Tag: sincerity

  • Expectations and Ingratitude

    I sometimes find myself taking offence when someone does not fulfil my rights. I mean, it’s my rights, so why shouldn’t I get offended if they abdicate their responsibility in the process? But then I felt that familiar twinge I usually feel whenever I know I’m being deliberately arrogant. It’s a twinge that causes me to rationalise in my mind whether or not that arrogance is called for, or is it really just a self-indulgent tantrum. Slowly it dawned on me that despite the rights I may have, taking offence to it not being fulfilled suggests that I feel entitled to it.

    Entitlement can sometimes be justified, especially in the above scenario, but it doesn’t mean that my underlying motives cease to exist. My sense of entitlement also implies that I have an expectation, and I still maintain that expectations are at the root of much bitterness (and by the way, Shakespeare never said that, no matter how many times you see that meme on the net). So it’s better to have hope instead. But that is really beside the point. The real issue that I grappled with in all of this was the fact that when I focus on my rights that need to be fulfilled, it significantly alters my demeanour when dealing with anything that is remotely contentious relative to that right.

    When I see the contribution of others as an obligation on their part rather than a blessing on mine, I easily slip into a mindset of arrogant expectation. The only time that someone is obliged to fulfil my rights is if they have an equal conviction in a common belief system where they respect the repercussions of their actions. The ingratitude, I guess, arises when I assume that reciprocation is not needed where my rights were merely being fulfilled. And perhaps in that is some truth that calls into question the sincerity of such gestures.

    Sincerity is not reciprocation. Sincerity is fulfilling the rights of others even when they neglect your rights over them. But that sincerity is relative to the intent with which such rights are respected. If we uphold the rights of others because we fear the repercussions of not doing so, then we’re insincere. The benefit may still be there, but its effects will be limited and its rewards will be absent. How this all ties up is not necessarily obvious, but it is amazingly relevant.

    If gratitude is truly tainted by entitlement, which I believe it is, and sincerity is often neglected when we feel obliged, then it makes sense to me that sincerity can only ever be true if entitlement and reciprocation play no part in our motivation to act. Sincerity in action is the result of a conviction we hold true in spite of our low opinion of another. It is with such conviction that we will find ourselves able to contribute towards the upliftment of those that we believe are culpable in their needy state. But it just occurred to me that even that conviction will be grounded in a belief of reward or recompense that is either worldly or other-worldly. Whether we believe the wheel will turn and smack us back in this lifetime, or we believe that we will receive our reward when we are judged for our actions, it amounts to the same thing. Self-preservation.

    It seems like sincerity is a wholesome concept that is grounded in our need to feel magnanimous while feigning humility. If we didn’t feel entitled, and if we were truly capable of gratitude, contentment would not be so elusive. I look around me and I see my restlessness echoed in others. This suggests to me that we’re all lacking contentment in what we have and what we need from those around us. Like darkness is only manifested in the absence of light, so too must restlessness be manifested in the absence of contentment. We won’t be restless if we didn’t feel neglected, and such feelings of neglect would not result except when we feel entitled, and such entitlement is only present when we believe we’re more significant than others perceive us to be, and so it stands to reason that our perception of our self is what drives us to be the fools we are, in search of contentment while actively pursuing that which erodes the very goal that we aspire to reach.

    Yet another vicious cycle.

     

  • The Folly of Love

    There is a mistaken belief that love is restricted to the bonding of hearts in romantic entanglements. We restrict its observance to only those bonds we actively choose, while assuming that anything else must be platonic at best, and casual at least. But there is a love that extends beyond all these constructs and constraints. It requires an elimination of the self in order to embrace what remains. But we protect the self so much that we are lost to what lies beyond it.

    There is an embrace that awaits each of us when we pay attention. It’s not a physical embrace, but it forms a bond with a kindred spirit that feeds the need we all strive to fulfil. But we’re distracted. So instead of accepting that food for the soul, we brush it aside assuming that there is something more that must be pursued. It takes a life of struggle to appreciate the simplicity of being. It is only after losing what is precious that its value becomes manifest to us. But until such loss occurs, it remains a commodity that we willingly trade for new experiences in our search for that which we already have.

