I met a girl (20-21) through uni but only just started talking to her about a month ago (we've been in classes together as long as a year ago but never really talked). Most of our conversation has been on Snapchat or text. Since the semester ended we've really been talking a lot, to the point that I'm starting to procrastinate on things I need to do. I feel like we might be moving too fast maybe or something? We've been flirting and beating around the bush if you know what I mean. I am in need of advice because I'm not sure if maybe we're moving too fast (for me) but it's just a natural thing. Importantly, most of our conversation isn't loads of compliments or anything that feels fake, like lovebombing. It feels more like coming on too strong or something but not in a manipulative way. For example, we're hanging out this weekend. We've talked about all the shows we could binge together *this summer* but we haven't even hung out once yet. Like, the cart is really getting put before the horse here. We've texted about pretty personal past experiences which takes a good degree of trust. I think where my fear may be coming from is I've never really been in a good intimate relationship. I've only dated two girls and each relationship lasted just a few months. I'm getting this reaction where I feel like my own space and time are being invaded heavily, and I think that's also my fault because I haven't learned how to set healthy boundaries. In her case, she has been with 5 people. One relationship just ended around the turn of the year but she has to finish out her lease with her ex. This kind of hit me as red flaggy you know? I have to trust her word in terms of how bad of a person her ex is, and how her ex isn't paying rent. She told me she's been abused in relationships in the past (not referring to her ex here, but *herself*, to clarify) and has ADD. She says she has no filter, and that's pretty accurate. She says she suffered an abusive relationship with a parent who she hates... I mean she is *very* forthright and open about her own personal life with me, which, I mean, is okay. I guess after my boner chilled out I started wondering how I feel about all this, and the amount I'm already sharing too. I'm not at all assuming negative things about her simply because she has a somewhat fucked up family background and current living situation, but still, it's a lot to take in and maybe I'm feeling overwhelmed? I mean, she's still living with her ex, and dealing with a soon-to-be small claims court issue. Anyway, she's coming over this weekend to my place to hang out. I feel like things are going to move toward the sexy-time direction at some point. My roommates will be home so I plan on introducing her and hanging out with them, maybe watching something or playing Mario Kart, Mario Party together. I don't plan on letting her stay the night, and I hope I don't think with my dick. Am I being insecure or avoidant? When she comes over I also want to talk with her one on one about all this and how she feels about the speed of our relationship. For example, we haven't talked about it in great detail (partly I think because her ADD makes convos jump around a lot), but she already offered to help me make an Indeed when I mentioned I need a job for the summer, and she already said she wants to do a road trip somewhere in our state this summer with me. We haven't, like, made serious plans about these things, but at the same time it feels like a lot of sudden involvement. At the same time, we've also talked a lot about silly shit like spirit animals, zodiac symbols, and favorite colors, or innocuous stuff like our favorite music or school related things, or her pet. So idk if I'm overthinking it. I'm an anxious hypochondriac, so I'm *not* trying to find problems that don't exist... that's kind of why I am asking advice from an outside perspective. But I do feel like we're moving too fast at least; that's a gut feeling I can trust. I'm trying to figure out how to set boundaries and have that conversation. I also don't know how I feel about her already calling me "babe" over (albeit only one) text, although I've also said some things too that maybe were hasty (flirty things, NOT "I love you" or something crazy, but still), so the way this has been developing is also my fault. I'm afraid of being hurt by someone who is not good, but I'm also afraid of pushing away someone because of my own fears (of being hurt, of losing my own time and space) when that person actually could have been alright, except just moving things too fast with me; I like her, but I think I need to get to know her more first and slow down. I just imagine a dystopian future where I have zero alone time, zero free time, and get cold feet.
This is just a test of the new blog system. I'm not really sure what the improvements or changes are. To be entirely honest, I am rather confused. I do notice that there are... a lot of new Ungrouped Categories, most of which seem to be duplicates. The previous UI layout or whatever you call it felt... cleaner. Maybe it's still under construction. I think it also might be all of the social media buttons below that I'm not going to use. I don't really care much for social media anymore, but perhaps Elon Musk will change my mind. My semester just ended. I am concerned as to whether or not I'll end up passing one of my classes. The final paper is worth something like 70-75% of our final grade, and I can't say I feel too confident about it, and my professor wasn't the most helpful or easiest to work with in terms of figuring out how to improve. Tomorrow is the last day. I have one more exam period and then it's done. Unfortunately, then I have to go straight into a couple of online summer courses that started earlier this week. Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to start summer courses the week of final exams? Sigh. Well, if I fail that course, maybe the scholarships I've fortunately been awarded will make it easier to swallow. That, and if I must re-take the course, I am not taking it with that professor. Definitely the worst professor I've had while at university. The class had a lot of potential, but so much of that potential was squandered by completely irrelevant monologues from the professor 90% of the time, and absolutely no useful scaffolding. And while I am certainly not the best writer, the dude has some serious reading comprehension issues. I get being a hard grader, but I don't think that involves being a troll and roleplaying as an idiot. I've never had a professor make showing-up to their class a useless, ear and nose bleeding waste-of-time, and then have the audacity to be passive aggressive about attendance. The only thing that makes this more irritating is that I want to be a teacher, and would never run a class (*cough* into the ground *cough*) that way. Just tons and tons of insane word-vomit, without any point in sight, for an hour and 15 minutes twice a week. Sorry, but no thanks. I'm stressed, can't you tell? Anyway. The past few weeks I've tried a beer here, a shot there. Overall I've been fine. I don't really have any desire to drink, certainly not like I did. I'm not going to run from myself.
