He needs no introduction, no smarmy paragraph, no twist of words, no dollop of shine.
He is Dan Eldon.
Who is Dan Eldon?
One may never know. Despite leaving behind a legacy of journals that catalgoued in 3x5's the world through the eyes of a human, despite expelling ideas in letters and exclamations of adventure, humanity and observation, all physical presence and active action have perished young, as the thinker himself.
But you know you are looking at true magic when faced with immortality; when the thinker dies but the thought lives on forever.
There are many wonderous things and marvellous people in this world who come into being and leave their mark, leave us wondering and hungry for more. There is a quality in these things and these people that transcends our understanding, something that we classify as unique or different, for lack of a better word. But the truth is, these are mere adjectives, poorly defined and designed to give life to a feeling produced that's small and quiet but incomprehensible in its wonder.
Succumb to what makes up a small percentage of the infinite world of the Internet, Wikipedia and read for yourself what it is that Dan Eldon accomplished. Many describe him as a blazing comet, a rush of adventure, a trailblazer with a human heart. I will describe it in one way.
Question: What does it mean to be human?
Answer: Dan Eldon.
Does this mean that he is the only human worth being considered? No. Not by any means. Hundreds of nameless, faceless heroes are changing the world in small (and large) ways everyday. But I mean to say that he was (and is, for he may be no more but actions are continual and ring true forever, turning over in a cause & effect chain that changes the future; think The Chaos Theory.) humanistic in his faults and his actions. A spotlight on Dan Eldon, then, if you please.
I, myself, confess to being endlessly fascinated by things of this nature: by people and events that have this immortal, human, moralistic streak, a heady, raw and earthy aura, an idealistic-to-a-fault edge, a small observation giving birth to a larger philosophy. Perhaps that is what drew me and what I try now, almost in vain, to describe. To catalogue. Fail though I may, at least I am cataloguing. And that is exactly what Dan Eldon did. But on a broader scale, with effective methods and more grandiose consequences.
Now think about it. Once you're done that, ask yourself and consider this: why is it that millions of people clamber and crowd for an autograph of their favorite star or celebrity or guru or what have you, inked in notebook lines and palm lines alike? Why it is merely the taste of immortality. Of course, that is what it is. Is it not? Everytime they flip the pages of that book open or open the plam of their hand, they can see and recall the exact moment in which that certain idolized person spared a minute to cast their signature. A signature is unique, identifiable and branded. An immortal brand.
These wonderous people of renown, forces in their field to be reckoned, long gone, have somehow and in some erascible way made their mark and signature upon humanity. Case in point: Vemeer and the Art of Painting, who's very work was hoarded by the love-to-hate, hate-to-love Adolf Hitler himself. Yes, I will gladly get to the point. Dan Eldon lived in Kenya with his mother, father and sister, as you already know, Google whore that you are.
He traveled and visited 46 countries, could speak 7 languages both self-taught and through school, and raised 5K for the open-heart surgery of a young Kenyan girl who later died due to hospital neglect. Though he was initially sent to a british school, he convinced his parents to allow him to attend the International School of Kenya, socializing and forming friendships with the local children of Nairobi.
Living in Africa as he did, Eldon met with with terrible beauty: the cross and clash of two paradoxes. The beautiful, rugged landscape of Africa and the poverty and suffering it housed on its soil. Armed with observation, wit, humanity and what is described to be New York telephone directory sized books, Eldon began cataloguing his surroundings at the age of 15.
Eldon kept taking time off from school to work and experience his surroundings. He accepted a job working for a magazine in New York and even got to work as a third assistant to the director on a movie called Lost in Africa. In January of 1989, he and friend drove a Land Rover across the African plain, spanning five countries. What's amazing is that he returned to school, all the while planning his next trips, purchased another land rover for a trip to morroco, planned to buy and sell bracelets in America. He spent time in Morroco and then shipped over 5K worth of goods to America, which he then proceeded to sell on the beaches of Southern California.
Through his photographs, his comments, his thoughts and feelings, he has created an imprint on the world - his imprint - in a very quiet but fitful way. He planned and felt and calculated and executed, only to die at 23. And yet he did all that he could, things that we, I, could only dream of having the courage to do in five lives.
Forget his double spreads, forget the fame or the so called greatness of his actions. I am blown over by the humanity in them. I am stunned by the immortality gained not by internationally acclaimed photographs but by the words he says through those photographs. The actions he has taken, sensibilities he must have possessed.
Especially now. I look around now and all I see are the apathy-filled idiots of North America. These kids, the half grown child-adults who think that they have a right to everything from education to entertainment. It hurts my heart when I think of the strange shadow, mere illusions of our selves that we seem to have become. And then I hurt to think that souls like Dan's leave so quickly, but make footsteps so grand. A global theme, goodness is always downtrodden, always conquered by evil, always squished at a young age.
But it is golden, because that goodness is immortal. And in the face of death, you will always see life flashing past you.
Here's to life. Here's to Dan Eldon, a pillar of that true-veined life. And a time that will someday return and sustain.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Tired of Waiting: When will it be my turn?
"SILENT DANCE PARTY
Tonight at Midnight in Yonge-Dundas Square!
