Posts tagged with "reflection"

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.

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.

Confusion

Confusion is some­thing that has always struck me in the worst cir­cum­stances. Yet it’s some­thing that’s very dif­fi­cult for me to under­stand at the time. I am usu­al­ly very unaware of my con­fu­sion. I find that it usu­al­ly takes about six months for me to come full cir­cle, and come to a full com­pre­hen­sion of what has hap­pened. It’s as if I can’t see what’s going on in the present, but I have an idea of what will hap­pen in the future, and a knowl­edge of the past, like the damned in the Divine Comedy.

I under­stand that it takes time to be out of a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion and to be able to free one­self of the bonds or con­se­quences of deci­sions made dur­ing that time. Sometimes it just feels like the only thing that mat­ters is for the con­fu­sion to go away, so that one does­n’t make an incor­rect choice or deci­sion.

Confusion was an aide to me once in a rela­tion­ship. It caused me to see things clear­er, and I end­ed up in a bet­ter place because of it, although I did­n’t real­ize it at the time.

I just wish I felt like that was true.

The Conversationalist

Does no one talk any­more? It feels as if every­one needs to be doing some­thing in order to be enter­tained. I remem­ber try­ing to get togeth­er with an old friend for some drinks, maybe a cof­fee so that I could find out how he was doing. We were good friends in high school, and since I had­n’t seen him in three years, I thought it would be a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about what he had been doing. When we were actu­al­ly able to get togeth­er, we end­ed up play­ing board games. I had a good time, but it felt odd that I did­n’t have any news from him by the time I left.

I under­stand that most peo­ple are busy with school, espe­cial­ly in fourth year, so that relax­ation time ends up being hard-core play­ing and drink­ing time, which does­n’t involve some­thing as lack­adaisi­cal as talk­ing. I’ve been able to meet some good con­ver­sa­tion­al­ists, like Dina, Pat, Aaron, or Nick, but they’re gen­er­al­ly too busy to speak with. I don’t think any­one is at fault here, I guess I just wish that more peo­ple would be inter­est­ed in con­ver­sa­tion, who could com­mit more time to it.

I think it’s the fact that my brain is exer­cised when I can talk with some­one. Many thoughts that are cloudy in my head become more solid­i­fied. I’m also able to learn so much when some­one has a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, and learn­ing feels so good. It’s a pity that I don’t know more peo­ple that I can sim­ply talk to. I haven’t had a nice, long con­ver­sa­tion pos­si­bly in a year, since gen­er­al­ly all oth­er con­ver­sa­tions feel rushed from work or school. No one has the time to talk until 3 am any­more.

It’s going to be a long night.