I'm not feeling too well, so this might be a bit rough around the edges. But I wanted to do something more on the creative side. Hanekawa Tsubasa is the class presidents of class presidents, it is said. She is the archetype. But no human can be a pure archetype. It would be more accurate to say that any human can strive for a given ideal, an archetype if you will, and sometimes *it* may manifest itself through the person. Have you ever heard (the somewhat cliche) "it's always the quiet ones" who's wrath one should truly fear? I'm not talking about school shooters; I simply mean that it's always the nice ones, the ones who are too nice for their own good, who can be pushed to a terrifying breaking point. Why? Just who's fault is it? ARe YOU blAmiNG the VICTIM?! Well, in some things we do have a reasonable amount of responsibility to ourselves and others. That in no way justifies wrong-doing. But Hanekawa's problem is that her refusal to integrate her own shadow, her own repression (albeit perhaps learned) of her negative emotions, builds-up stress inside of her. Then, when that stress becomes too much for her to handle anymore and she breaks, she couldn't repress reality. She could no longer repress something that now made its existence known outside of herself, and had hurt other people. So what to do? Hanekawa basically gives it a name. In other words, it becomes a separate personality she need not take responsibility before. Now, I admit that things may not work so literally. The story is told from Araragi's perspective, after all, so all we can get is dialogue from Hanekawa, Oshino's adult input (see the image above), and our own interpretation as readers. Nevertheless I think that there is more than enough there, either the lines themselves or what's between the lines, where this is more or less what is happening. That is to say, this is a very realistic phenomenon that has probably occurred to all of us. It manifests itself as psychological projection, or even displacement. You have a shit commute to work. You get to work, and maybe you're not in a bad mood, but so much for waking up on the right side of the bed you know? Anyway, you get through the day but right before you leave your boss tells you that you need to stay late. Now you're in a poor mood; you just wanted to be able to go home at the scheduled time and decompress. You're hungry because you hadn't anticipated this. Your boss couldn't have even been bothered to ask you nicely, either. Finally you get home and you end up snapping at your S.O. or your kid, or your family or roommate. Somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with all of the things that contributed to your shitty day. Here is where I think the worst mistake is made. Hanekawa can't face that part of herself. Even when it comes right out of her and lashes out. So when she can't repress it, she dissociates from it. She separates her "self" from it, except her "self" isn't even a full self to begin with. So she's actually just fragmenting her self, trying to hold onto the desired part of it. This ends up making her a very righteous person. She has built a perfect image for herself but at what cost? By way one of the most psychologically damaging sacrifices you can make. A shifting of blame, a surrendering of responsibility to... well what exactly? It's a situation that can only be described in two ways at best: possession, or a mental illness. One can imagine how this plays out in the rest of her life. She has the best grades in her school, and is a tutor to Araragi, and is the class president (which, unlike my high school, is actually a VERY involved role in Japanese high schools). But someone like that can sometimes be terrifying, because by way of comparison we see so many of our faults in ourselves, and put themselves above us in some capacity. However, she is terrifying for another reason too. And that is upon the realization, or even just the stirrings of initial realization, of her true nature. Araragi is really confronted with this when she's been hit by one of her parents and has a bandage on her face which he asks her about, and Hanekawa comes to defend the parent in a twisted case of something like Stockholm Syndrome. It was around this time (I first saw the show a couple years ago) that I happened to be questioning my foray into stoicism. The jury is still out on this, because I'm not a philosopher and I just think that there are smarter people than me, but I was confronted with what appears to be a limit to stoicism. That taken to its full extent it ceases to be attainable, and begins showing diminishing returns. Imagine being so stoic that you become inhuman in the process. It often requests a denial of emotion, or saying "you only felt a negative emotion because you had an expectation", and so the only conclusion one can draw from that is to have no expectations. You can also play similar mind games with yourself in order to adapt to an abusive and neglectful home environment as Hanekawa does. You get hit, and you say what Hanekawa essentially says: I deserved it. I only got upset because I had an expectation. I only got hit because I did something wrong. End-goal of both: eliminate negative emotion. End-result of both: repression. I had to find a philosophy that could allow for a radical embrace and acceptance of all emotion. Hanekawa needed to find a way to radically embrace and accept all parts of herself, including the ugly ones that she especially didn't like, and knew others wouldn't like. You may not agree with my take on stoicism. All I'm saying is that my every attempt at being stoic, ever, has had the same result of Hanekawa. Then I would just be told I'm doing it wrong, but never taught how to apparently do it "right". Every time I've tried to logic myself out of feeling an undesired emotion. It has never ever worked as a long term strategy. Other people I hope have gotten much more out of it, and obviously they have since so many people subscribe to its teachings. And I'm not saying there isn't value to stoicism at all. For me, it was more like being a doormat where instead of defend myself from my boss, why not just change my expectations? Expect my boss to tell me to stay late whenever he wants, however he wants. After all, that's the reason I'm upset right? It has everything to do with me, nothing to do with him. Expect the worst of all things. Expect the worst of people. Or expect nothing at all. Desire nothing at all. And wonder why you're apparently defective and just can't get woke, can't get enlightened. Feel like there's something WRONG with you for having desires. There's something WRONG with wanting something, with expecting something. It was numerous stoic texts that I saw this kind of teaching in regarding expectations. Chryssipus, Aurelius, Seneca... Sorry, but I can't get rid of my passions. I can't get rid of my desires; I did way too much mental damage to myself for years hoping that I could become asexual so I'd stop being attracted to women and could finally be free of not being good enough for them. I'm not going to make endless excuses for others and turn myself into a sacrificial Christ figure. Remember this? I say dare to dream. Dare to hope. Dare to have faith. But understand that if you try and touch the sun, you'll get burned. Understand the higher you fly, the harder it will be to breathe. Gravity will constantly be pulling you down. So don't neglect yourself. Accept the negative emotion. Live with it. You can't wish it away but keep what you want. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I can't rid myself of my stress with logic. "I shouldn't be feeling this way. It's wrong to feel this way. It's my fault I feel this way." Nor can I rid myself of disappointment at how my love life has gone. There is nothing to be done about it. So what I wanted to know, was how can I live with indefinite suffering? I can't rationalize it away. I can't hide it away. All I can do is embrace it. I am simply the way that I am and there is no explanation, there need be no explanation. I just know from experience and from living with it that it does pass, or there are times where positive emotions happen to shine more brightly, and that there may be healthy ways of coping. I don't need to get rid of my negative emotion. If I ever want to do that, I can just sleep, and usually that helps me feel better the next day. But I don't control whether or not my emotions get to exist. That's... not how it works. That's not how any of this works. "But why are some people happy all the time and other people sad all the time?" There's lots of reasons. Every reason. Money, needs met, better health, genes, hormones, diet, exercise, amount of sunlight, presence or absence of toxic people in your life, meaningful employment, expectations being met, desires being fulfilled, confidence or lack thereof. The list goes on until functionally there is no reason. It just happens to be the way that it is. In sum: If there is something you can do about suffering, then do. If there is nothing you can do about it, then try to logic away your own wants, desires, expectations. If you're like me and can't do that, then you are stuck with an unattainable want, desire, expectation, and there is nothing you can do about it except exist with the negative emotion that you, likewise, can only embrace. Every day. Indefinitely.
"You need to understand something." Field Marshal Morgan turned from the window overlooking the courtyard and rested his elbows on the desk. A shadow fell across his face, and his eyes glinted with a steely gaze from atop the pyramid of his folded fingers. "Your malcontent—I will not have you breeding your illness among my men. If you threaten the harmony of Arago, I will not hesitate to have you dealt with. It is bad enough I must tolerate that fool and his marble worshipping cult. But the priest and his harlot are unfortunately the only ones who can treat my sick men. The moment they no longer prove useful, or dare become a real problem, they too will be dealt with. "There was never a before. There is nothing beyond. Rid those delusions from your mind before you spread the sickness to someone else. You think you are the first to feel such feelings? You think you are special to think such thoughts? I too felt them once. I have been in this place for lifetimes. I've seen this again and again; if you continue down this path, your worsening condition will leave me no choice but to protect everyone around you... from you. This place is everything, forever. And I am its keeper. You will do well to remember that, and to forget the forgetting. "One more thing." Morgan reached across his desk and lit the gas lamp. "I say all of this for your own good. Dismissed."