    I look into the faces of strangers and I see the pain, the hope, the yearning, and the suffering of their tormented minds. It’s the mind that torments the soul. The irony is that those same strangers have secret yearnings of being lifted miraculously from their state so that they might know what it feels like to breathe effortlessly, yet when offered such relief from a source that does not fit their ideals, they recoil in fear. At that point it is easier to judge poorly and to defend blindly, than it is to accept the outstretched hand of a stranger that fits the stereotype of lesser beings to ourselves. Each day we pass such strangers, we look at them disinterestedly not realising that it only took that moment for them to sense the desperation within us. But we’ve invested too heavily in our defences to believe that it would be so simple for anyone to see beyond it in a fleeting moment that holds no obvious value to us.

    It’s no different to how often we pass death in our days. We wander around seemingly purposefully, trusting in the probabilities that we’ve grown to accept, while quickly forgetting that with each passing car death is mere inches away. But it passes by without touching us so often that we become oblivious to it. The same is true for love. Not the soppy, heavy head, bleeding heart kind of love. That love is more akin to lust than it is to a genuine human connection. There are moments in life when we find ourselves desiring the most simple gestures that we previously took for granted. The way someone knew a minor detail of what we liked. Or the way they acknowledged us at just the right moment, or embraced us with their words in just the right way. Or perhaps they allowed us a comfortable but secure silence when we needed the world to slow down and created an opportunity for us to breathe when every facet of our existence was smothering us. It was in those moments when we were allowed to be without imposition or expectations; moments when we selfishly believed it was a moment of personal space, or well deserved peace, that we didn’t notice the love behind the gesture.

    If we live with conviction, we live with love. If that conviction accompanies every interaction, and every interaction is a sincere attempt to lighten the burden of another through drawing on the struggles that shaped us, then that conviction will leave its mark on every person we embrace as we go through life. But our embrace will be taken for granted, sometimes until our demise, sometimes even beyond. Love dictates that regardless of the risk of rejection, we invest without restraint in the growth and well being of every human we meet. Recognition is often only forthcoming in fame or in death. In fame because of the need for the fickle to associate with the success that they desire for themselves. In death because we find it easier to acknowledge the worth of others in their absence than we do in their presence. Acknowledging openly denies us the fickleness of treating them flippantly when our egos prompt us towards self-promotion.

    Love as a notion is tainted with the fickleness of lust, and the poison of self-doubt. In the absence of accepting who we are, we find it more comforting to identify with the weaknesses of others, because again, the association provides us with the affirmation that we are not as flawed as we fear we are. If we look closely, behind the eyes, behind the gestures, and behind the aggression or pretences of those we see, we’ll find that we will grow to love about them that which they reflect from within us. For every flaw we accept of ourselves, and every triumph we celebrate through our struggles, we are able to recognise the same in everyone we meet. It takes courage and a sincere conviction to extend that same tolerance and acceptance to those in whom we see our struggles and our triumphs reflected. And each time we do, we will experience the beauty of falling in love without the contamination of lust, or the self that has turned love into a selfish domain.

    (This is an incomplete thought process…)

  • Obliviously Resilient

    I’ve always taken comfort from my sense of resilience, but noticed recently that it appears to be waning. I seem to be more sensitive than before to the emotional jarring that goes with betrayal, and this concerns me. Well, at first it did, but now I’m simply afraid of reflecting any further on the subject. There have been times when in the moment, I found myself unfazed by the abrasiveness or abuse being meted out towards me. It always appeared to be black or white for me. Something was either right, or it was wrong, and the underlying principle that supported my observation or perception was all that I cared about. It was such an easy way to live.

    Life isn’t as simple anymore. Principles still drive me, but they’re not as defining as they used to be. The reason I’m afraid of reflecting further is because I’ve realised that the more I grow to understand my weaknesses, my needs, or my flaws, the more I relate to the flaws and weaknesses and failings of others. Unfortunately, this also implies that the reverse is true as well, not in them knowing me, but rather in me also being able to grow more familiar with the arrogance, the aloofness, and the smug condescension that lurks behind the smile that dresses the words of so many I meet. It is in this realisation that I start doubting my past resilience and wonder if it was in fact resilience based on strength of character, or was it resilience grounded in obliviousness.

