Because words

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.
He died. I am very sad. He is truly one of my heroes.
I wonder if it was a blue tunnel after all.

"When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again." 1974

Because words. Words are everything and nothing. They're all we have but they're not real. All. None. Our utmost connection and our utmost separation.

Not real, not tangible. Esoteric floating out in the air. Nonexistent and untouchable in space, in essence, not even real in energy. In the energy spent to write them, maybe, but not energy of their own. Random marks assigned random meanings that could have been any meanings at all but are the meanings they are. Words words words words words words words words words and more words words words words words words words.

Which brings me to connotation and how meaning is meaning but it's not the same; it's meaningless too. Like when as a kid you wonder if you're colorblind but realize you might never be able to find out, because if you see (what you call) red and somebody else sees it as (what you call) green that person will still have grown up identifying it as "red" so their red is your green but they're both called red and it will never make sense you'll never know what they're seeing or if it's colorfully similar to what you see. The meanings. The meanings. Not saying what you mean because the recipient of communication has hir* own connotations and you can't know them, not all of them. Can't know the memory that comes up when you say a certain word at a certain time. There's no communicating we are all stuck in our own world and even shared experiences have individual connotations, though you won't necessarily know it because what you call green is still what sie* calls red even though it's still green.

For his sake I really hope he's gone, gone and didn't have to go through the blue tunnel, because gone is all he always wanted to be, really.

and people who tell me it's not sad, since he had a long life and left all his writing behind, your optimism angers me. I don't feel like explaining myself, since it won't mean to you what I mean to say anyway. You make me tired.

It's not that I feel as alone as I sound it's just that
Well, it's just something.

*I decided to use gender-neutral pronouns today so work on it.