Tag: trust

  • Society’s Slaves

    People in general will see you as they fear themselves to be, but those with good hearts will see you as they aspire to be. Having been on the receiving end of significant criticism recently, I almost forgot to remind myself of that age old wisdom that says that your actions define who you are, not who I am. And so the same applies with your comments and your criticism.

    It’s rare to find people who criticise sincerely, but more importantly, it’s even more rare to find people who criticise from an informed perspective. Our penchant to want to be proven true about something insightful often leads many to offer their uninformed opinions cloaked in bookish bombast (I’ve always loved that phrase that I know will make people think me to be even more pretentious than before). The truth is, our search for significance drives us towards less than admirable behaviour more often than we’d care to acknowledge, and often even more than we would realise.

    I probably am guilty of much of the pretentiousness that I am accused of, but the truth is, I don’t care since it’s mostly with a deliberate intent. While reflecting on all the criticism that I’ve received lately most of which was subtle and not as overtly obvious as it was intended, I had to remind myself that my inclination to contradict the mainstream is not an adult fetish but rather a trait that has accompanied me and served me well my entirely life. Of course, that is entirely subjective given that many would probably classify me as a recluse, but the truth is, this same attitude of mine is what has seen me through many life threatening and life altering experiences, a fraction of which has literally caused many others to crumble under the sheer burden of it.

    So it’s unlikely that I will choose to change my approach to life, and people any time in the near future, if ever. People have proven to be inconsistent, just like me, because the same way I doubt myself so often, so do they. I guess the burden of being inherently introspective and somewhat socially averse (not to be mistaken for anti-social!) is that it inevitably paints a target on my back that makes me fair game for those seeking to pacify themselves about their own shortcomings and prejudices. But that has had no influence in dissuading me before, and I don’t intend to give it much credence now either.

  • Awkwardly regrettable

    Awkwardness is having to tell your friends that have turned into acquaintances about an important milestone in your life while suppressing the demons that beckon the memories of the mocking ridicule that was disguised as friendly jabs at the news of your last divorce. The laziness and callousness of people is most evident when they see fit to make fun of a traumatic event without having embraced the reality of it first.

    I have always had a tendency to take things in my stride, regardless of the pain or humiliation that accompanied the experience. More than anything else, this provided a graceful exit for those around me that were handicapped in their skills at dealing with such grave circumstances. I was raised in a family where physical shows of affection were avoided at all costs. The odd embrace would be a formality of greeting at specific occasions only. Even on occasions of death, there was always an awkwardness in the embraces received from siblings, if received at all.

    I chose to finally share the news of my recent marriage with some ‘friends’ of mine. It wasn’t a very long list, and it didn’t really qualify as friends for the most part. More like acquaintances that I’ve allowed into my personal space. Having a friend is a foreign concept for me. It requires a level of trust and acceptance, not to mention commitment, that I’ve grown weary of. Friends have been a convenient presence in my life until the point where my life’s experiences became too burdensome for them. By the way, that convenience was on their part, not my own.

    Betrayal has become a clichéd part of my life. I don’t expect it, but I don’t dismiss it either. More often than not, the reason for betrayal has been the weakness on the part of the betrayer rather than any inherent sense of dishonesty in the person that I may have once trusted. That weakness manifests itself when it demands commitment, selflessness, or most often, when it demands that we face our past demons in the experiences of those close to us. That’s when most recede because the experience is suddenly too close to home.

    To the one that’s betrayed, the reason or justification is irrelevant. It still remains what it is. And trying to define it only nurtures the regret and the awkwardness. So instead, I’ll leave it to fester so that I have a companion to look forward to when I’m peering at the end of the road on the horizon waiting…just waiting.

  • I must learn to love the fool in me—the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my Fool.

    Theodore I. Rubin

  • Trends of my life

    We tend to base our worries or assumptions about the future on the trends of our lives to this point, don’t we? If I think back and see how many times I may have ventured into a relationship or experience with passion and true conviction, and I compare that to how many times it didn’t work out, or worse, worked out horribly…then I automatically recoil at the thought of starting something that could potentially turn out the same way again. But the idealist in me forces me to look at a new experience or a new relationship as exactly that…something new…unless there is a specific and almost direct link to a past experience, I would be defeating myself before I even start if I judged what is to be, based on what has been.

    Unfortunately the spineless amongst us will see these trends in us, and they will make haste to use it to our detriment because they, the spineless ones, will see it as an opportunity to express their own passions through the actions of others, whilst withholding their own to ensure that they are never vulnerable. Such is the pathetic state of those that try to be aloof by being shallow and insincere. 

  • A healthy dose of self-loathing is usually sufficient to kill any hope you may harbour inside. But, in the process of trying to convince yourself that you’re worthless, take a moment to observe your insincerity. It’s unnatural for any human to sincerely believe that they are worthless. It goes against the very survival instinct that is hard-wired into our reptilian brains. So instead, the same energy we could have applied constructively to alter our reality into one that is more palatable, we apply it to subdue that survival instinct because along with it comes the torture of hope and expectations. But with that comes a demand for trust…trust of similarly flawed humans that we use as a yardstick to measure our own worth, without realising that the yardstick itself is defective. 

  • I think we lose ourselves in misplaced love more than in the things we love.

    (Source: http://imgfave.com/view/1563601)