I think tonight I will make a vow. A vow to never talk politics with anyone, ever again. Now, I haven't worked out all the details yet. There may be instances where I am required to say something about politics, if it's related to some literary work or piece of art; if it is required for school. But I will need to think really hard about what is *truly* required. Unless something has to do directly with me, like the policing of my speech, or infringing on my rights (or the real threat of such), I will abstain from any and all, every single political conversation that I ever encounter. If there is one thing I really hate, it is being accused of something I didn't do. If there is one thing I hate equally then, it would be having words put in my mouth. Had I been given the floor, and the attention of suitable spans, in an environment that isn't a bar, I might have formulated an indivisible statement such as: "I am sorry that you find yourself ignored by your boss, and that your male co-worker is not ignored, and that he presents the same ideas to your boss that you have and experiences more success. But you don't know the reason why that's happening is because you're a woman; you've never asked him." Now, since this took place in real life, it might not have actually been said in such a crystalline fashion. Nevertheless, that was my indisputable point: that you are making a negative assumption of your boss that you cannot actually prove (remember earlier how I said I personally hate being accused of something that isn't true? it applies to others as well), and in the process you are making yourself a victim based on that very unproven assumption. In some sense, this is the pot calling the kettle black. But please note, not once have I said in this post that I am not a hypocrite. And a fact isn't suddenly nullified on the basis of coming from a hypocrite. A thing is true if a thing is true, regardless if it came from a saint, a sinner, a hypocrite or a perfect person. Well, to play devil's advocate, I perhaps came off as unsympathetic. That was not my intention but I can certainly see how that may have happened. Really my underlying point is that regardless of why your boss is ignoring you, your boss shouldn't be ignoring you. The reason why you're being ignored in some sense is totally irrelevant. Of course, you could say that it wouldn't be irrelevant if she's being ignored for being a woman. But unless you could prove that, it's a moot point. However, the real problem I see here is one of missing the point. Your boss shouldn't be ignoring you. Your boss shouldn't be playing favorites. Your boss should give you actual feedback and a reason why the presentation of your ideas was unconvincing. And I myself don't know the full story and haven't lived your experience, so I basically have to take everything I'm being told with a grain of salt. That doesn't mean I'm going to gaslight you, or accuse you of lying or anything of the sort. It's just a simple fact. Anyway, then came the phrase from one of the other people at the table: "So what you're saying is--" And that was when I got pissed off. "So what you're saying is that she's just retarded?" Quoted. Not paraphrasing there. No. I never said that. I never even implied that. And then came the statistics and the sociological factoids and *I* was treated like I am retarded. Didn't I know that some women in society aren't listened to *because* they are a woman? Didn't I know that there are shitty men out there? What, am I living under a rock? That was when I lost it. I was loud enough to draw attention in a bar going full-swing. It's become increasingly evident that I'm better off alone. I am an indefinitely misunderstood person. This shit happens all of the time. I painstakingly reiterate, rephrase, reword things time and time again, and not with the intention of "winning" but with the intention of getting the facts. Honestly, the girl who was talking, one of my friend's girlfriends, wasn't even really upset at all about what I was saying. She didn't agree. But she's too strong of mind and will, which is a good thing, to have an instinctive reaction to be hurt. After all, what the fuck do I know? I'm not her. I'm not working at her job every day. So I could see how I could unintentionally come across as being insulting. Again though, the reality is that you can't prove why or why not that is happening. To make an assumption that conveniently makes yourself the victim and the other person the evil-doer without causal proof is a human thing to do. It's not like she based that assumption on nothing; that kind of thing DOES happen, I am well fucking aware, and it's natural to hypothesize why you're being ignored by your boss but a male coworker is not, especially if you're working on the same projects. But in reality I think it is an awful thing to be ignored by your boss. It is an awful thing to have your ideas or whatever ignored. And then to see a coworker be treated better all the time in comparison to yourself. Alas, never got to express any of that. Instead what I was saying, evidently, was that she's retarded. I vow to never speak to anyone about anything remotely political ever again. Nope, you're right! Congratulations! I will be your yes-man from here on out! You are correct mein Fuhrer! Sans a position of true influence and power, talking politics is a very useless exercise that usually meets a toxic end. People yell, people get mad, people accuse one another with the "so what you're saying is" weapon, nobody learns anything, people dig their trenches deeper. It's exasperating and, I'll say it, fucking retarded. I'm a staunch advocate of freedom of speech, but wow do I at least understand the temptation of autocracy. "You coming over to so-and-so's?" Literally right after. "I'll think about it." Nope. I'm not. Phone's off, I have my online status for my socials set to invisible. Off the grid at least for the night. Other people might not like me or what I have to say, other people might not listen, but it is comforting to know that that has no weight in terms of the actual validity of what I said, or my value as a person. I'm beginning to value myself, at least. But if other people aren't going to listen, aren't going to value what I have to say, are going to "so what you're saying is--" me, that isn't in my control. It's not my job to control them. That has nothing to do with me. And so you know what. If the reason why I'm single is because I'm not a yes-man for women, then so be it. Maybe the person who said that was just joking and trying to lighten the tension, and in all likelihood I'm sure that's what he was doing. I think the conversation had just gone a bit too far south at that point to make a difference. Still, if there's even any remote truth to that, whether he meant it that way or not, I can't control that either. That's not a game I want to participate in.
This won't be long. My roommate and I were talking about my unexplainable reaction to seeing a pretty girl. Depression. Well, unexplained as-of-yet. I could cook up some guesses. But it'd all be food I've served you, reader, before. I know, you want to eat something else. This establishment has really gone downhill. I'm sorry. Your meal is on the house tonight. All I can really do is put on a brave face. Smile and suffer. It is only thanks to faith, an absurdly radical acceptance, and the people in my life who love me, that I am still here. My life is this way not by means of conspiracy, but by means of happenstance. It just is. Fairness has nothing to do with it. Justice has nothing to do with it. Not everybody deserves love because it has nothing to do with deserving. You can deserve love and still not get it. You can not deserve love and yet still get it. I get depressed whereas other guys have an equally inexplicable surge of confidence (apparently) or joy. There need not be an explanation. I only desire an explanation because I want it to change. I only want it to change because I think it is unfair. But it just is. There is nothing to be done about it. As Kierkegaard said, do or do not do a thing, you'll regret it either way. So there's really no reason to get so worked up about my condition. My ego, naturally, is wounded by the way things are. And it should be. That's a perfectly understandable reaction, especially given the role that the ego plays. It doesn't make sense to get mad at it. At this rate, I cannot see a way out. I cannot see a way around this particular predicament of being. I cannot even really wrap my mind around it to at least understand it. What good does it do to understand a thing you can't change, if your whole intent in understanding was in hopes of changing it? That's a waste. I see beauty. I get depressed. Bittersweet. I cannot have one without the other. So it is, that I'll watch those around me get to experience something withheld from me. So it is, that I'll get to experience it vicariously in anime. As Shinobu says, "it's possible for a fake to be more real than the real thing." Isn't that wonderful? God, I am blessed. Time to sleep. I can always rest assured knowing that I can fill my dreams with what life should have been. With who I wish I was but can never be. I can set aside my worries, or the frustration of being stuck and unable to change my life, and bridge the unbridgeable distance between who I am and who I'd like to be. Waking time is the only time allotted for such anxiety. When I am asleep, I am free. I am safe. I simply exist in a reversal of what others experience. They get to experience certain wonders in their waking hours. For me, I am only allowed them in my imagination. And dreams have a magical way of feeling more real than the real thing. But even the times where I seem to not dream of anything, I am grateful for such a deep, restful sleep. You do not understand me. Nobody does; not even myself. But that's okay. Some of you have shown you don't need to understand to show mercy. Faith is such a beautiful thing. I am genuinely grateful for your mercy. You do not know how beautiful it makes you. Therefore I can show myself mercy. I will not understand myself. I cannot understand myself. There is no reason why I feel