Posts tagged with "balance"

Emotional Cuirass

Yo.

It’s been dif­fi­cult to write late­ly. Sometimes I peruse oth­er peo­ples’ blogs, note their wit and style, and wish I could write as inter­est­ing­ly as they do. Then I remem­ber that I only write for myself any­way and that it does­n’t mat­ter if I sound bor­ing or pre­ten­tious. Nevertheless, my writ­ers’ block has par­tial­ly been due to the fact that I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing some odd mood swings. It’s not even so much due to the ephemer­al nature of my emo­tions, but more relat­ed to the fact that I don’t under­stand what I’m feel­ing.

Some things make me hap­py. Some things make me depressed.

I think I’m most­ly just con­tent, which is a feel­ing I’m not quite used to yet. It’s almost as if I’m float­ing in a pool of luke­warm liq­uid, unsure of what my sens­es tell me. All I know is that my dys­thymic phase has long left me. For now, I have resigned myself to expe­ri­enc­ing such emo­tions with an open mind, with the hope that I will some day under­stand them.

I remem­ber want­i­ng to keep my emo­tions in check a long time ago, want­i­ng to become a com­plete­ly cere­bral per­son. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that this was such a good idea, not that I’ve been able to ful­ly suc­ceed in such a mon­strous task. Perhaps a bal­ance is need­ed in some­thing such as this as well. A lack of emo­tions may cause a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion for the few emo­tions one expe­ri­ences, or vice-ver­sa.

My ratio­nale has changed on this because my expe­ri­ences have changed. Growing up in a chaot­ic world of con­fu­sion and pain, I want­ed an emo­tion­al bar­ri­er to pre­vent any fur­ther men­tal agony. Now, I’ve accom­plished more, loved more, been loved more, and felt more. Perhaps I now feel that hap­pi­ness is worth the pos­si­bil­i­ty of men­tal anguish. Sometimes it feels as if I’m wait­ing for a ter­ri­ble inci­dent to revert my views. Life, how­ev­er, seems to be get­ting bet­ter.

I just wish I knew what I was feel­ing.

Fetus

I am usu­al­ly not one who pro­fess­es to know a lot. I’m often fair­ly hum­bled in front of many oth­ers who pos­sess a greater intel­li­gence than me (although I know my fair share of stu­pid peo­ple). I think that intel­li­gence is some­thing about myself that I’ll nev­er be sat­is­fied with. There are too many things to know and learn and improve upon, and the pur­suit of such would take longer than an eter­ni­ty.

Reading back on some of my entries, some­thing which has been hard to do late­ly, I feel like a child again. My entries seem to be filled with such uncere­bral emo­tion some­times. It’s as if I can be great­ly both­ered by things that I should be able to over­come. Of course, it’s writ­ing here which helps me out when I need it, when it feels like no one can under­stand or relate. It all just fills this writ­ten his­to­ry with bias. Nothing can change the fact that I am still a human per­son who has emo­tions, although my life expe­ri­ences have damp­ened them con­sid­er­ably.

I feel young when I real­ize how much these emo­tions can some­times affect me.

I’m still unsure whether it would be bet­ter or worse to feel more. On the one hand, I can keep myself in check and keep my actions con­sis­tent if some­thing hap­pens which might upset me. On the oth­er hand, I feel numb, as if things which should bring me plea­sure end up being noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar.

Balance need­ed in yet some­thing else.

Moving Towards k

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve achieved my sta­bil­i­ty. That’s not to say that it won’t dis­ap­pear once a new sit­u­a­tion aris­es, but it seems that my loss of bal­ance has giv­en me prac­tice in regain­ing it.

The future seems so uncer­tain. I don’t have a room­mate for the sum­mer, and I don’t even know if I need one. Everyone is talk­ing about mov­ing in with each oth­er, but none of our leas­es end on the same month. I might not be grad­u­at­ing in a month if I fail any cours­es, a very dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty. That means that my grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny would be delayed, and I would need to reg­is­ter for a sum­mer semes­ter. I don’t even give a shit about the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, but it’s not like I would be going for myself. I don’t even have a job lined up any time soon, some­thing which I am des­per­ate­ly in need/want of.

Yet in the face of such uncer­tain­ty, I have been able to remain rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble. I’m not sure why this is. Possibly, the taste of good liv­ing I had last sum­mer has cre­at­ed a kind of hope in me, a hope with no-strings-attached.

What an odd turn of events, that hav­ing a con­tent sit­u­a­tion (and even los­ing it) has made me “hap­pi­er”. I won­der if it’s just a phase, that I’m still rid­ing off a store of emo­tions, and that once the store in drained, I’ll become a bit­ter per­son. Somehow I doubt it, but one can nev­er tell.

I can now safe­ly say that I am a bet­ter per­son, although if his­to­ry has taught me any­thing, it’s that any­thing can change.

And yet there is still a wish for change.

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.

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.