Bring your favorite MP3 player. Arrive in Yonge-Dundas Square at midnight sharp for the countdown and press play! Over 200 individually controlled LED lights hung over Yonge-Dundas Square will interact with the music, transforming the space into a silent dance party like never before. Right-click here to download the set"
Shit man. Shit. The essence of my life.
And of course, I can't go.
Tonight at Midnight in Yonge-Dundas Square!
Bring your favorite MP3 player. Arrive in Yonge-Dundas Square at midnight sharp for the countdown and press play! Over 200 individually controlled LED lights hung over Yonge-Dundas Square will interact with the music, transforming the space into a silent dance party like never before. Right-click here to download the set"
Shit man. Shit. The essence of my life.
And of course, I can't go.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Age of Reason
It is a strange thing, an odd feeling.
As I walked the cobblestone of the crossing on the campus today, I realized something that I had always known and spotted all along but had not necessarily given voice to. My life...and those of many others, has been spent almost entirely in residual guilt.
So much guilt, in fact, that I cannot fathom ever being the girl in that KT Tunstall song. It has nothing to do with low self-esteem or a habit of self deprecation that wasn't caught early. It merely is the state of things.
It was bloody windy and my hair whipped around me, as though underwater, suspended up, down and all around. I felt as though I was underwater, my actions muted and my voice dulled. But my heart...my heart it both soared and roared: with guilt.
Depending on how self-righteous a person is, or how young they are when that sense of "duty" cultivates, guilt can root and blossom, forming the basis for the most ugliest to the most loveliest of decisions. At this point, I cannot figure out if guilt is a constraint or not. In the light of recent happenings known only as "life", I'm wont to say that it is indeed a constraint for it is certainly not a catalyst. However, my reasoning would thus be flawed; for one cannot conclude that if something is not substance A then by mere default, it is must be substance B because the negation of substance A cancels out the opportunity for substance C. In short, I am undecided.
A thousand naysayers would say that guilt is a festering disease that needs to be terminated. But that is easier said than done when really our entire social culture depends upon, runs, and feeds on it. If you think about it, guilt is often a major or secondary theme in many works of art both film and language wise. Almost a perversion, lessons of guilt are laid upon us in parallel with lessons on distinguishing between right and wrong, archaic black and classic white. What is guilt, I wonder then, if not black nor white, considering we don't question or classify it? Is it the grey? Then how can you terminate the grey when there are no set definitions or borders, no upper or lower bounds?
Most importantly, I think, how can you terminate something that is so very ingrained in almost every action that we take, the ying to our yang. Though the notion is arguable (as shades of grey are wont to do), think about it. Everyday, we make choices, whether small or large, that are some form of definitive. These choices set off a series of other choices, consequences, actions and reactions in a sort of series-circuit effect (if only they were parallel...). What causes us to make one choice over the other? The consequences or results, the pros to the cons and which one weighs heavier. Yes, one can objectively lay out the pros and the cons (so termed for their "good" and "bad" connotations) and it would seem obvious to any outsider that the choice more beneficial, that is deemed to be more "good" should be the one you choose.
But one person's good may be another person's tepid, mediocre, fantastic or horrible. So then, logically, you define your own sense of "good" and "bad" when making these decisions according to your own sense of self, calling on your own past experiences that were ingrained into you since childhood. Children learn fast. And bad habits die hard.
Then what is explicitly spelling out and defining consequences is not objective definitions of good and bad but rather subjective views that are molded and created by a combination of circumstance and guilt from those circumstances.
As human beings, we are lucky enough to feel a wide range of emotion. Linguistic doles out various names and labels for this often confused but not so varied spectrum of emotional range we traverse almost everyday. There's your basic anger and happiness as well as sadness, rage, delight, joy, amusement, and such. But mo matter how you classify them and what you call them all emotions can be thus categorized into one of two fields: that which feels right and good and that which doesn't. To a simplistic mind it should seem only natural that that which feels right and good should be the path to take and the decision to make. This is part of the reason children, with their simplistic world views, often strike a pang of recognition in adults and have that uncanny way of telling the truth: because they call it as it is without any worldly complexy charade or facade that we are forced to put up as we mature into society. It's simplistic. But, of course, we must make things more complicated than they must be.
If it's so simple and elementary why the Prozac Nation? Why is it that most people pick and choose the path and decision that makes them unhappy, that feels so bad? Fate? A Freudian sort of self hatred? Is it opposite day? None of the above?
If you picked none of the above, kudos to you, you must be a 7 year old with that creepy childlike 7 year old tell-it-like-it-is bit going on. It is circumstance. And it is the guilt that is induced into a person from trying to leave, change or alter those circumstances or even trying to make a decision whose result might negatively affect those involved in those circumstances.
It's all personal. Doesn't mean it should get shoved under the carpet. The wife that works as a full time doormat makes choices that she must make for the "greater good". What great is there to the good if her feel-bad decisions render her nothing but grief and are steeped in guilt? Resentment crops up overtime as time and again she sacrifices with no recognition. And resentment is the real festering disease that needs to be vanquished.
What about the child who keeps his word, who puts away his dream for the sake of his parents respect, opinion and love? They reason that they must think about everything their parents have done and will do for them, how much of their lives they have given for the sole happiness of one being. That's not logic, that's guilt talking.