    The net effect remains a beneficial one, so the concern I feel must be an indulgence in my own ego. Anyone claiming to be free of their ego is in fact driven by it. I guess that is the obvious sibling to the realisation that the proclamation of humility is in fact arrogance. I’m so easily distracted from the point of my ramblings these days. Being oblivious, not by choice, therefore appears to be a blessing. It’s what causes us to appear resilient, but it also causes us to appear grounded and uninterested in things that don’t concern us. Strangely enough I am once again reminded of the parallels between this and humility. I’ve previously argued that humility can only be observed and not practiced. I guess in some way, the same applies to resilience.

    The same way that I may appear humble when in fact I am too jaded to acknowledge the superficial praises of others makes me jaded, not humble. Similarly, being oblivious to the true repercussions of the events I am experiencing results in a resilience that is unintended, although mostly beneficial. I think there is a point in here somewhere. I think my distracted state is a source of inspiration. I’m just too distracted to figure out how to put it to good use.

    Perhaps distraction and naivety are the precursors to obliviousness. Such obliviousness, where its roots are not conscious choices, contributes to our sense of resilience. Questioning that resilience appears to be akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth. So perhaps I should be grateful for my inclination to be unconcerned about the fickleness of society, and instead of questioning how I may have appeared to others in my moments of oblivion that I previously embraced as resilience, I should draw on those experiences to harness this innate ability to be oblivious so that I can continue to feign resilience.

    Fake it until you make it, right? Who can truly lay claim to sincerity when such a claim requires a healthy dose of self-indulgence to begin with? But that’s a post for another day. My brain is tired. And if you can make sense of this post, please take a moment to explain it to me as well.

  • From Disappointment, to Despondence, to Depression

    I saw a meme this week that suggested that the reason a baby cries at the time of birth is because that experience is the worst experience of its life. It seemed like just an interesting observation at first, but later I realised that it spoke volumes about perception and reality. Several incidents since then, including the passing of Robin Williams prompted me to revisit many aspects of how poorly we define our own realities.

    At times in my life when I was riding the crest of the wave, I found myself mildly annoyed by the actions of others that did not meet my expectations. It was easy enough to shrug off because I had enough else happening in my life that made me feel accomplished and relevant. So I would ignore it and instead polarise towards those groups or activities that bred positivity in my life. After some time, the trend of being disappointed by the actions of significant others seemed to grow, and given a few stumblings of my own, I found those disappointments weighing down on me much heavier than before. Suddenly I didn’t have the abundance of good vibes from the crest of the wave to keep me grounded in positivity, and so I slipped from being easy going, to being disappointed.

    That disappointment grew as my reality continued to throw curve balls at me. I started wondering where did I make a wrong turn. When did the wave throw me over so that I would find myself crashing into its trough? Blaming myself for my slide didn’t help much, and soon enough I found that the disappointment started turning into despondency and a deeply ingrained sense of sadness. That sadness lingered longer than the brief smiles I would muster. But I still found myself questioning myself. I questioned my worth to those around me who kept disappointing me, and I questioned my competence to make the right decisions to break this cycle that I found myself in, but all I ended up with were questions and no answers.

    I kept doing what I thought was the right thing, but I found myself challenged to uphold the principles that I subscribed to. The more I tried to live a principled life, the more I found people in my life demanding a response from me that would force me to choose. Be true to my principles and values, or succumb to their pressure so that I would feel included? Inclusion was another evasive aspect of my life. Perhaps that is why I find it so easy to dismiss the negativity associated with being the odd one out. So I chose to be principled, and despite being true to myself, the disappointing reaction I got from those that were encouraging me to throw caution to the wind and live a little weighed down on me even more. And so I continued to question myself, even though I couldn’t find enough reason to abandon my principles.

    So the slide into despondency continued. I looked at the pitfalls of the lives of those around me, the emptiness, the trinkets, the lies, and most of all the insincerity. All it did was make me more adamant to hold on to what I chose for myself even though holding on grew more difficult by the day. There were endless cycles of insincere ones coming into my life, celebrating my resolve, embracing my principles and me along with it, and then drifting away when the burden of commitment to our shared ideals became too burdensome for them. The moment it meant reducing their popularity with the social circles that they aspired to be a part of, they abandoned those principles because affirmation was more important. Being insincere didn’t bother them, because the people they aspired to be like were equally insincere, which made it acceptable.

