Hostility

You get up in the morning, and before you have even opened the door, there is already a list in your head. The neighbour who talks on the phone too loudly. The colleagues who get everything wrong. The politicians who are ruining the country. The people on the train who smell. The food that no longer tastes the way it used to. The world out there is dirty, and you see it with a precision that no one can take from you.

And at some point — sometimes after years, sometimes after decades — your body begins to translate this inner stance. The skin shows patches that cannot find rest: redness, flaking, eczema, psoriasis. The stomach contracts until it becomes inflamed. You drink to make the world bearable for an hour — and find that the thirst for numbness grows ever louder. Tumours, skin diseases, addictions, ulcers — the range of symptoms that accompany this basic attitude is broad.