What about that single mother who loves her daughter but craves some sort of companionship? But this may decision may affect the stability of her child's life, so she must tread carefully if at all. The pull of the umbilical cord is stronger and creates some sort of guilt; whether you want to call it parental responsibility or not, by mere definition that I've laid out above, this is some form of guilt.
I'm not saying that it's good nor am I saying it's not bad. I'm just saying, it's there. And to be aware is the first step. To try and combat it, is the next. You ask, if I'm not giving it a negative connotation, why try and combat it in the first place? Simple. If, after a hot shower, your glasses steam up upon entering a cold room, you're not going to be able to see. In this case you're going to want to automatically do one of two things with the same goal in mind: either you'll want to take off your glasses and wipe them on your towel or keep them off altogether. With the sole purpose of trying to see better, clearer.
Metaphor fly over your head? Okay. Basically guilt, while neither good nor bad as I see it, can and may lead to good or bad decisions that aren't necessarily steeped in reality. And you always want to make sure your view or perspective is the clearest, the least "foggiest" or murky. Because that's when you miss things and don't take important details into considerations. Small but powerful details that could spell the downfall of the choice made. Case in point: Achilles' Heel. Your decisions should be informed, the choices you make, whether they result in a feel-good or feel-bad outcome should never be formed out of guilt for anything because this clogs your judgement almost as much as something positive like love.
Yes, for the most part and to most people, guilt sucks. It hurts. It pains. And it never goes away. It always stays like some dark crevice perpetually etched into the corner of your mind and always leaves a nagging feeling like someone constantly tapping on your window or that jerk of missing a step. Less methodically speaking, in my world at least, I want to avoid guilt because it makes me make bad decisions. And because martyrdom is something most of us try and achieve at some point in life (c'mon, who doesn't like to be hero-worshipped for their pains?), most of this guilt weighing activity when making choices goes largely unarticulated. No one knows what you've done till you've done it but they'll also never know why unless you tell them. But who wants to say why you've done what you've done? Exactly. And that's where the resentment comes in. For me the guilt creates resentment, something whose effects, combined with my short-fused temper make for....explosive results.
But I'm really keen to make some sort of demarcation. Again, guilt, in my definition is neither good nor bad because everyone's version of "good" and "bad" are completely subjective and thsu can never be equated on the same plane due to individual circumstances. This much I know for sure. There's a point, in fact, where guilt and responsibility blur. Parents make decisions, putting the needs of their children first, eve though it may not feel good because that is what is expected of them. They may not like it...and while this is partially spurred by guilt (as in, "well I had better make this choice because I'll feel guilty if I make the other and my child is hurt because of me."), it comes under the parents responsibility to provide for their child first. But see, responsibility is positive. It is the right thing to do. It is clear, defined and has an upper and lower bound. It makes nothing foggier, just restates what must to be done.
Guilt is what ought to be done, to exagerrated proportions such that one reasons that if they don't they'll face consequences in which their loved ones will be hurt or poised for hurt. To that I can only say: yes, it's hard. But it takes courage. The same kind of courage you read in Pooh and Narnia and Harry Potter books, yes, but with a lot less Christian-based controversy. It takes courage to stare guilt in the face and refuse to make a decision marred or clogged by it. I think of guilt as a sort of cling-wrap. It protects and protects well but put it under the heat of a microwave and its little tiny molecules start to break down and seep into the food.
For all my preaching and sorting, I want to say, I am nowhere as near to battling guilt as I would like. But I'm getting better. Call it stubborness or what you will but for the girl who could stand up to the world but not those who mattered, it's some shred of courage to wake the spine. I want to somehow try and fight this guilt. Not because I'm feeling guilty for feeling guilty...but because my guilt was never protecting whom it was supposed to the most.
Me.
As I walked the cobblestone of the crossing on the campus today, I realized something that I had always known and spotted all along but had not necessarily given voice to. My life...and those of many others, has been spent almost entirely in residual guilt.
So much guilt, in fact, that I cannot fathom ever being the girl in that KT Tunstall song. It has nothing to do with low self-esteem or a habit of self deprecation that wasn't caught early. It merely is the state of things.
It was bloody windy and my hair whipped around me, as though underwater, suspended up, down and all around. I felt as though I was underwater, my actions muted and my voice dulled. But my heart...my heart it both soared and roared: with guilt.
Depending on how self-righteous a person is, or how young they are when that sense of "duty" cultivates, guilt can root and blossom, forming the basis for the most ugliest to the most loveliest of decisions. At this point, I cannot figure out if guilt is a constraint or not. In the light of recent happenings known only as "life", I'm wont to say that it is indeed a constraint for it is certainly not a catalyst. However, my reasoning would thus be flawed; for one cannot conclude that if something is not substance A then by mere default, it is must be substance B because the negation of substance A cancels out the opportunity for substance C. In short, I am undecided.