depression at the sight of beauty. There is no reason why I am unhappy. It just is. I only know that to dwell on what cannot be changed, or to get wrathful with myself about why I won't change, only serves to worsen my condition. Instead, I will not change. I will simply grieve the void between who I am and who I wish to be. And due to the unbridgeable chasm between who I am and who I wish, no, need to be, I will also have to grieve the equally unbridgeable gap between how my life is and what I wish my life were like. And in that grief I will live indefinitely. And I will smile. There is no reason, there is no rule, there is no law, that says I cannot smile if I am grieving. That I cannot smile if I am unhappy. That I cannot smile if I am depressed. That is my radical choice. Because there is no other choice. All of my seeking for answers, all of my efforts and struggles, have been in vain. For naught. Years and years and I am no closer. I have done everything, and nothing changed. I cannot change my cowardly nature. I cannot change my spiteful nature. I cannot change my solemn nature. I cannot change my neurotic nature. I cannot change my lustful nature. I cannot change my jealous nature. I cannot change my envious nature. I cannot change my selfish nature. Every time they all just snap back. So, this must be my fate; a resignation to grief. I am not allowed to grow up and change like all of the other adults on this forum. No matter what I try, no matter what logic I arm myself with, everything snaps back to being fucked up. There's never any lasting change. And none of you, and nobody else, can tell me why. I am simply broken and cannot make the same permanent progress that you can. I can only be a knight of resignation. Nevertheless, I am grateful for what I do have. I might not always show it, but I know it to be true, and I will show it now. Furthermore, there is no reason why I cannot or should not delude myself into thinking I'm not single. Of course, I would not force others to be a part of that delusion. But in my own time, in my "alone" time I no longer have to be alone. I'm not talking about losing touch with reality. I'm talking about playing pretend. Pretending that I have a wonderful wife and two cute kids. And when I look again at a beautiful lady, I need not feel depressed. In my mind, in my private thoughts, in my own imaginary world, they're already my love. I'm just visiting them at work. Or they're visiting me at work. Or we went to a party together. Whatever the scenario. I can provide for them. They can appreciate me. I can love them. They can love me. I'll have someone to talk with on my long drives. I'll have someone to listen to at night when I go to bed. We might disagree or have our bad days, our days apart because we each need our own space, and that's normal too. I'll at least get to experience it. A fake that is more real than the real thing. This world can stop me from changing. It can refuse to be what I want it to be and there is nothing I can do about it. But there is nothing it can do to stop my imagination. There is nothing it can do to stop the respite of my sleep. There is nothing it can do to stop me from playing and dreaming. And because a fake can be just as real, if not more real than the real thing, there is nothing in this world it can take from me or keep from me. God has blessed me with his radical absurdism. I had anxieties about going crazy, but "crazy", absurdism, was really never anything to fear at all. I know what this world that we call reality is. I know where it starts and ends. But there's nothing that says I have to spend all my time inside of it. I'm not allowed to play by your rules. Go to the gym + be nice + be this + do that = unicorn... well, that just doesn't work for me like it might work for you, dear reader. But, I admit that like Socrates, I don't really know anything. Maybe one day one of you readers will come along and have the magical answer; you'll possess the key and unlock the door I've been throwing myself against all this time. It was reassuring for a time to be told platitudes like there's someone out there for everyone, it'll happen eventually, it'll happen when you least expect it, it'll happen when you stop trying or looking for it, it'll happen when you let go, it'll happen when you hold on, it'll happen if you keep searching, it's a numbers game, you just need to go to the gym, you just need to be more interesting, you just need to be yourself, you just need to be able to make her feel safe and secure, you just need to lower your standards, you just need to be happy being alone, a girl would be lucky to have you, things will change when you graduate high school, things will change when you graduate college, things will change when you get your career going, things will change if you move cities, things will change if you move out of state, things will change if you move countries-- I get it. You're just trying to be supportive. I really appreciate that. But can't you see, can't you get how it's all kind of... an empty promise? So I've fired all the cooks in the kitchen. I'm off in my own little world now, and I get to make the rules. And what's funny, is that all of the rules are the same. I only have a beautiful family, a wonderful wife and two amazing kids, because of luck. Not because I went to the gym in my imaginary world, and went to university, and moved states, and wore the right clothes, and magically became more confident and less shy and anxious, and I magically resolved all of my mental health issues. Nope. In my imaginary world, just like people in this world, I have a beautiful family, a lovely wife, and two kids who I love a lot and who love me, not for any reason other than pure, pure luck. By the grace of God. Because that's reality. And thereby my fake is just as real as the real thing.
It's been more than just difficult, but after a good 5-6 years I feel like I've finally gotten somewhere significantly different and better than where I was in regards to dating. I'd been stuck-in-place by my own logic for the longest time. Like a Chinese finger trap, I didn't need to pull away, but push further in. The issue though is that that can be really scary, even if we're not particularly anxious at the time. Why? Well, when you're already feeling overwhelmed by the complexity, it sounds like a real suicide mission to keep going. It's like that cliche quote from Churchill or whomever: if you're going through Hell, keep going. The issue here is that there's no guarantee that "keep going" will get you out of Hell. All it guarantees is a chance. However, there is also a pseudo-opposite saying: the Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't. And that is a difficult sabotage to undo. If I were a true genius, and not just a manic, I would be in league with Carl Jung and create an inner archetype known as the Saboteur. There is this "saboteur" in your mind whom disappears when you look directly at it, like a floater in your field of vision. You can never look directly at them. And they always seem to be a step ahead, laying traps in your path. Now, given enough time, perhaps we'd arrive at some conclusion like "the saboteur is You" or some strange dark version of you. There's a Monogatari connection here with Araragi that I won't get into. Our society today has become so adamant about WEELIGGION IS BAD, MMKAYYY that we've become hyper rational. I haven't read the book so take this with a salt shaker, but I think we'd do well to engage in a Critique of Pure Reason, and return to the wellspring of faith. This has nothing to do with Kant but I just wanted to ride on his coat-tails and then jump off without paying the fare. Basically, this conundrum, this Gordion Knot which I have been dealing with in my mind for so long, is a prime example (I think) of a negative consequence of this hyperrational world we're in. That is to say, I tied the Gordion Knot myself thanks to my rational capabilities. I wasn't really fully aware I was doing it; in fact, it was more akin to Another, to a saboteur. The issue of my complete and utter lack of success with dating is manifold. There is no one single answer. And what I finally realized is that the issue is truly irresolvable by means of logic, the very logical force that created it. Science encourages us to think in this hyperrational way, isolating variables, running experiments, etc. It encourages us to theorize in absence of experience. Conflict or risk averse people may attempt to use these faculties as a means of not making mistakes, of being "perfect" if you will, or just avoiding pain. Now, very rarely is an issue like mine the result of PURE thinking. It is thinking built on a selection of experiences. Those experiences are likely valid. And the reasoning based on them, if the person is of significant intelligence, are likely to be pretty difficult to assail if they've been going at it for half a decade. The absurdism of faith, therefore, at the very least, is a potent antidote for when reason ties itself into knots. For when reason results in thought loops and downward spiraling. It doesn't play by the same rules. It is the sword that cuts the knot. Am I single because I'm blind in one eye, despite having had it well corrected aesthetically by surgery? Am I single because I'm not tall enough? Because I don't make enough money? Because I don't want to be in a relationship? Because I hate women? Because I'm too skinny? Because I'm conservative? Because I'm of high intellect? Because I'm an asshole? The problem is that we THINK we can answer these questions, but we cannot. Sure, I can answer whether *I* think they are true. But what did Girl 1 think? Well... I don't know. What did Girl 2 think? Well... I don't know. What does she think? How about her? What about this one? What about that one? Then you discover that you can simultaneously be single because you are too tall and too short. You can be single because you are an asshole or because you aren't an asshole. You can be single because you're trying to improve yourself (thereby implying that you are not yet sufficient to be in a relationship), and you can be single because you're not trying to improve