    I didn’t want that for myself, and so I continued to search each time for someone that appeared sincere in their conviction to subscribe to that which I subscribed to. But the cycle ended in disappointment each time, and each time I found myself contemplating the hopelessness of it all more seriously than the last. The hopelessness quickly grew into depression until I was diagnosed as being depressed and placed on medication to help me out of what was assumed to be a clinical condition that I had acquired.

    The medication didn’t help. If anything, it made me feel numb. I didn’t want to feel numb. At least in the disappointment and the depression there was still a sense of purpose and passion. Even though that purpose and passion didn’t always bring me joy, it still gave me a reason to want to prevail. But now all I felt was numbness. My jaw tightened, but my senses dulled. I was easier for people to tolerate, but my contempt for what I saw outside of me started being redirected internally. I didn’t like the state I found myself in. I didn’t like the lack of passion or purpose that I felt, and the entire situation was unnatural. I was not me anymore, and I hated it. So I stopped. I weaned myself off my medication, visited my psychiatrist once again, and he confirmed that it was the quickest recovery he had ever seen. His praise fell on deaf ears.

    I soon realised that the medication didn’t alter what I despised in those around me. Nor did it give me reason to change my conviction about right and wrong. With or without the medication, my reality remained my reality. The only difference was, with the medication I was numb and unable to respond to it effectively, while without it I was forced to deal with the full impact of it. I chose the latter because I knew that inaction and passivity, as was my perpetual state with the medication, was not a life to be lived. It was merely an existence that made me more tolerable for others, and made others less annoying for me. At best, it was a distraction, but at worst, it was a nightmare, with me standing on the outside looking in. Those moments when I tried to scream and no sound came out. It reminded me of those dreams when I saw myself trying to drive a car that I had no control over. The lights would go out, the brakes would fail, the steering would be unresponsive, and I would end up lying upside down with the car on its roof, entirely unable to influence the outcome, and my scream remained a silent scream. That was what the medication did to me. At least without it, I could scream. I could beat my chest and curse the world. I was not powerless. And that’s when it hit me.

    My diagnosis of depression had nothing to do with a clinical state that I had acquired. Instead, my clinical state was in fact a result of my reality. My depression was my way of expressing my dissatisfaction with the world, and those that I held to be significant in my life. The more they didn’t react, the more I expressed, until eventually I forgot why I chose to express myself that way.  They stopped caring enough to even attempt to understand, and all I was left with was the reality that I was alone, with little to no joy in my life, and still surrounded by the same people that either didn’t care, or were too distracted to notice. I was not a victim of depression. Depression was my chosen form of expression. But when it didn’t yield the response I was looking for, I once again found myself asking questions for which I had no answers.

    I think that’s part of the problem in that state. The less answers I had, or more importantly, in the absence of answers that appeased my needs, I slipped further into the belief that I probably just wasn’t significant enough for anyone to want to do what was important for me. And they must know what is important for me because I had been expressing my dissatisfaction for so long that surely they could have figured it out by now if only they cared enough, right? So it stood to reason that they probably just didn’t care enough. I needed to make a choice. Continue to abandon myself in the hope that they will notice and respect me, or abandon my expectations of them and give up my principles in order to feel included.

    I chose me. I chose my principles. And most importantly, I chose to stand unapologetically for what I believe to be right, in spite of what is socially acceptable. This increased the accusations against me of having unrealistic expectations. It increased the isolation when I challenged people’s insincerity or hypocrisy, but none of it deterred me. I saw my weaknesses in those around me. Some of them put in a sincere effort to overcome it, like me. But most choose to live in denial because of the fear of losing those that they still wish would recognise their significance.

    Depression set in when I looked for people to respect those things that I felt most passionate about and instead only found ridicule and rejection instead. It set in when I abandoned myself in favour of others, only to find that they had abandoned me as well. Depression became my voice when I gave up my right to be me. But depression never defined me. It never will. It will always only ever be the most passive form of resistance I would be able to muster up against a cruel world that celebrates conformity while crying out for individuality. It will only be my chosen form of expression as long as I fear rejection from those that I despise at worst, or disagree with at best.