A thousand naysayers would say that guilt is a festering disease that needs to be terminated. But that is easier said than done when really our entire social culture depends upon, runs, and feeds on it. If you think about it, guilt is often a major or secondary theme in many works of art both film and language wise. Almost a perversion, lessons of guilt are laid upon us in parallel with lessons on distinguishing between right and wrong, archaic black and classic white. What is guilt, I wonder then, if not black nor white, considering we don't question or classify it? Is it the grey? Then how can you terminate the grey when there are no set definitions or borders, no upper or lower bounds?
Most importantly, I think, how can you terminate something that is so very ingrained in almost every action that we take, the ying to our yang. Though the notion is arguable (as shades of grey are wont to do), think about it. Everyday, we make choices, whether small or large, that are some form of definitive. These choices set off a series of other choices, consequences, actions and reactions in a sort of series-circuit effect (if only they were parallel...). What causes us to make one choice over the other? The consequences or results, the pros to the cons and which one weighs heavier. Yes, one can objectively lay out the pros and the cons (so termed for their "good" and "bad" connotations) and it would seem obvious to any outsider that the choice more beneficial, that is deemed to be more "good" should be the one you choose.
But one person's good may be another person's tepid, mediocre, fantastic or horrible. So then, logically, you define your own sense of "good" and "bad" when making these decisions according to your own sense of self, calling on your own past experiences that were ingrained into you since childhood. Children learn fast. And bad habits die hard.
Then what is explicitly spelling out and defining consequences is not objective definitions of good and bad but rather subjective views that are molded and created by a combination of circumstance and guilt from those circumstances.
As human beings, we are lucky enough to feel a wide range of emotion. Linguistic doles out various names and labels for this often confused but not so varied spectrum of emotional range we traverse almost everyday. There's your basic anger and happiness as well as sadness, rage, delight, joy, amusement, and such. But mo matter how you classify them and what you call them all emotions can be thus categorized into one of two fields: that which feels right and good and that which doesn't. To a simplistic mind it should seem only natural that that which feels right and good should be the path to take and the decision to make. This is part of the reason children, with their simplistic world views, often strike a pang of recognition in adults and have that uncanny way of telling the truth: because they call it as it is without any worldly complexy charade or facade that we are forced to put up as we mature into society. It's simplistic. But, of course, we must make things more complicated than they must be.
If it's so simple and elementary why the Prozac Nation? Why is it that most people pick and choose the path and decision that makes them unhappy, that feels so bad? Fate? A Freudian sort of self hatred? Is it opposite day? None of the above?
If you picked none of the above, kudos to you, you must be a 7 year old with that creepy childlike 7 year old tell-it-like-it-is bit going on. It is circumstance. And it is the guilt that is induced into a person from trying to leave, change or alter those circumstances or even trying to make a decision whose result might negatively affect those involved in those circumstances.
It's all personal. Doesn't mean it should get shoved under the carpet. The wife that works as a full time doormat makes choices that she must make for the "greater good". What great is there to the good if her feel-bad decisions render her nothing but grief and are steeped in guilt? Resentment crops up overtime as time and again she sacrifices with no recognition. And resentment is the real festering disease that needs to be vanquished.
What about the child who keeps his word, who puts away his dream for the sake of his parents respect, opinion and love? They reason that they must think about everything their parents have done and will do for them, how much of their lives they have given for the sole happiness of one being. That's not logic, that's guilt talking.
What about that single mother who loves her daughter but craves some sort of companionship? But this may decision may affect the stability of her child's life, so she must tread carefully if at all. The pull of the umbilical cord is stronger and creates some sort of guilt; whether you want to call it parental responsibility or not, by mere definition that I've laid out above, this is some form of guilt.
I'm not saying that it's good nor am I saying it's not bad. I'm just saying, it's there. And to be aware is the first step. To try and combat it, is the next. You ask, if I'm not giving it a negative connotation, why try and combat it in the first place? Simple. If, after a hot shower, your glasses steam up upon entering a cold room, you're not going to be able to see. In this case you're going to want to automatically do one of two things with the same goal in mind: either you'll want to take off your glasses and wipe them on your towel or keep them off altogether. With the sole purpose of trying to see better, clearer.
Metaphor fly over your head? Okay. Basically guilt, while neither good nor bad as I see it, can and may lead to good or bad decisions that aren't necessarily steeped in reality. And you always want to make sure your view or perspective is the clearest, the least "foggiest" or murky. Because that's when you miss things and don't take important details into considerations. Small but powerful details that could spell the downfall of the choice made. Case in point: Achilles' Heel. Your decisions should be informed, the choices you make, whether they result in a feel-good or feel-bad outcome should never be formed out of guilt for anything because this clogs your judgement almost as much as something positive like love.
Yes, for the most part and to most people, guilt sucks. It hurts. It pains. And it never goes away. It always stays like some dark crevice perpetually etched into the corner of your mind and always leaves a nagging feeling like someone constantly tapping on your window or that jerk of missing a step. Less methodically speaking, in my world at least, I want to avoid guilt because it makes me make bad decisions. And because martyrdom is something most of us try and achieve at some point in life (c'mon, who doesn't like to be hero-worshipped for their pains?), most of this guilt weighing activity when making choices goes largely unarticulated. No one knows what you've done till you've done it but they'll also never know why unless you tell them. But who wants to say why you've done what you've done? Exactly. And that's where the resentment comes in. For me the guilt creates resentment, something whose effects, combined with my short-fused temper make for....explosive results.