yourself (not demonstrating that you have some sort of drive, I guess). A good place to start would be to say "I don't know". So if you can't make the leap of faith, perhaps start with Socrates and accept the limitations of one's knowledge. In this hyper-everything world, we've got to be on top of everything. We've got to be the circus bear dancing on top of the ball, multi-tasking by juggling bowling pins and all the rest. If we don't have an opinion on an issue then, God forbid, we can't join a tribe on that issue. What I do know, or at least realistically could know if I were to make an effort, is what are MY answers to those questions. Who do I want to be? Who would I want to date? Sure, my answers might change over time, but it is at least an anchor that I can raise or set whenever I need. But our hyper rational minds, in our hyper rational world that has pissed on religion and shit on any kind of spiritualism or alchemy or whatever the fuck, are not as perfectly equipped to deal with the entirety of life. There is so much uncertainty in life. And THIS is the supreme sabotage. The saboteur sabotages because their plans assure an outcome. And then our mind roils in dissonance: for yes, at last we have certainty, but it is not the outcome that we wanted. The Saboteur can only ensure a negative outcome. Again, it can only ensure the Devil we know, and use the uncertainty of the Devil-we-don't as a fear to keep us there. And so one must be willing to sacrifice something. They must be willing to sacrifice the comfort of the Devil they know. They must be willing to take a leap of faith. Or, they must truly and genuinely accept the present condition of their situation. If your mind is in civil war, then at heart you are not truly at peace with the future that the Saboteur is designing. So, more specifically, it is tempting to say I will be forever alone. There is a part of me that wants it to be true because if I knew it were true then I could accept it. Pretty much only video games can offer a guaranteed REWARD per the required sacrifice. After x amount of time doing y activity, z will be awarded. The real world doesn't function this way, and for hyper intelligent and logical individuals like myself, this can be a huge issue. Why is it an issue? Because you have literally opened the door to the following: I can do everything "right"; I can go to the gym, I can build my career and wealth, I can go to therapy or do some sort of inner work, on and on and STILL be single for the rest of my life. Not all variables can be controlled positively (that is to say, to create a desired end). All variables can be controlled only negatively (to create an undesirable end). I believe that the inherent nature of the universe is a negative one for this very reason. That the natural state of things is nothingness, is death and all the rest. Life, anything antithetical to this fundamental negative nature, isn't necessarily bad per se, but it is unnatural. It is an anomaly. Anyway, the answer to this is: change the goal. Change the z variable to something controllable. I understand that people are by and large just trying to be helpful, but at the end of the day if the standard advice for dating works, it is by complete fucking accident. Correlation does not equal causation, but our hyper logical society likes to imagine we're all machines. We "press each other's buttons" so to speak. It's nice and reassuring to believe this to be true. Again, change the z variable. Don't listen to the well-meaning Dude Bros, the Oracles of Philadelphi, or whoever the fuck, who tell you to do all those things to get a mysterious "girl". They're wrong. Go to the gym if you want it for yourself. Eat better if you want it for yourself. If you tie your efforts to an uncontrolled outcome, you are setting yourself up for severely crippling disappointment and demotivation. So tie them to what you want for yourself, to what makes you feel better about yourself and your future for more tangible, practical, and controllable reasons. All this self-help shit starts from the point of believing that we are so supremely and perfectly scientifically rationally sound that THE WORLD IS OUR EXPERIMENT. We need only do x and/or y and z is guaranteed. But the truth is that we cannot isolate variables. The truth is that we technically operate only thanks to faith, because we are not omniscient, we are not omnipresent, we are not omnipotent. Sure, in *theory* being more confident should help one's chances, but it's all a fucking casino. I know, and yet don't know, why I am single. This is because it isn't entirely determined by me. It's determined by society, it's determined by the weather, it's determined by other people. So yes, there is no reason why I am single. There are many, there are infinite, and yet there are none. Furthermore, is my worth as a human being, are the worth of my genes or the ability to procreate entirely in the hands of women? Yes. But are they right? lol They might think they are. But I know they're wrong. At least some of them. They don't know me. I sure as Hell know that lots and lots of stupid fucking people have children with fathers who then abandon them or abuse them and all the rest, so I'm not particularly worried about women *thinking* that, again, their brains are of such supreme intellect that they have perfectly ascertained my worth to be of lesser value than whatever brainless monkey ends up inseminating them. My God, to think I'd once put my own self-worth in the hands of such capricious, careless,...
View attachment 23082 Thank God for everything and for everyone that will make living with a lifetime of mental illness worth it.
It's no wonder that work-life separation is a healthy necessity. My "normal" self has never been school appropriate. It's never been workplace appropriate. Reading a handful of my blogs would make that obvious. Unfortunately, that creates a great deal of internal dissonance. And given that the externals are unlikely to change, that society will go on being society and operating with the same structure, I have a lifetime of such inner agony to look forward to. With that said, work-life balance is excruciatingly important for me. I tend to not get close with the vast majority of people in my classes. Sure, I might share my number and make "friends" but it rarely if ever extends beyond the confines of the classroom. While they're so perfect and so liberal, I'm a cancerous conservative bigot who embodies everything that is wrong with the world (apparently). They can hold their self-righteousness over me without humility. They can pretend to have no skeletons of their own. Sadly, in some sense it seems that the anonymity allows us to be more true to ourselves than we otherwise can be. But why? It's odd, because logically we only need draw the conclusion that the in-the-flesh person before us is the anonymous entity we encountered. The whole social thing is naught but a game. There's a great big pink elephant in the sky that nobody wants to be the first to point out. It seems very, VERY arbitrary, INCREDIBLY so, that we decide to not act with the same anonymity when we're in-person. In other words, I am trying to say something like: the social game is an exponential Mexican standoff in which if everyone agreed to let their skeletons out of the closet at the same time, things would be nice and simple. But will everyone do it? No. And so here we are. How fucking stupid. I understand why I meet so many fake or superficial people. To try and be truer to oneself is constantly moving in a direction that will alienate those around you. People unwilling to compromise. People unwilling to look at themselves and see they have skeletons in their own closet. They choose to play the game of waiting to pounce on others who let their guards down, or who dare to open up and be their true selves exposed. They prey on that vulnerability and feign their own perfection by closing themselves off. I have been both victim and perpetrator in this. I suppose it is simply bad luck that my true self is so grating. It means either a lifetime of fighting and dying on hills, or a lifetime of hiding. Neither option is particularly appealing. It would be much easier to be bland, to be inoffensive, to not stand for anything that you believe in that is remotely unpopular. Sometimes it feels like my family, my friends, my therapist, even myself, don't know who I am. Painstakingly I find the rare soul who I feel comfortable divulging more of myself to. They are almost never, ever female. "what a world it would be if we all made out like the books we read or the films we see; it's a travesty" The appeal of anime seems lost on people who either don't desire that which is depicted in it, or already have that which is depicted. Who could I tell in the greatest of confidence, with the straightest of face, "Yeah, it would have been nice to have been an anime protagonist with my own harem." Or yeah, it would have been nice to be a Chosen One, to be fated to have some spectacular romance. No. It's cringe to want anything more than a boring, lame, Nobody existence. It is shameful, it is embarrassing. It's a good thing I don't give a shit. I can experience all of the things I wasn't allowed to experience during my childhood, my adolescence, even my adulthood. I can experience all of it thanks to anime. Maybe that's a sick level of escapism, but my life necessitates it. If my life was full of those things, I wouldn't need anime. Duh. Spare me the blame. Blame my life. I am only grateful that God has at least blessed me with this evolution of voyeurism. That isn't to say that I have no say or control of my own life. But my control is painfully limited. I cannot snap my fingers like Thanos and fall into a fantasy world where my fellow adventurers are a masochistic knight, a beautiful but "useless" water goddess, and a zany mage who has an overpowered spell that can only be used once before incapacitating her. If I had to pick a word, reality is: disappointing. But then, I ask a forum full of writers, what is the point of fiction? Is it a coping mechanism for this disappointment? Or is it a curse, the cause of the disappointment? Maybe