    I now realise that I didn’t abandon myself in favour of others. Instead, I sacrificed what I wanted in the hope that that sacrifice would bring solace and a smile to those that I thought needed it. Unfortunately, I realised too late that no amount of self-sacrifice can fill the void of an ungrateful soul. So now I give without the expectation of receiving. I live with the hope that they will realise what is important rather than being distracted by what is popular. Unfulfilled expectations of significant others can never be remedied by a pill, nor by self-harm regardless of what form it may take. Seeing people for the flawed human beings that they are is the only way to maintain your sanity in an insane society. It’s when you expect perfection from yourself, or others, or both, that you solicit for yourself the most painful reality that need not be experienced.

  • Reverse Engineering Life (Take II)

    The previous post feels like I over complicated a really simple concept, so here’s my second attempt at clarifying it.

    It’s really as simple as this. If you wish to understand someone, look behind their eyes, or their actions, and embrace the vulnerability that is required to see in them what you know to be true of yourself. If you see them angry, remember when you were angry in a similar context in your own life. Then seek to understand yourself in that moment, so that you can establish a basis on which to understand them, or at the least, attempt to.

    When we take this approach we benefit in two ways. Firstly, we stand a better chance of understanding them and therefore being able to meaningfully engage with them. Secondly, it allows you to benefit others from the struggles of your life, instead of just feeling as if it was a personal growth cycle and nothing more.

    If life is really too short to make all your own mistakes, and I believe this to be true, then the only way to live more than you otherwise would have would be to avoid pitfalls by learning from others. But that has to be reciprocal in a healthy society. So the more you hold on to the insecurity of others seeing your flaws and using it as a basis to judge you poorly, the less likely it is that you’ll be able to either learn from them, or allow them to grow from your experiences. Why would it prevent you from learning from them? Simple, the more you protect yourself from being discovered as a whole person with warts and all, the more you’re inclined to believe that your personal struggles are so unique that no one could possibly understand them.

    So the more you allow yourself to open up, the more you’ll realise that in opening up, you actually solicit sources of wisdom that benefit you, rather than weaken you. You’ll also reveal a side of your humanness that will attract the compassionate and tender-hearted ones that you most likely wish to embrace in your personal space. But none of it is possible if you keep everyone at arm’s length because of the mistaken belief that your weaknesses are not shared by others.

    We’re all so great at putting up facades that we’ve even convinced ourselves that no one else has them. Like I’ve always said, your assumptions about others are a true reflection of yourself, rather than them. However, such a reflection is inversely proportional to the reality of your self-image. So chances are that those that judge themselves to be weak assume that others are stronger, while those that embrace their weakness, see others as equally flawed, but not necessarily weak. I guess this is one time when the mirror cannot be trusted, because the eyes always filter what the heart needs to feel. Unless we stop to test the assumptions that the eyes make, our hearts will always be nourished by a tainted diet of reality.

  • Reverse Engineering Life

    It seems that I’ve wasted most of my life experiences during the years when I quietly contended with the upheavals in my life and moved silently forward without making a fuss of what I wanted, nor questioning why it always seemed to happen to me. Through no deliberate effort on my part it strengthened me, even though I, and many around me, often perceived that strength as numbness. There were times when I chastised myself for not having a more emotionally grounded response to the suffering or trials of those around me, but I was also often reminded that it was that very same numbness that allowed others to draw strength from my apparent composure at times when they felt overwhelmed.

    I think there’s a value in having such an emotionally disconnected person around at times. It’s a reminder that not all is lost when all seems lost. But that’s not how most people viewed me, and fortunately my default demeanour of being oblivious to the perceptions that others held of me meant that it didn’t affect me much either. Despite this awkward sense of comfort I had about being able to deal with my reality in ways that caused many to question my sanity (quite literally at times) I felt a growing dis-ease regarding the fact that my experiences were being wasted because it only seemed to benefit me, and no one else. In doing so, it further distanced me from those around me because not many could relate to me just being me.

    I slowly experimented with using my experiences as a point of reference to try to relate to the emotional burden that so many people seem to drag around with them, and each time I tested my observations for accuracy and relevance, I found that it was quite effective in providing others with an alternate perspective as to why their situation was not as grave as it seemed. All this clutter continued to swim around in the back of my mind for many years until I considered it slightly differently recently when someone once again asked me why it is that I am so calm and composed during moments when others are literally overwhelmed or panicked.