But I'm really keen to make some sort of demarcation. Again, guilt, in my definition is neither good nor bad because everyone's version of "good" and "bad" are completely subjective and thsu can never be equated on the same plane due to individual circumstances. This much I know for sure. There's a point, in fact, where guilt and responsibility blur. Parents make decisions, putting the needs of their children first, eve though it may not feel good because that is what is expected of them. They may not like it...and while this is partially spurred by guilt (as in, "well I had better make this choice because I'll feel guilty if I make the other and my child is hurt because of me."), it comes under the parents responsibility to provide for their child first. But see, responsibility is positive. It is the right thing to do. It is clear, defined and has an upper and lower bound. It makes nothing foggier, just restates what must to be done.
Guilt is what ought to be done, to exagerrated proportions such that one reasons that if they don't they'll face consequences in which their loved ones will be hurt or poised for hurt. To that I can only say: yes, it's hard. But it takes courage. The same kind of courage you read in Pooh and Narnia and Harry Potter books, yes, but with a lot less Christian-based controversy. It takes courage to stare guilt in the face and refuse to make a decision marred or clogged by it. I think of guilt as a sort of cling-wrap. It protects and protects well but put it under the heat of a microwave and its little tiny molecules start to break down and seep into the food.
For all my preaching and sorting, I want to say, I am nowhere as near to battling guilt as I would like. But I'm getting better. Call it stubborness or what you will but for the girl who could stand up to the world but not those who mattered, it's some shred of courage to wake the spine. I want to somehow try and fight this guilt. Not because I'm feeling guilty for feeling guilty...but because my guilt was never protecting whom it was supposed to the most.
Me.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Silent Letter
You don't know the first thing about me. It sounds like a stupid regular cry of a spoilt white suburban teenager but for me, its a truth. It's a cold hard truth that isn't meant to be shouted and then followed by a slamming door and pumping up my hard rock punk tunes. For me, its a resounding statement that haunts me and follows me everywhere I go. Like a thin shadow upon the ground that is there, day or night, light or no light. But you could never understand this. Because, once again, you've misjudged me, misgauged me.
I go through every day trying to do my best, trying to so hard to stay awake and just battle that monster that rears its ugly head the moment my eyes pop open. I try to be as sincere and dilligent as possible and always try to be agreeable or, if I can't be that, be quiet and indifferent to you.
But if you knew me, you'd be able to see this in every action that I take. Of course, you don't know the first thing about me so, for some reason unbeknowest to me that leaves me absolutely perplexed, you just assume the worst of me. And then you stupidly wonder why I don't tell the truth: because of your immature, horrible, vengeful, vindictive, childlike attitude concerning things of this nature.
For instance, if you knew me, you'd know that I love to see love around me but cannot commit to anything relationship-wise for the life of me. You'd understand that I have a palette for the finer things in life, can understand movies of great and subtle context. You'd realize that I appreciate these wisps, these moments of life and that I'm an observer who understands people, body language and life far greater than you realize. That I can understand and predict outcomes of peoples emotional scopes, and have deeper mental understanding of their behaviours on a more...spiritual, "fate-driven", intangible, philosophy of life context. You'd know that I'm sensitive and my sensitivity causes me to be far too emotional and very empathetic; I can feel people's sorrow, their joy and pain in levels that you could never even imagine because even words elude those depths. You'd be able to comprehend that I'm just different, that I live in my own shell, that I process my thoughts and understandings in a way different from those around me. "Those people", being people typical of my age. I'm atypical but this is neither good nor bad. It just is; thank you machiavelli.
If you understood even one tiny detail about me, you'd be able to see that everytime I cannot make you happy or fail at something you want, I have anxiety attacks, cannot think straight and the latter eats up at me for several days. I cannot get up, cannot function or think clearly. The word is depression, I am depressive and it takes me all my effort to keep my head above the water. For you. Because, as you've already proven years ago, that sort of understanding is beyond your emotional intelligence and capability, to handle, you who want everything simple and easy and bottom-lined. You'd also know that when I prayed for my marks to come out the only thing I kept saying was, please don't let them be hurt because of me.
I don't understand. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Okay, I can't articulate my feelings as coherently as I'd like but that is your own fault: everytime I tried when I was younger, you either rudely cut me off or scoffed at my flowered words as though they were something fruity and bookish, too high-level to be sincere and almost surreal in their reality. Too pompous, too idealistic and filmy. But those were the words of my heart and I couldn't get you to understand then. And now that I try and mould them for your sakes, I still cannot get my point across.
Which then leads me to this, the inevitable. By doing what you want, I am miserable as it is but you too cannot appreciate that I'm doing it for you. Instead, you berate me and grate on my nerves. Instead of encouraging me and putting a hand to my head to shield me from the elements you think reverse psychology will work. Here's a newsflash: talking in a ridiculing manner about my already low self esteem and trying to point everything WRONG with me and doing it in a disbelieving, vindictive manner is not going to help me. It's just going to lower my already pretty shitty self worth which I have been trying for 3 years now to rebuild.