we'd all be better off stopping with this writing nonsense, with this fiction nonsense, with this imagination and this dreaming. But maybe real life would still be just as disappointing even for people who had never heard or read a story before. And now they're even worse off because they don't have the means to cope. They can no longer escape it. I am only safe when I sleep. I am only safe in my dreams. That is where reality is. This "reality" is nothing but a recurring nightmare. Without Kierkegaard's embrace of the absurd, of faith, I would certainly have killed myself. Thanks to him, I can appreciate that there is no reason why I have to suffer such a mundane existence. There is no reason why my life isn't a gesamtkunstwerk. It simply isn't. There is no reason. It simply is or isn't. And I can be grateful that I can spend at least a 1/3 of every day, 1/3 of my life escaping it; for nothingness can apparently be better than somethingness. And when the nothingness isn't better, I dream of somethings better than this current something. That means my life is roughly a .300 batting average. In that context, I am quite blessed. Sleep is not something I do to get back to being awake. Oh no, no no no. Being awake is what I do to get back to being asleep. And that alone has at least given me motivation on most days to try and accomplish enough things that will make the getting-to-sleep bit easier. You can call me a child. But that will not change my mind that my life probably should have been filled with dragons, magic, cute anime girls, cat maids, a cast of friends, with a plot that... while unpredictable, is also so eloquently and masterfully devised that you look forward to the next day with excitement, and you end every day with your head hitting the pillow and passing out instantly because the day was chock-full of importance. Or if not a fantasy realm, then simply a version of our current world that is much more interesting and engaging and full. Instead, life is a constant joke of half-assedness, of almosts, of missing the mark. Yes, you have friends and they COULD have been the friends to help you move like they do in every story, and they're so so sad to see you go, and they surprise visit you and all the rest. Instead, you have friends that do none of those things. Yes, there are females whom you get to talk to, but you realize they would hate you if they knew the real you because you're not a white knight cucklord, or you're not a 6'6" 200 pound gorilla with a lot of money. Or they already have a boyfriend. Or they're gay. Obviously this post is very self-centered. I am aware of that. I am well aware that others may feel similarly. I am aware of sonder. That's why I'm tired of being that person for other people. I am tired of trying to perfectly play the role in everyone else's movie while nobody gives a single flying fuck about even showing up to play a part in mine. What, you thought I got this jaded by virtue of nothing happening to me? You thought I became this cynical or fucked up because I'm selfish lol? And that I don't try and be all that I can be for other people, always showing up, always listening, always doing the most, always going the extra mile and the full nine yards? You think I'm just some shitbag narcissist? Sorry to burst your bubble. It would have been oh so easy to fit me into your pre-made mold if I lacked empathy and compassion for others, huh? Tsk tsk tsk. Life is pretty lame man. Whoever pre-ordered this is a fucking idiot. The fact that you can't return this product is criminal.
My one roommate has told me a couple times that, when it comes to relationships, he's not too good at setting boundaries. I think many of us can think of a person who, once they got a girlfriend or boyfriend, they might as well have been completely absorbed by that other person as if they were some kind of monster. You suddenly stop seeing them, sometimes for days at a time. They don't tell you when or where they are going. They turn down invitations to go out to eat or hang out or do whatever, which they never (or rarely ever) would have before. Well, my roommate has gotten back together with a previous fling, and this absorption is happening. Or Hitler-esque annexation. Whatever you want to call it. This happened to an old friend of mine. He met a Mexican, 4.20% Native American, 0.1% Jewish female feminist and suddenly became a born again liberal, the pussy was so good. Got married too. Didn't tell any of us he was getting married. Did it in a courthouse. Expected us all to applaud. The dude changed overnight. We're no longer friends. It's tough. Now, I can't say that that's never happened to me. I've definitely been possessed by some terribly reactive mixture of love and obsession and infatuation and lust and stupidity. That's really, I think, the biggest reason why it's so toxic and powerful: it's a mixture of terribly powerful feelings that SHOULD NOT be mixed. The kind of mixture where it explodes if you drop it. Such possession had visited my other roommate. For six months he was madly in love with a girl who did not feel the same way about him. All the usual ensued: - the guy she was with was most definitely a closeted homosexual, a pussy, a douchebag, and legally retarded *according to him* - nevermind the fact that if she's cheating on the other guy with my roommate, my roommate might become the next definitely closeted homosexual, pussy, legally retarded douche; that is to say, one's man is another's definitely-closeted-homosexual, pussy, legally retarded douche. - was not reflective at all about his own behavior until the possession was driven out by (I assume) God, some 6 months after its initial takeover - there were very turbulent times, including once where I made a joke at his expense about it and he screamed at me, once where he was so distraught and crying so profusely that blood came out of his nose (I think that one was supposed to be a warning shot from the ship's bow by God), and some other times where he drank to numb the pain of losing a girl that was never his and seeing a ring on her finger Now, the primary reason why I am focusing on the guys here is because I live with them, I am a guy myself and can relate to some of these feelings or mistakes, and because if I didn't then I'd be accused of misogyny. The truth is that it takes two to tango here, and I don't really think there's anything to be gained by trying to tally up the score and see who is more at fault. That's like missing the forest of the trees in a way. It's missing the point, at any rate. Why be so infatuated with a girl who's clearly lacking in character and values? I think the essay that I'd otherwise write about her is very clearly implied in that question. But if you're like my professor and apparently find my writing harder to decipher than the fucking Dead Sea Scrolls, I'll make my thesis clear: she's a lying, cheating cunt, to the same extent that my roommate is a stupid, enabling, irresponsible fool in this situation. If the lies he kept telling himself made his nose grow longer, he might have eventually been able to see far enough to realize his mistake. Anyway, boundaries are not just an issue in the romantic sphere, but in friends too. My one roommate and I (not the blood-crying one) like to watch a lot of anime together. The thing is, anime was something that was more or less strictly a private, personal indulgence for me. Once you share it with someone else, it all really starts diverging from your own personal feelings and experience. Naturally. But now I'm starting to realize that maybe it's best to not watch ALL anime, ALL the time, with him. Even though it's selfish in a minor way, I really do need my alone time, and watching a good anime was one of the quality ways I could spend that alone time or cope with loneliness / isolation. Instead, lately there are times where I might want to watch anime, but it's a show that I am watching with him. I don't want to watch ahead without him, and I don't want to rewatch several episodes (or more, now that he's back with a previous fling and will have less time for me) with him that I've already seen. Then there are times where I think Monogatari is the greatest thing ever, but can tell he doesn't really feel the same way. He's a pretty straightforward and honest dude, so I know he would make it clear if he hated something, outright didn't like a show, etc. But he's never asking to watch it. He's always like, "You wanna' watch an episode of 86?" And that's fine. How I feel about 86 is probably how he feels about Monogatari. So I think now that we've finished the first season of Monogatari, if I do decide to continue rewatching it (because I'm madly obsessively in love with it and whoever isn't is a legally retarded, certainly closeted homosexual pussy, uncultured swine), it will probably be by myself. If he happens to come into the living room and sees me watching it, he's welcome to join me. But unless he asks why I've been watching it without him or something, I'm just going to assume that he's just not into it to the degree that would warrant me having to schedule my time around his. I'm bad with boundaries too sometimes. I have a hard time saying no to hanging out. There's definitely reasons for that, and I could probably do some psychonaut exploring to find out why. But that's another boundary too; TMI. The anonymity of the internet can make it difficult to discern where that boundary is. I am notoriously bad about that. At the same time, I don't think I've said anything particularly bad unless taken out of context. And if you take something out of context to hurt someone else, you are "definitely" a legally retarded— I'm convinced I suffer from the same thing as Mozart with his scatological humor. I'm not made to exist in a society so feminized and pussified that they can't comprehend the reclamation of slurs and the fact that words only have the power we give them. To be offended is a choice on behalf of the offended. The rest is just noise. As Araragi complains, "You must think 'verbal abuse' is just a cute expression." As Senjougahara aptly counters, "Fine then, go ahead and call the verbal police." Don't give them any ideas.
