A prisoner of my own mind

Franz Kafka once wrote:

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something only I feel in my bones and only be experienced in those bones.”

Lately, I’ve been feeling this deeply.

Recently, while lost in the quiet awe of nature, I felt something stir. A slow unraveling of a philosophical knot I’ve been wrestling with—an ongoing attempt to make sense of my place in the world.

When I tried to share these musings with some of my closest friends, they responded with insight and care. Their interpretations were thoughtful, even generous.

But I still felt… off. Dissatisfied. Claustrophobic. Misunderstood. Flattened. As if something vast and all-consuming in my mind had been condensed into a soundbite. Of course, this isn’t a commentary on my friends, but rather a reflection of a brewing internal frustration.

Even when I journal, I struggle to articulate my thoughts and feelings to myself. I liken my musings to a nebulous cloud—never fully coalescing into a coherent structure, floating ever so freely. Expansive, but vague.

I don’t know what it is exactly—whether it’s a lack of vocabulary, limitations in my poetic expression, or simply that some ideas resist translation.

Kafka’s quote offered me momentary relief. Maybe that’s it. Maybe some truths only live in my bones. Maybe some thoughts are so intricately shaped by my inner world—my experiences, wounds, memories, questions—that they can never fully be realised or replicated in someone else’s frame of reference.

How do I free myself from this cage?

So what, then, is the solution to feeling trapped in my mind—at odds with thoughts and emotions I can’t even fully articulate to myself?

Do I continue to refine my craft, hoping one day I ascend to new heights in expression—through writing, cinematography, music, or something else? Or do I learn to make peace with the notion that some parts of me will always go unseen, unshared, unspoken—unfolding only in the private corners of my mind and heart—they live and die with me?

Perhaps it’s a bit of both. For even if the world never understands, the process of expression brings me closer to understanding—and accepting—myself. And maybe that’s enough. Not freedom in the traditional sense, but a quieter kind of liberation: the cage still there, but the door is no longer locked.

I once heard someone say that the opposite of depression is expression. And while that may oversimplify a complex human experience, I do believe they were onto something.