"Thugging it out in silence"
"Thugging it out in silence" by PQHAÜS
(Acrylic on canvas / 24x24 inches / 2024)
I used to tell myself to "thug it out," no matter how close I came to breaking under the weight of the chaos life threw my way. I knew if I didn’t toughen up, I’d slip back into that dark psychological pit I had spent years clawing my way out of. And somehow, it always worked. I’d close my eyes, breathe in the silence, and imagine myself as an unstoppable force—a bulletproof bulldozer plowing through a storm of savage hail at 150 mph.
But the day they told me about that news, when my life was already a swirling mess, I couldn’t hold it anymore. I fell apart completely, like my soul had been ripped from my body, leaving me hollow. Suddenly, I couldn’t see, hear, or even smell the world around me. The only sound was the dull echo of my own heartbeat—a haunting reminder that I was still alive. From morning until night, I just sat there in my room, paralyzed, lost in a fog. It wasn’t even sadness that consumed me. It was something colder, heavier—the numbness that comes when you realize things might never get better this time.
And yet, in that suffocating silence, my mind kicked back into survival mode, pushing me to "thug it out" once more. I sat there, unmoving, for more than 24 hours, battling through it alone. It was then I realized that my resilience—the strength to withstand all the blows life threw—was a choice only I could make. Now that moment has faded into memory, and I see life as a long highway with stretches of dirt and smooth pavement. It's not about avoiding the rough patches; it's about how we embrace each moment, no matter what the road brings.
Your post hit close to home for me. A few years back I was working a night shift at a warehouse, and the place was practically empty after midnight. The only sounds were the hum of the refrigeration units and the occasional clank of a pallet jack https://www.deakin.edu.au/ I remember standing in the middle of those aisles, feeling a strange mix of vulnerability and defiance, like I was the only one who knew what it meant to keep moving forward while the world slept. It wasn’t about bravado; it was more about surviving the quiet pressure that builds when you’re the last person left to hold things together. I’d catch myself humming a low tune to drown out the stillness,…