I kind of understand why, kind of don't. So I sent my professor an email asking if we could meet for office hours. In sum, I said: "Hi, thanks for the feedback! I understand you don't want me to include novels that aren't from this class. Ultimately, I'm at a loss as to what to do. I guess, in a sort of existential crisis sort of way, I don't really understand what this assignment even is. And I'm starting to get "Vietnam" flashbacks to some of my previous English courses where I honestly don't know what it is that my professors want me to write." We had to write about trauma using one of the books from class. The one I chose was Forever by Judy Blume. That's basically all I know. I don't really understand what kind of an assignment that is. I basically argued why Judy Blume doesn't satisfactorily address trauma because there is no growth or triumph. My professor said that this is "basically what they had argued over a decade ago". Well, I've read their paper (I referenced it in my essay), and it was very good (much better than mine), but I didn't get that from their argument at all... Their argument was that Blume's problem novels don't show its protagonists overcoming their problems, and that that's okay. My fundamental argument, and perhaps I didn't make it clear enough, is that it is problematic. In another academic paper I referenced (which our professor also gave us), Kidd argues that the problem novel is supposed to inspire "hope", and I don't find anything particularly hopeful about a nihilistic "obliteration" of the bildungsroman, in which it is stylish nowadays to have protagonists who fail and don't change or grow. Anyway, I'll now attach the essay. I know where to start (by removing any and all references to novels outside the class, which I guess I should've seen coming). But beyond that, I don't really understand why it's a 60%. At first, I was pretty rattled, pretty annoyed with the grade. But I at least know that if I just rewrite exactly what I have already done, but maybe make my argument more explicit, and remove any and all reference to books other than Forever itself, I'll probably get at least a C. Whatever. I've basically come to the conclusion that the reason I don't get As on my writing is because I don't want to write what they want me to say. I'm not saying that I am right to believe that; rather, since I never understand what English professors want even after numerous essays, redrafting, meeting for office hours, etc., this is my default assumption. I simply fail to understand what they want from me, and I'm at the point where I honestly don't give a shit. If I pass with a B, I don't care.
Been recovering for the past several days after giving nicotine a try. Went 10 months without it, but hey—reset that clock. Having been practicing not ruminating, along with a better internal dialogue, I'm not too bummed out about it. Although I'm a bit more preoccupied with the anxiety that's flared up. Yes, you read it right, I am still recovering three DAYS later. Symptoms come and go, sure, but right now I've got quite a tension headache. Also, thought loops and the temptation to think I'm once again goin' crazy! Well, my attitude toward this is: rather than a total reset, I can really think of it as "I've gone almost a year and only relapsed one time. In just two months from today, that'll be 364 good days since I officially/technically quit." So it could've been worse; could've picked up the habit again, but instead I just feel like absolute shit at the moment. Now, I'm not sure how long it's going to take to feel normal again. What boggles my mind the most from this experiment is that I am still experiencing physical and psychological effects over 72 hours later. That doesn't seem typical to me... it sounds more like nicotine-abetes. It would be like having a couple beers but being hungover for over three days. Like, that simply isn't normal. So, there is, indeed, something wrong with my body. Well, I hate being sober, but I do hate this more. So there's that, at least. It seems like my anxiety may be manageable (fortunately) so long as I abstain from nicotine and alcohol, and get some exercise. That's not mentioning a few basic therapy strategies or spiritual faith. Curious to see how long it takes for me to feel back to normal again. Or, to put it slightly differently, how long before I stop psyching myself out and realize that I am back to normal right now. I mean, scientifically I am sober right now, so whatever I'm experiencing right now—the same shit I've experienced before that made me quit in the first place—is all in my head. With that in mind, the first step will be to simply stay busy as well as socialize and do things that I like to do. Because right now I think my mind is in somewhat of a feedback loop of scanning itself for danger, but treating the scan as a sign that something must be wrong and to scan for more danger. It'll tire itself out. Just a matter of time.