So what is my final decision, my conclusion in these chain of events? I quickly realize that doing what I don't want to do, for your sakes leaves me unhappy as it is, that goes without saying, but also doesn't serve it's initial purpose: it doesn't make you any nicer or more encouraging or more loving. You are not proud or pleased. The outcome is neither good or bad; it is nothing. And that is even worse than the alternative. That nothing gets any better. Ever.
I can now only afford to scoff at your explanation of "she's only doing this to take the easy way out" because I've tried to convey in words the sincerity of my actions. Just because I never shared with you my hopes and dreams and wants with you before doesn't mean that they haven't been there all along, hiding from you. Just because I now bring them up with such fierce conviction means only that I've finally found the courage and spine to be able to look at my life and say, No, you are under my control and I will be happy no matter what.
Anyhow, the conclusion: the final result is this. I decide, to hell with that; it doesn't seem to be making any difference to you but more importantly, it doesn't seem to gel with me either. Then why this sacrifice for no results? Why bear the burden if no one, not even those you love, will at least commend you for it? Why? For honour? For respect?
Fuck honour. I'm fucking sick of honour. For respect? I have clearly not gained one ounce of respect by doing the right thing that you wanted me to do. Why continue? So that both parties be miserable? Doesn't it only make sense that one party should sink it all in, go the full monty, deal with the extra, marginal unhappiness by the other party and be happy themselves? If I have to be happy and do what I want, I might as well do it, because it doesn't seem to make much difference to you. And hey, so your opinion of me dips lower. Who the fuck cares. Honestly, I'm already in so deep, what's a little more? At least, that way, one of us is happy. And the most important thing is, this chain of resentment, this firewall of temper and dissatisfaction and anger toward everything you have done in my past will finally be broken.
I regret so much, cry over so much that happened, blame you for so much. But that was when I was younger: I had no control over it. But now...now I'm older. I do have control now. I don't want to feel any resentment, I don't want to blame you for something I could have changed.
The truth is, I did it for all the wrong reasons. I expected happiness to come from expectation. I expected it. That was wrong. Goals are important, but expectations only curb and curtail ones full creative powers. For once in my life, I felt successful. I felt loved. I felt like a normal, prodigal child. I saw that I had the power to make you smile in pride, to make you realize that I too was worth something, that I had capabilities that you had never imagined and that, where words had failed to convey, my actions were leaving you speechless instead. And oh my, was that power heady. It was something that I had never wielded, never even seen in myself before. Sure, others had them and I envied them so very much. But to be able to feel that power, to be able to have it...I cannot even explain what it meant to me. And how dangerously illusatory it made the entire situation.
I know now: I should not have done it to make you happy. I only made myself unhappy in the process. And now you're even more disappointed. I should not have lied to myself and told myself that I'm capable of this and that and things of which I have absolutely zero interest in. I should have let you seen me for who I am, should have let you know that whatever I am, I am me and that you will just have to accept that. But firstly, I should have been able to accept that. I should not have compartmentalized; you see, one part was me, the me I saw and knew. And then there was the me whom you saw and thought you knew, took for granted and assumed. I should have let the me me bleed into the you me. First, I should have been okay with me. Only then could I have expected you to come to terms with it.
And besides...what is so bad about me, anyhow? Okay, so I have a drop-of-a-hat temper. I'm stubborn. I have a superiority complex. At times, I'm arrogant, brash, unrealiable, sort of clumsy, impatient, a tad unaccepting, a little judgemental. But that is just me. For example, it's taken me a long time but I have now come to terms with the fact that you are vindictive, mean-spirited, childish, immature, uncomprehending, egotistical, and arrogant, and ever-ready for a fight or provocation. And that nothing I do will ever change our relationship. But there's good in me, too.
I try, so hard, I'm sincere and disciplined and somewhat righteous (for the moralistic things that matter, anyhow). And there are so many good things about you, too. Why do you always assume the worst of me and question my integrity? I've told you this from day one, the one thing I've shared is this: I absolutely hate, hate, hate it when you question my integrity, my intentions. Nothing flares me up more. No genocide or hate killings or massacres or anything gets me more riled than when you question my motives, especially when I'm trying to stick to and do the right thing.
God, I have more to say but it's all a broken record. I'm so tired of this bullshit. And I'm so tired of waiting for life. Ever since I can remember, since I was eight or seven, there's always been a Greek chorus in my head: just a little further, and it will get better. Just a little further, and it will get further?
But no. How much further? I'm not being impatient, I'm being realistic. When I was 8, I wanted to be 12 so I could dress the way I wanted to. When I was 12, I wanted to be 16 so I could drive and get the fuck away from you. When I was 16, I wanted to be 18 so I could finally leave this fucking shit hole, the depression, the anger, the guilt and get back to reality and live on my own terms. And now that I'm 18...all I want to do is have a hole open up and swallow me. All I wanted at 18, was to be 25 and graduated so I could start living life. But wait. At 25, I'd start wishing that I was 27 and had all my loans paid off while working in stuffy, shitty cubicle in some high pompous firm with insincere, single-minded, depthless, money-mongering idiots who cared only about their stock benefits and the newest cars. And then at 27, I'd wish I was 29 so I could finally earn a degree doing what I wanted to and then wish I was 30 so those loans from my second "epiphany, quarter-midlife crisis" degree could be paid off, again. And when I was 30, I'd probably have an anuerism or go insane and hang myself or put a gun to my head. And the worst part is, I'd constantly be living, waiting for the next thing to come. And I'd blame you for it.
