Contrast and Enigma

You seem, in your great calmness and quietness of heart, numb to my kind of mental turbulence, great exuberance and unbearable heart pang. I envy your peace, but dislike your detachment, too cold for my heart overcome by feeling, by soaring and by the mire. Yours is the type of personality I have yet to understand, who remain an enigma and forever at a distance from me. Others do share your vulnerabilities and joy, and I was bitter, but I have understood that the contrast is too great—your settled peace and well-grounded independence makes you happy but makes me chilly. You wish to give me well-meaning right answers, and I do not wish to hear them from you, because I do not know you, and my pride grates against my natural tendency towards intake and reflection—one who I cannot know and who does not make themselves known to me has no claim on me. I myself am defined by contrast. I envy your quietness of heart, your contentment and settledness that I do not have. Yet I will die in my enthusiasm, in my leaping excitement and my all-consuming agony.