it impossible to function in a world that seems designed for people who don't carry this weight.

other days, it feels like the only thing that makes me real. like without all this depth and questioning, i'd just be another person going through the motions, and maybe that would be easier but it wouldn't be me.

i don't have answers. i don't know how to turn it off or if i even want to permanently. i just know that this is how my brain works, and most of the time it feels like too much, and sometimes i wonder if other people like me are out there feeling just as lost in their own heads.

and as for why i’m sharing this, i suppose, if you're going to be philosophical, you might as well be philosophical about being philosophical. (and you might as well share it with people who like to indulge in your philosophical-ness.)

this is how i feel 99% of the time.
if you recognize this feeling, then i guess we're both stuck down here together, trying to figure out if there's a way up or if this is just how some of us are built.

cheers to the journey :)