stuff

rejection isn't just a part of life; it's also a bodily sensation, more than an emotion or a thought, and therefore is within the province of that which can be endured as a bodily sensation can be endured.

it's, as always, an arcane distinction. and as always i'm speaking personally. for me, thoughts are things that don't go away, and at the same time don't really build. they're somewhere in between static and peach fuzz, corporeally. static has the power to torture your ears, but it doesn't do much else aside from signify the absence of the desired sound; peach fuzz, if collected over a long period of time from many peaches, does have the capability of turning into an object of solidity, though not such a capability as, say, play-doh or tapioca pudding. so on the one hand, thoughts constantly bombard, and on the other, they don't stay--the bombardment is frustratingly within time, and as such, slips and slides into a semi-cohesive object all the more cohesive for being un-entangle-able. (this doesn't sound like original thought. i wish i could credit my sources.)

but rejection isn't like that. somehow, despite being just mental, it's got physical clout--and as such, it's just the thing itself. having a thought like "maybe i'm too intelligent to be understood" is a slow twist of pain--it's not itself; it's rather about a zillion things: it calls down upon itself, well, a., the feeling that it's nothing more than a reaction to being misunderstood, as well as an excitingly specific echo chamber of associations such as, b., the shame at having such a capability for hubris, and c., the despair (somewhat theatrical) at the idea that one's intelligence is immutable as a fixed star and therefore one will never understood, which then brings in d., the fact that one is being pretty irrational about the whole thing. knowing that you weren't selected for something that you tried for, on the other hand, is a short sharp shock. and it's acceptable as such.

if i were to say that the process of accepting rejection as physical were immediate, i'd be lying. but i got myself there. it's a really simple story, actually. i was sitting and thinking through the thing, attempting to ameliorate the shock with the mix of self-flattery and faux-practicality that i usually both make use of and despise, when suddenly i remembered a thing that i sometimes have trouble remembering--it's just pain.

and as such it became a thing to be enjoyed.

i wish i could say that freaked me out.