    My usual response was to dismiss it and smile while telling myself that I’m incapable of feeling such emotion, but that uncomfortable feeling in my gut kept nagging at me because I knew it wasn’t true. I am probably more emotionally sensitised than most people I’ll ever meet. (Note I said sensitised, not sensitive!). However, my innate focus on wanting to emerge from trials rather than how to cope causes me to look behind the emotion and focus on the steps needed to overcome it instead. In doing so, it’s inevitable that I got accused of being insensitive because most people look for sympathy rather than guidance when they’re down and out. I think it validates our weakness when we receive sympathy, while tough love reminds us that we’re being pitiful instead of bold. Victims versus masters. Scarcity mentality versus abundance mentality. They all talk about the same thing. You either want to prevail, or you want to be admired for having persevered when others would understand if you failed.

    It’s that unhealthy need to be recognised for our strength in our struggles that often leaves us rooted in our struggles rather than motivating us to overcome it. We find comfort in knowing that others know how much we’re hurting because there’s a natural embrace of compassion or sympathy that often accompanies such visibility. That embrace is often from those that are equally or more weak than we are because they draw comfort from being able to comfort others that are similarly afflicted. This must all sound so cold and dismissive, but it’s not intended that way. I’ll say it again. Sympathy has only ever made someone feel better about being in the state they’re in, while tough love is what pushes them to move forward. Soliciting sympathy in times of weakness is the poison we don’t need.

    That’s when I realised the value of being sensitised rather than sensitive. The value of reflection rather than expression. Reflection allowed me to observe what lessons I had learned from past experiences, and what markers were associated with them, while my outbursts, my anger, and my need to make others understand how bad my state was so that they could empathise with me only ever served as a distraction from moving forward and letting go of the past. That’s when I started looking for the tell-tale signs in others relative to what I witnessed in myself when I went through similar experiences, and the more I identified it, the more I was able to accurately interpret what they were experiencing, why they were experiencing it, and what they were contemplating in dealing with it. Not because I knew them well, but because I knew myself well. And that’s how I started consciously reverse engineering my own life experiences with the aim of understanding the trials and struggles of the people around me.

    So when we’re told we see our faults in others, we need to go beyond just understanding that it implies that every finger pointed at someone else means there are several more fingers pointing at ourselves. This is more valuable and important than that. If we go beyond the rhetoric and the vilification, we’ll see that every struggle of ours is in fact a resource to alleviate the struggles of others. It’s not the sympathy that matters most, but the compassion coupled with the resolve to raise them out of the depths of despair that we once experienced that will add more value than any amount of sympathy ever could.

    However, the irony of helping others out of the dark spaces in their lives is that when they emerge, they’re often inclined to avoid you because you remind them of a time when they were weak. Most people think such weakness is deplorable, they are the ones that remain weak. It is only the grateful that see their moments of weakness as being the source of their strength. They are the ones you should surround yourself with because they will offer the hand of compassion concealed in a glove of tough love when the ingrates will revel in your weakness because it makes them feel better about their own pathetic selves. On that note, don’t expect to be surrounded by too many people at all, because a cursory look around you will reveal that this world is overcome with ingrates who are obsessed with what is in it for them, rather than considering what they need to contribute instead. Incidentally this brings to mind another thought that occurred to me this week. That is, sincerity is rarely reflected at the moment of giving, but most often reflected in the behaviour that follows. And so we should be careful of seeing those that sympathise with us as being sincere, because very often they are the ones that accuse us of thinking that we’re better than them when we let go of what held us back, just because they’re still holding on to it in their own lives.

    (This was a particularly challenging post to write, for reasons that I have yet to figure out!)

  • The Vehicle of My Life

    The analogy of the car has always been the most versatile and relatable of all when used to describe the complexities of our existence. Recently I’ve found myself preoccupied by its relevance in how we relate our bodies to our souls. But the analogy extends almost seamlessly to reflect how we interpret or experience relationships as well. It’s fascinating but also dulling, because something as complex as life can be explained by something as simple as a commodity used for daily commutes, but dulling because it enforces the realisation of the ephemeral nature of life, and everything we associate with it.

    Like with any car, the more you abuse it, the less likely it is to give you a pleasant drive and a long service. The same applies to relationships that are imbalanced. When one partner is constantly demanding more and giving less in return, it wears down that vehicle of marriage. The longer that continues, the more likely it is that the vehicle will eventually stall, or fall into total disrepair, often beyond a state of economic repair. But we miss this obvious truth. So the reality often plays out where the offending party continues in their erroneous ways for an extended period of time, and eventually when they realise the abuse that they’ve been subjecting their partner to, they resolve to be better and in the process expect everything to suddenly continue as it was intended in the first place. Regardless of their good intentions, the reality of the damage caused up to that point cannot be dismissed.

