Tag: pain

  • To my daughter…

    I pray that you never will understand some of what I’m going through, some of what I feel, or some of what I think…because to understand you would need to experience what I’ve experienced. And I wouldn’t want you to feel the pain and the anguish that I’ve felt that made me feel, see and think the way I do. Although it’s the same pain and anguish that has given me this appreciation for life, for a smile on a stranger’s face, or for the chirping of the birds. My wish is for you to learn from my experiences and the experiences of others because there’s so much more to life than the opportunity to make your own mistakes.

    The only way you can cheat time is to learn from the accumulated wisdom of generations past. But if you insist on learning it all yourself, know that you’ll never learn more than anyone who has lived only a single lifetime without any wisdom to draw on. Know that your pain and your anguish will be unnecessary, and know that your life would only ever be half-lived, if even that. So instead I pray that you are able to cheat time, acquire a wisdom beyond what you may inherit, and give your children more than what you had to cheat time with. And if you do this, know that you have achieved more than any human being can be expected to achieve in a single lifetime. This is the only path to immortality that I know. 

  • Believe in me…not!

    People don’t want to be believed in. They want to be pitied. Your pity for them reaffirms their victim state because they need to believe that they’re downtrodden because no one else would’ve dealt any better with what they’re contending with. When you believe in them, you expect them to rise up and become a master of their state rather than a victim.

    So instead, they’ll scowl at you for not understanding, for undermining their heartache or anguish, and for thinking you’re better than them or that you just don’t get it at all. All this because they need to hide behind the facade of being able to survive in spite of this massively overwhelming burden of life being placed on them. That way, they feel like they’re strong because they’re still alive and have pathetic remnants of hope for the future, when in fact they’re weak and are only existing and surrounding themselves with like-minded people that will stroke their egos and affirm their resilience because they haven’t thrown in the towel yet.

    But despite knowing this, you’ll be bold enough (read dumb enough!) to believe in them because you see through their defenses simply because you employed those very same defenses at some point, and their true strength is visible to you like the light of day but hidden from them because of the daunting decay of society. So you believe, and you invest emotionally and sometimes physically into that belief in them, and instead they rebel…they deny and despise your efforts because you’re not giving them what they want…you’re not telling them what they want to hear.

    And that sends you into a state of despair and suddenly you’re the victim of the weakness that you tried to help them to overcome. And suddenly you’re questioning your self-worth, your significance, your ability to influence…and you recede…not realising that receding is giving up and not necessarily accepting. But at some point we all give up. Sometimes on life, sometimes on living…and sometimes on existing. And then someone comes along and believes in us, and we strike back thinking what the hell do they know? Do they have any idea what I’ve just been through? How I’ve just been rejected in the harshest way? Do they know anything at all, or do they need to believe in me so that they can feel significant in their quest to touch someone else’s life in the hope that it would bring meaning to their own? How pathetic they are for thinking that they have what it takes to convince me that I am wrong about my conscious choice to recede. Do they not know how much I know about why I shouldn’t believe anymore?

  • To tortured souls who self-harm…

    “You didn’t put the knife down because you weren’t ready to. You still have a need to hold on to the certainty of the pain that drives you to that point, rather than face the daunting possibility of hope by letting go and trying to believe again. Don’t see it as a weakness. It’s just a choice. A painful choice, but nonetheless, a choice. But until you’re ready to take the brave step of moving beyond what got you to this point, you’ll never be ready to put the knife down. Know that you’re not alone, and realise that you’re not weak. The final choice will always be yours to make. No one else’s. But sometimes, making those choices require us to give up on something or someone that we’re not ready to give up on. So that’s what you need to decide. That’s what you need to realise. That’s what you, and only you, can do for yourself. The rest of us can only support you, empathise with you, or avoid you if what you’re doing reminds us too much about our own weaknesses that we’re not ready to face. But ultimately, the choice can only be yours.”

    This was in response to someone that was deriding herself about not being able to resist the temptation to cut again…my heart goes out to her and others like her that see self-harm as the only way to release the pain and anguish that they feel in their lives. I wish people would pay more attention to those around them. I wish people would be more sensitive about what they say or do, no matter how much they would like to believe they don’t have the power to hurt others. 

    I believe that vindictive and cruel people are only that way because they have a twisted need to feel powerful, because they lack the self-worth and wisdom to realise that being kind is infinitely more courageous than being cruel. If you’ve had a bad day, don’t take it out on your kids, or your significant others. They may love you too much, or be too afraid to respond or retaliate, but the impact of your words will often leave scars on them, and not just in their hearts.

  • But to be appreciated for this, that’s an expectation heralding yet more pain and ingratitude, further widening the chasm between this painfully acquired beauty and the appreciation we desire.