Posts in category "Thoughts"

I Cry

I came home yes­ter­day with a note on my desk, and it said that Dolly was being tak­en for a walk.

My first reac­tion was dis­be­lief. I could­n’t under­stand how some­one could just take my cat for a walk. I was beside myself with shock. I felt vio­lat­ed. I felt insult­ed. I felt ter­ri­ble.

I had­n’t walked Dolly yet, for sev­er­al rea­sons. First of all, I did­n’t have her microchipped, so any chance that she gets away would be dev­as­tat­ing. Secondly, I had­n’t decid­ed whether I should take her out yet, since she might miss being out­side too much after her first time. That was a big deci­sion for me, one that I had­n’t made yet, but one which was made for me.

The most impor­tant point is that Dolly had her first walk with­out me. I was­n’t there to see how she reacts with the world, I was­n’t able to be the first per­son to let her out­side.

I stood in my room for ten min­utes in dis­be­lief. I could­n’t even wrap my head around how some­one could do such a thing, to walk into my home and vio­late my feel­ings in such a way. I put on my head­phones, put on my fuck off playlist, and sat under my desk, shak­ing my head. This was the most offen­sive thing any­one has ever done to me in my life.

When the real­iza­tion that there was no oth­er first walk sunk in, I start­ed to sob. The shock segued into depres­sion, and I slumped onto the ground, pulling my hair, still in dis­be­lief. I cried for a good while, some­thing I haven’t done for eight or nine years. I cried so hard that my tear ducts felt like they were being sucked of their flu­ids and the walls were start­ing to touch each oth­er. By the end of it, my eyes had the old famil­iar swollen feel­ing, and I was exhaust­ed. I show­ered and tried to wash the mucus from my hair.

The whole sit­u­a­tion has made me more ful­ly under­stand how much I care about Dolly. I already knew how much I cared about her, and I appre­ci­at­ed her before, but I nev­er real­ized the extent of it until now. I don’t see her as a pet. I see her as a child.

It’s also made me think about the nature of good and bad, and how much of a bal­ance there is. I nev­er real­ly believed that either exist­ed, since one bad thing gen­er­al­ly spawns a good thing, such as mur­der help­ing to con­trol over­pop­u­la­tion, or geno­cide lead­ing to beau­ti­ful art/culture. Of course, I’ve nev­er been through either, so my thoughts are quite lim­it­ed.

I just can’t see the good in this sit­u­a­tion. I can’t see how this can be any­thing but bad. I haven’t learned any­thing from this, one of the only pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for it hap­pen­ing, and I have lost even more faith in human­i­ty.

Seeing the good in this would be healthy for me.

Making The Best

I went out to cel­e­brate St. Patty’s day with Aaron, Wheaties, Trolley, and Nick. I had such a great time, that I can’t even begin to explain. There were so many enter­tain­ing parts to the night that I would­n’t be able to recall half of them. We did some drink­ing at Aaron’s place before going out, and the pub we even­tu­al­ly went to near­by was dead. The ser­vice was ter­ri­ble, the atmos­phere actu­al­ly worked in a neg­a­tive way, with a ter­ri­ble DJ and drunk­en bums, and the beer was­n’t even a rich shade of green, more of a pale watery colour. A good time was still had though, one of the best times of my life.

At one point, Trolley was chas­ing Aaron and I down a hill, with Nick in an aban­doned shop­ping cart being pushed in front of him.

I came upon a sort of epiphany though, not only through the events of the night, but through the con­ver­sa­tions we had. Everything made me real­ize how sim­ple my life has cur­rent­ly become, how I live for noth­ing but my friends, and a bit of hope.

If I was to die tomor­row, I would have no regrets, about any­thing in my life at all. I haven’t worked very hard to get where I am now, which includes a very com­fort­able lifestyle. I have been very lucky. I’ve been able to relax, and take things easy, and still go through high school and uni­ver­si­ty with­out being held back for fail­ing cours­es. I enjoy what I’m doing, I think I’ll enjoy where the present is tak­ing me. But if my life were to end, then so be it.

I won­der if any­one would find this mor­bid if they found out. It seems like I’ve accept­ed my death already, although there’s always the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death scare cre­at­ing an urgent sense of alacrity in me. I can’t real­ly see that hap­pen­ing though. Sometimes sui­cide does­n’t sound that bad. There’s just no rea­son to live or die, so I accept what I’m giv­en, and make the best of it.

Perhaps this is the answer, as well as the mean­ing.

The Ivory Box, The Penis in a Jar

The idea of unbal­anced rela­tion­ships was brought to my mind over the week­end. For a rela­tion­ship to work, both par­ties must be sat­is­fied with the rela­tion­ship. If one per­son isn’t hap­py, then the rela­tion­ship is bound to fail, unless work can be done to appease that per­son.

An inter­est­ing idea that aris­es from this is the occur­rence of rela­tion­ships in which both par­ties have dif­fer­ing rea­sons for being togeth­er. For exam­ple, one per­son might like the good time that the oth­er is able to give, while the oth­er per­son might like the intel­li­gence of the first per­son.