I tried to think of some creative things to say. The reality is: there are still nights where I just want to drink until I pass out. There are still times where I wish I could just have some nicotine and block out the world. It's been almost a year since I quit everything. Being sober is still incredibly boring. Dull. I wonder if my "problems" were all made-up in my head. When I'm not sober, I feel like I can reach another place inside myself, another headspace. I used to be so relaxed. I used to be able to have fun. Now I just worry. Deadlines make me want to set a deadline for my death. Get on the hamster wheel because bills are coming up soon. Win this rat race or you're out. Worry worry worry. If you don't worry, people shit on you for not caring enough. People get upset because you're late, because you submit something late. They whip you. Work faster! Fall in line! Start worrying! I'm soon to be 24, and still live in the shadow of my father. I still rely on my parents. I still live under their reign. But it isn't as if things would necessarily get better if I became independent of them, because then I'd still answer to some other dickhead, some other cunt. So why become independent? Sure, my dad is a slave driver and my mother is an enabler. But they do provide for me, they do love me in their twisted way, and their love means that they won't fire me for showing up late, they won't treat me like worthless shit for being imperfect. Explain to me how it's beneficial to become independent so that you then have to answer to people who are unempathetic and unforgiving and don't love you. I'll bet you can't. Now my anxiety controls me. It isn't *me* who decided to stop drinking. My anxiety made me. It isn't *me* who decided to stop doing nicotine. My anxiety made me. I self-harm. I don't cut myself. I don't starve myself. I've never attempted to kill myself. My form of self-harm is more sophisticated, not that that's something to be proud of. I don't cut myself, but I "cut" other people; I cut them emotionally. I cut them out of my life. I am so lucky to have the friends and family that I do. I cannot self-harm if I die. I cannot self-sabotage if I die. I cannot continue being tortured if I die. Whether I drink, or don't drink. Whether I smoke, or don't smoke. I will end up back here. So why did I stop if it's all the same? I can be sitting anywhere at anytime, blink, and be in Melancholia. I can open any door I've opened many times before, to my parent's house, to my own apartment, to a classroom, and arrive in Melancholia. I can fall asleep in my bed and wake up in Melancholia. This fox is curious. What's the worst that could happen? Doctors say there's nothing wrong with me, after all. Test after test after test. It's all just made-up bullshit in my head. Feeling shitty? Anxious? Panic attack? It's all fleeting. It's all imaginary. There is no reason to be anxious. There is no reason to be having a panic attack. I'm not in danger. Doctors say my lungs are fine. My heart is fine. Everything's fine. It was all... hypochondria. To dissuade myself from just falling into old habits, I would have to say that I am better-off sober. And as time goes on, the case for that gets weaker and weaker. Sobriety will never compare to that paradise. Drugs are a form of escapism, and it's no fucking wonder. Escapism is considered to be some sort of evil, but there are situations that justify it, such as imprisonment or endangerment. So, if sobriety is a prison, if reality is such that it makes me want to self-harm, then all I've done is take away my only means of escape. That's all psychotherapeutic drugs do. They just do the same thing that alcohol and nicotine do. They have all the same potential side-effects. Xanax, Coors, Marlboro, Prozac, Wellbutrin, can all cause irritability, fatigue, limp-dick, suicidal ideation, suicide, worse depression, worse anxiety. You build up tolerance to all of them. If you take them for long enough and in significant enough dosage, you have to be weaned off of them. The pro of psychotherapeutic drugs is that they don't seem to cause cancer and destroy your bodily organs. The con is that we don't understand why or how they work. "Think of your future self." That's meaningless when you don't care whether there's a future you or not. Or especially if you hope there won't be. Maybe I'd be more likely to go to the gym if I stopped tyrannizing myself like a straight-edge tard. This post could have just as easily been written under the influence of 6 beers. Ironic that "losing my mind" was all in my mind.
So, I've decided to keep track of my sleep better, because I need to get a sleep study done and the information may prove useful. The past couple days I have forced myself out of bed "early". I would say altogether I got 8 hours of sleep between the two of them, falling asleep around 8AM and waking up around 12:30. As you can imagine, last night I was very tired. I went to bed around midnight, and after just watching some YouTube videos, I fell asleep around 1:30-1:45AM. I have just awoken at 3:45-3:50AM. I was in the middle of a dream; something involving indoor soccer, and despite our group's best efforts we ended up having really mismatched teams. Somehow I went from being on the dominant team to being on the losing one. This has happened before whenever I try to go to bed at a "decent" time in comparison to when I normally can fall asleep. It's difficult to replicate because I usually need to be very underslept after two ish days. It's almost as if my body was only prepared for a nap or something and awoke me because I went way over the time allowed. At this moment I am quite awake. I had to go to the bathroom because it felt like my bladders were going to explode. Interestingly, I remember my father having this issue of not being able to get more than 4 or 5 consecutive hours of sleep, constantly waking in the middle of the night, going to the bathroom to take a much needed leak, and then not being able to go back to sleep. But it's possible that his issue was different from mine, given the significant difference in age between us. My acid reflux is killing me so maybe that had something to do with it too, hard to say. Well, speaking of back to sleep, I can try.
My roommate and I just watched the Violet Evergarden movie that released a couple years ago, and I must say: Gesamtkunstwerk. Nothing is without its flaws. I felt the climax was a little melodramatic. But part of me also felt that... it had the right to be. It had every right to be a little melodramatic. It's a climax that had been building and building since the first episode of the show that released four years ago. I was a couple years late to the party, but Violet's story got the ending it deserved with this movie. I am left with an emptiness, like a feeling of loss. Which, I guess makes sense. The story has come to an end. And you can't even be upset like you could be if it were a bad ending. No, no, this was a good one. The bittersweet kind. It's not that Violet Evergarden, both the series and this film, don't deal with heavy and serious issues. They're both filled with trauma, pain, suffering. They're hard to watch, and I don't mean to imply that they make one cringe. I mean that it's a lot of heavy stuff, for lack of a better word. Not a whole lot of lighthearted content here when the show asks questions like: is a person who killed people in a war, fathers and brothers and sons who will never return, deserving of love? Or is it a comical irony, dare I say even selfish, to struggle so much with losing the one that loved her, and the one that she realizes she loved back? But the backdrop of the show, the trajectory and growth of its characters, all point to an outlook that dares to be optimistic. Yes, it is daring to be optimistic—to be so hopeful, to have faith. It's all so much easier to be misanthropic because there is plenty of evidence for it. I say such things myself: I hate people, people are stupid, etc. And maybe we don't mean half of it. Maybe it's just blowing off steam. I don't know if I can really put my feelings into words that I wouldn't want to throw away. Oddly enough, finding the words and putting them into letters is a theme that runs throughout Violet's story. Writing letters is an avenue to connect with each other. Writing in general is a cathartic experience for me, and so this theme really resonated with me. What does love mean? Half of Violet's story is embarking on a journey to discover that for herself. She's an emotional mess from being a child soldier who was kidnapped from her family. Only one person showed her love, a young military officer who took it upon himself to protect her, and to try and provide her with even the smallest semblance of a normal life. Showing her love, an emotion she doesn't understand but wants to understand, completely changes her life. It doesn't make her life easy. But it gives it purpose, meaning, as she searches for this thing, love, that she lost before she even knew what it was. Her journey is just as much helping others express their emotions by writing letters for them, as it is learning about herself and coming to terms with her own emotions, no matter how painstaking. I don't know if I'll ever experience love the way that Violet does, except perhaps vicariously. Probably not, reason being that I dislike ugly things, and that makes me an ugly, shallow person. Yet stories like Violet Evergarden are powerful enough to give me hope. To at least wish that others can have that experience. To take solace in the fact that a talented enough writer can tell a story that genuinely transforms people's lives. And it doesn't have to be a big, dramatic transformation. It need only be a small one made to the trajectory of their lives. If we can imagine it, we can make it reality. All I can do is keep an open heart. I've turned away love in the past because I was not attracted to that person, as sick as it is to say. And I too once felt love for a girl that didn't feel the same way. What a shame. But maybe one day the right person will come along. I am an addict to beauty, and a hopeless romantic, and so I must ask for mercy and forgiveness for my sins. Until then, like Sisyphus, you must imagine me happy despite how foolish you may think that is. I will withstand the pain of constant longing for a person I haven't met, and if it kills me, that would be alright. Because I know what love feels like. All things must come to an end. Maybe I can pass this story onto you though. A story about what it means to love. Christine, 6 years later, and I still love you. But I hadn't thought about you in a long while. I also haven't seen you in even longer; maybe at this point I am just in love with a memory. But I am glad to have moved on with my life, as you did with yours. I don't believe that we only ever love one person. You played an important part in shaping me into who I am today. The fire might have been a little hot, I may have loved and lost, but I can't say I regret it. There's nothing to regret. I chose all of it, and would do so again. I'm only sorry for how angry I was when my feelings weren't reciprocated, and the hurtful things that I said. But I think you know that already. I hope you're doing well. As for me, I'm doing fine. あいしてる