    That would be like driving the absolute hell out of a car from the day you bought it, and then realising that it’s starting to show signs of malfunction and possibly breakdown, at which point you decide to drive it nicely. No matter how smoothly you handle it after that, the damage done will still require a massive effort, and often expense, before the car will be in a good condition. However, the creaks and rattles will never be entirely gone, so those reminders of its original abuse will always remain. The same applies to an imbalanced relationship. Regardless of how many good reasons may exist for the disruptive partner to have behaved in a disruptive way, they need to accept that they lose the right to be treated without prejudice or bias when they eventually realise the error of their ways. At that point, their sincerity of resolve will be tested in a way that will reduce them to a humbled subject that must begin by earning the respect and commitment from the one whose trust and kindness they may have abused up to that point.

    This is an unnecessarily complicated post to explain a really simple truth. If you’re not willing to reap what you sow, don’t be upset when your crop fails. Don’t blame the earth, or the rains, nor the labourers, or the tools. And if you’re not willing to accept your accountability in the process, then expect to spend what will feel like an eternity before you let go of the ego that drove you to believe that the problem was with everyone else, rather than with you.

    This world lacks accountability and community. In the absence of these it is not surprising that we are prone to take more than we give. We feel entitled to claim more than we feel responsible to contribute. But worse than all this, our small efforts are almost always dispensed with an expectation of reciprocation. We present our contribution as selfless but quickly grow vindictive when it goes unappreciated. The world is in an imbalanced state, and everyone thinks that problem will be solved by farting less.

  • Probably Possible

    It seems that one area of frustration for me is that I have a tendency to look at what is possible and then pursue that as the end goal, while most others look at what is probable, and surrender to it before even starting. Probabilities are so much easier to work with. But even in writing that I know that every possibility is a probability as well. Problem is, my tolerance level for obstacles is often significantly higher than most people around me, and that is where the rub starts.

    That Shakespearean rub is not a comforting one either. Comfort. That word is almost as strange to me as peace or tranquillity. There is an annoying undertone in life that prompts me to continue on the journey despite my fading conviction to want to prevail. Words, a bleeding keyboard, whispered sentiments that carry on the wind, or the putrid stench of regrets. They all amount to nothing. They dance or flirt with my composure for a few brief moments, threatening to unsettle me either pleasantly, or mostly unpleasantly, but the insincere hope that they carry with them tugs at the fool within me. That fool that I hold in a despicable embrace. That embrace that jealously protects the hint of innocence within, while outwardly despising the ridicule that it often solicits.

    It’s probably possible to live oblivious to all this and to focus on just the trinkets that distract me enough to keep me pacified, but such complacency always reeked with insincerity for me. Half measures are for cowards. Conviction is a lost art. Sincerity a political tool. Indeed, if despite my best efforts this world still holds no peace for me, then surely I must have been created for another purpose or place. But how vexing is the thought that the rejection I suffer in this world may yield such venom from my character that the world I was created for may reject me as well.

    I am reminded again about what I would want from heaven. At times like this, a simple nothingness. A nothingness of expectations, either of me, or of what pleasures it may offer. A nothingness of words or the need to express. A nothingness of purpose or the need to achieve. But mostly, a nothingness of realisations beyond the absolute present moment. To be left to cower in awe at the majesty of the dust of its confines, the unworldly shimmer of its magnificence, and the embracing silence of the nothingness that accompanies it all. No expectations to meet, no aspirations to achieve. Just me and that beautiful dust enveloped by the joy of being, and nothing more.

    It’s probably possible, but the cycles of my lifetimes suggest that it will continue to flit at the tips of my fingers, goading me on to reach out for it, despite knowing that it will forever be beyond my reach. Perhaps the joy of the pursuit is the reward, and the acquisition of its goal will betray the dream. Perhaps the elusiveness of its acquisition is therefore the blessing I seek but do not appreciate, while what I seek is in fact a mirage.

    These ramblings sometimes deny me the release that I crave. Tonight is one such time when all such comforts appear distinctly elusive.