I imag­ine that a tro­phy hus­band or wife rela­tion­ship would be like this. One per­son has mon­ey to offer, where­as the oth­er per­son has looks, and both are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for the oth­er.

Even a rela­tion­ship as unbal­anced as this is able to work, as long as both peo­ple are hap­py. And what if one per­son wants one thing from the oth­er that can only be tem­porar­i­ly pro­vid­ed? The rela­tion­ship becomes tem­po­rary itself, although not to both peo­ple.

Yet can such a rela­tion­ship work? That depends on the def­i­n­i­tion of “work”. I don’t think that such a rela­tion­ship can last for long. After all, it is based on the fun­da­men­tals of hedo­nism, to one per­son at least. The oth­er per­son, aware of this or not, will only be left alone in the end.

So, hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, one may look at both cas­es, one case where both par­ties are aware of the tem­po­rary sta­tus, and the oth­er case in which only one mem­ber knows of such sin­is­ter moti­va­tions.

The for­mer can be suc­cess­ful, as both peo­ple have an under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, although an end­ing of the terms may cause prob­lems such as the end of a friend­ship. The lat­ter, on the oth­er hand, can only lead to pain.

Being con­fused about either can only lead to worse.

Vs.

I remem­ber watch­ing Seinfeld, and not being able to stand Kramer. He seemed to ruin so much of what his friends were doing, like hir­ing cig­ar rollers to roll crêpes, only to have them explode in the faces of cus­tomers, some­how caus­ing George’s girl­friend to break up with him.

It always made me won­der why Jerry would nev­er break off his friend­ship with him, why Jerry would always put up with some­one who nev­er seemed to give as much plea­sure as the amount of strife he cre­at­ed.

I find the sit­u­a­tion to be so com­mon. I sup­pose that I’m con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, and that as soon as a lim­it is reached, I have no inter­est in con­tin­u­ing the rela­tion­ship. It’s prob­a­bly the rea­son why I get over my break-ups so quick­ly, if not the idea of the sit­u­a­tion, than the com­fort. The fact that I’ve always been the breaker prob­a­bly helps too.

I spoke with Aaron about it, and he explained to me very well that to Jerry, the friend­ship was worth it. I now under­stand that peo­ple see their friend­ships in a dif­fer­ent man­ner, and that what I would­n’t put up with may just be a sim­ple mat­ter to oth­ers.

Sometimes I wish that I did­n’t see every­thing so day-to-day. However, by con­stant­ly re-eval­u­at­ing my rela­tion­ships, I not only clear­ly see the prob­lems with bad ones, but I am able to appre­ci­ate the ones that are good as well.

An idea that has become com­mon in my beliefs is that I should live as a demand­ing per­son, but I should give as much as I get. Perhaps that’s why I stop being friends with cer­tain peo­ple, where­as oth­ers I would die for. I would pre­fer to live with a few close friends, as opposed to a pletho­ra of acquain­tances. Sometimes it still con­fus­es me though, how peo­ple can put up with what I can only see as a ter­ri­ble flaw.

There’s a fine line between know­ing when to be self­ish, and know­ing when to be kind to oth­ers, even if kind­ness means sac­ri­fice.

Serenity

I’ve come to under­stand the mind­sets of a few dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple when it comes to per­son­al prob­lems. Most peo­ple I know will sim­ply deal with any prob­lems, instead of fight­ing them head on. I find that I try to do the same thing some­times, but I tend to come out a lit­tle worse for wear. Most have prob­a­bly gained more seren­i­ty, some­thing that I’m still learn­ing to con­trol.

Yet when most peo­ple are deal­ing with their issues in a pas­sive man­ner, the meth­ods become even more diverse. Justification seems to be a very com­mon method, but many jus­ti­fy in dif­fer­ent ways.

Some that I know believe that life is sim­ply full of dis­ap­point­ments (a few Buddhist can­di­dates, I’m sure) and that any bad things that come their way should sim­ply be under­stood. They don’t get angry or upset, and they seem to come out on top of things in the end. Others try to ignore the prob­lems, since think­ing about them will only make things worse. Some that I know even use such bad sit­u­a­tions to their advan­tage by exag­ger­at­ing them for some cheap atten­tion. I even know oth­ers who are able to feel bet­ter by com­par­ing them­selves to oth­ers.

Some will sim­ply get depressed.

I find that I gen­er­al­ly fall in either the for­mer or the lat­ter cat­e­gories. I would hope so at least, since I’ve been in the lat­ter for a great part of my life. I’ve been able to deal with things a lit­tle bit bet­ter now, for about three years. I sup­pose that it’s some­thing that Rob was able to teach me, but prob­a­bly also due to the fact that I’ve had a good last three years. I’ve been able to see the oth­er side of life that so many oth­ers seem to be able to expe­ri­ence. I feel like I’ve only got­ten a taste, and that I should try to expe­ri­ence it again.

But God still owes me some seren­i­ty.