You say you can see 10 steps into the future and anticipate things. Then why can't you anticipate this? Why can't you see all this falling apart, all of me falling apart? That I'm so lost and so confused because you've instilled into me a fear of life and the unknown consequences that are automatically always bad? Why do you make me feel guilty for feeling happy? Why do you make me think that just because I'm happy one day, that I must be quiet and sober the next day or else I'm frivolous and wasting life? Why is showing that happiness and feeling that happiness wrong? Why do you think that just because I show and feel happy, I'm automatically careless and childish and don't think seriously enough about the future. Why must my happiness be rationed and measured so carefully and labeled when there's precious little of it in my life in the first place? Why do I let you get in my head? Why can't you see that everything I've done, I do, I've done it for you?
Because you don't know. You don't know the first thing about me.
I go through every day trying to do my best, trying to so hard to stay awake and just battle that monster that rears its ugly head the moment my eyes pop open. I try to be as sincere and dilligent as possible and always try to be agreeable or, if I can't be that, be quiet and indifferent to you.
But if you knew me, you'd be able to see this in every action that I take. Of course, you don't know the first thing about me so, for some reason unbeknowest to me that leaves me absolutely perplexed, you just assume the worst of me. And then you stupidly wonder why I don't tell the truth: because of your immature, horrible, vengeful, vindictive, childlike attitude concerning things of this nature.
For instance, if you knew me, you'd know that I love to see love around me but cannot commit to anything relationship-wise for the life of me. You'd understand that I have a palette for the finer things in life, can understand movies of great and subtle context. You'd realize that I appreciate these wisps, these moments of life and that I'm an observer who understands people, body language and life far greater than you realize. That I can understand and predict outcomes of peoples emotional scopes, and have deeper mental understanding of their behaviours on a more...spiritual, "fate-driven", intangible, philosophy of life context. You'd know that I'm sensitive and my sensitivity causes me to be far too emotional and very empathetic; I can feel people's sorrow, their joy and pain in levels that you could never even imagine because even words elude those depths. You'd be able to comprehend that I'm just different, that I live in my own shell, that I process my thoughts and understandings in a way different from those around me. "Those people", being people typical of my age. I'm atypical but this is neither good nor bad. It just is; thank you machiavelli.
If you understood even one tiny detail about me, you'd be able to see that everytime I cannot make you happy or fail at something you want, I have anxiety attacks, cannot think straight and the latter eats up at me for several days. I cannot get up, cannot function or think clearly. The word is depression, I am depressive and it takes me all my effort to keep my head above the water. For you. Because, as you've already proven years ago, that sort of understanding is beyond your emotional intelligence and capability, to handle, you who want everything simple and easy and bottom-lined. You'd also know that when I prayed for my marks to come out the only thing I kept saying was, please don't let them be hurt because of me.
I don't understand. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Okay, I can't articulate my feelings as coherently as I'd like but that is your own fault: everytime I tried when I was younger, you either rudely cut me off or scoffed at my flowered words as though they were something fruity and bookish, too high-level to be sincere and almost surreal in their reality. Too pompous, too idealistic and filmy. But those were the words of my heart and I couldn't get you to understand then. And now that I try and mould them for your sakes, I still cannot get my point across.
Which then leads me to this, the inevitable. By doing what you want, I am miserable as it is but you too cannot appreciate that I'm doing it for you. Instead, you berate me and grate on my nerves. Instead of encouraging me and putting a hand to my head to shield me from the elements you think reverse psychology will work. Here's a newsflash: talking in a ridiculing manner about my already low self esteem and trying to point everything WRONG with me and doing it in a disbelieving, vindictive manner is not going to help me. It's just going to lower my already pretty shitty self worth which I have been trying for 3 years now to rebuild.
So what is my final decision, my conclusion in these chain of events? I quickly realize that doing what I don't want to do, for your sakes leaves me unhappy as it is, that goes without saying, but also doesn't serve it's initial purpose: it doesn't make you any nicer or more encouraging or more loving. You are not proud or pleased. The outcome is neither good or bad; it is nothing. And that is even worse than the alternative. That nothing gets any better. Ever.
I can now only afford to scoff at your explanation of "she's only doing this to take the easy way out" because I've tried to convey in words the sincerity of my actions. Just because I never shared with you my hopes and dreams and wants with you before doesn't mean that they haven't been there all along, hiding from you. Just because I now bring them up with such fierce conviction means only that I've finally found the courage and spine to be able to look at my life and say, No, you are under my control and I will be happy no matter what.
Anyhow, the conclusion: the final result is this. I decide, to hell with that; it doesn't seem to be making any difference to you but more importantly, it doesn't seem to gel with me either. Then why this sacrifice for no results? Why bear the burden if no one, not even those you love, will at least commend you for it? Why? For honour? For respect?
Fuck honour. I'm fucking sick of honour. For respect? I have clearly not gained one ounce of respect by doing the right thing that you wanted me to do. Why continue? So that both parties be miserable? Doesn't it only make sense that one party should sink it all in, go the full monty, deal with the extra, marginal unhappiness by the other party and be happy themselves? If I have to be happy and do what I want, I might as well do it, because it doesn't seem to make much difference to you. And hey, so your opinion of me dips lower. Who the fuck cares. Honestly, I'm already in so deep, what's a little more? At least, that way, one of us is happy. And the most important thing is, this chain of resentment, this firewall of temper and dissatisfaction and anger toward everything you have done in my past will finally be broken.
I regret so much, cry over so much that happened, blame you for so much. But that was when I was younger: I had no control over it. But now...now I'm older. I do have control now. I don't want to feel any resentment, I don't want to blame you for something I could have changed.
The truth is, I did it for all the wrong reasons. I expected happiness to come from expectation. I expected it. That was wrong. Goals are important, but expectations only curb and curtail ones full creative powers. For once in my life, I felt successful. I felt loved. I felt like a normal, prodigal child. I saw that I had the power to make you smile in pride, to make you realize that I too was worth something, that I had capabilities that you had never imagined and that, where words had failed to convey, my actions were leaving you speechless instead. And oh my, was that power heady. It was something that I had never wielded, never even seen in myself before. Sure, others had them and I envied them so very much. But to be able to feel that power, to be able to have it...I cannot even explain what it meant to me. And how dangerously illusatory it made the entire situation.
I know now: I should not have done it to make you happy. I only made myself unhappy in the process. And now you're even more disappointed. I should not have lied to myself and told myself that I'm capable of this and that and things of which I have absolutely zero interest in. I should have let you seen me for who I am, should have let you know that whatever I am, I am me and that you will just have to accept that. But firstly, I should have been able to accept that. I should not have compartmentalized; you see, one part was me, the me I saw and knew. And then there was the me whom you saw and thought you knew, took for granted and assumed. I should have let the me me bleed into the you me. First, I should have been okay with me. Only then could I have expected you to come to terms with it.
And besides...what is so bad about me, anyhow? Okay, so I have a drop-of-a-hat temper. I'm stubborn. I have a superiority complex. At times, I'm arrogant, brash, unrealiable, sort of clumsy, impatient, a tad unaccepting, a little judgemental. But that is just me. For example, it's taken me a long time but I have now come to terms with the fact that you are vindictive, mean-spirited, childish, immature, uncomprehending, egotistical, and arrogant, and ever-ready for a fight or provocation. And that nothing I do will ever change our relationship. But there's good in me, too.
I try, so hard, I'm sincere and disciplined and somewhat righteous (for the moralistic things that matter, anyhow). And there are so many good things about you, too. Why do you always assume the worst of me and question my integrity? I've told you this from day one, the one thing I've shared is this: I absolutely hate, hate, hate it when you question my integrity, my intentions. Nothing flares me up more. No genocide or hate killings or massacres or anything gets me more riled than when you question my motives, especially when I'm trying to stick to and do the right thing.
God, I have more to say but it's all a broken record. I'm so tired of this bullshit. And I'm so tired of waiting for life. Ever since I can remember, since I was eight or seven, there's always been a Greek chorus in my head: just a little further, and it will get better. Just a little further, and it will get further?
But no. How much further? I'm not being impatient, I'm being realistic. When I was 8, I wanted to be 12 so I could dress the way I wanted to. When I was 12, I wanted to be 16 so I could drive and get the fuck away from you. When I was 16, I wanted to be 18 so I could finally leave this fucking shit hole, the depression, the anger, the guilt and get back to reality and live on my own terms. And now that I'm 18...all I want to do is have a hole open up and swallow me. All I wanted at 18, was to be 25 and graduated so I could start living life. But wait. At 25, I'd start wishing that I was 27 and had all my loans paid off while working in stuffy, shitty cubicle in some high pompous firm with insincere, single-minded, depthless, money-mongering idiots who cared only about their stock benefits and the newest cars. And then at 27, I'd wish I was 29 so I could finally earn a degree doing what I wanted to and then wish I was 30 so those loans from my second "epiphany, quarter-midlife crisis" degree could be paid off, again. And when I was 30, I'd probably have an anuerism or go insane and hang myself or put a gun to my head. And the worst part is, I'd constantly be living, waiting for the next thing to come. And I'd blame you for it.
You say you can see 10 steps into the future and anticipate things. Then why can't you anticipate this? Why can't you see all this falling apart, all of me falling apart? That I'm so lost and so confused because you've instilled into me a fear of life and the unknown consequences that are automatically always bad? Why do you make me feel guilty for feeling happy? Why do you make me think that just because I'm happy one day, that I must be quiet and sober the next day or else I'm frivolous and wasting life? Why is showing that happiness and feeling that happiness wrong? Why do you think that just because I show and feel happy, I'm automatically careless and childish and don't think seriously enough about the future. Why must my happiness be rationed and measured so carefully and labeled when there's precious little of it in my life in the first place? Why do I let you get in my head? Why can't you see that everything I've done, I do, I've done it for you?
Because you don't know. You don't know the first thing about me.
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