I have been searching for answers

[9/11]

–

the entirety of my life, from the moment I was ‘aware’.

–

If you are who you are because of your past, did you ever stand a chance?

–

I was thinking again, and as people will put it, “Questioning yourself,” and after watching numerous TED talks and self-help videos, it’s very easy to find descriptions that comply with your own situation.

Take any horoscope prediction sheet, or value sheet associated with all the different horoscopes, take the activities that certain personality types are supposed to prefer – look through all of them and you will realise that anything and everything can apply.

–

I was thinking again, and I realised that I grew up into a rather angry child.

My sister once told me that we end up being the least patient with our family members – but is this a measure of how thin our patience has been worn or..?

I grew up into an angry person, not in the sense that I get angry very easily, or, maybe I do – but that in the sense that there’s something I don’t really trust that bubbles in me.

I’ve written about this before, the idea of weaponising your emotions. We see this in the news all the time, angry people look defensive, belligerent, but there is no denying that angry people are also, well, scary.

Perhaps that is the weaponised portion – because when people get angry, they are more violent,  they are recognised as dangerous and are ‘feared’ and that is the power.

If you use it too often, the potency of the weapon decreases.

If you are a usually calm person, if you explode, chances are, people will listen.

If you explode all the time, like the boy who cried wolf, you’re less likely to be listened to.

Same way with curse words – if you use them all the time, I will filter them from my head.

If you don’t usually use them, then when you use them I get immediately concerned.

–

I grew up into an angry person – between fight and flight, anger is the ‘fight’ response and amicability is the ‘flight’ a removal of self from conflict.

But when it comes to fighting, the first thing that I realise I do is that I get angry. I work myself up into a very bad mood and I can feel myself boiling underneath my skin.

It becomes very hard to think. There is no point thinking when angry, because thinking more just makes me even more angry.

It’s hard to un-think the things that make you angry, after all.

–

It is cold, being angry, but also very very warm all at the same time.

People get angry when something is threatened, and sometimes, they use it to protect.

I thought more about the concept of physicality and the idea of hitting people physically – it’s never a good first option, but it is always an option at the back of my mind.

After the smile, after passive-aggressive measures, after shouting, after all of them, there’s something very sharp about causing physical pain.

Guilt is one thing, emotional distress is another.

But physical pain is very different – a visual spectacle (if I may borrow a friend’s words).

When I talk about physicality, is it an extremity, or a highlight of the situation – am I feeling threatened?

Yes, of course, I feel anxious and uneasy, I reassure myself that if anything happens, I will be okay, but that makes you anxious, right?

When I say it?

–

Mm.

–

[10/11]

The same way there is something in your eyes that I do not trust, there is something in my eyes that intrigues me.

Because if I look deeper, there is a little dot of black – the pupil of an eye that leads to nowhere.

–

Have a look at yourself in the mirror.

Allow yourself a little smirk and feel, powerful (?), in control and then think, oh.

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Was I always angry?

Did I hide it better?

Did I get better at hiding it from other people?

People don’t usually say I’m an angry person.

Someone commented before that I was scary and people used to laugh and say I just looked serious.

But I have taken a long hard look at myself and I think, there is something that should be treated with caution.

Is that a bad thing, or is it maybe, well, even slightly to-be-desired?

do I want to be an angry person?

the answer is ().

–

Jokingly (I think?), someone also commented that I “look into people’s soul” and the truth is, sometimes, I do not see a soul at all.

It’s a very figurative thing but when I look at you in the end and I ask that you hold it there, I am not so much looking into you, (because there’s nothing to see) as I am watching the rest of you for your reactions and how well you hold my eyes.

I look at you but not into you, I look at you in order to focus on you and think about you. But I certainly can’t peer into souls, if that’s what you’re actually asking.

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If the past created the me of the now, then, did I ever really have a choice in becoming the person I am today?

Did the past really create the me of today? If someone else’s child was brought up the exact same way as me, would they really have turned out like me?

Are we just futilely trying to link events to outcomes in people via psychology?

Humans love cause and effect – linear chains, progression, but what if sometimes, things just… happen?

–

[10/11]

I watched new people interact today, and I like to think I learnt new things.

Where I am, and where I have been, there has never really been room for me to be angry.

Is being angry bad? No, I don’t think so.

But I don’t like people who get angry too easily. (How easily is too easy?)

And if someone starts at a usual 0 but is slow to increase to 100, would I like that person more, over someone who starts at -50 but increases much faster to a hundred?

I think to think that makes more sense.

But of course, then one would have to be good at reading people better.

Therefore, this year’s New Year’s resolution is: Pay more attention to people.

(It also hurts me a little to think that if I wasn’t in my situation and I encountered the people I think I know fairly well today outside in separate circumstances, I might not like them quite as much.)

But that’s okay, knowing a bias and being willingly bias.

(turn the other way, just don’t look at the shadow.)

Today I saw a smile.

I saw a smile indeed, and I saw dependability and kindness, but I also heard past the lips of others’ untruthfulness and deceit and cunning.

These aren’t mutually exclusive values, but, they all make me wary nonetheless.

And it’s not… ideal?

I won’t die, but, it’s not ideal.

Things rarely are.

I will do my best. I will trust that it will be okay.

But, shouldn’t I set a limit now?

Is it okay to just continue being like this knowing that I have well, lucked out in that the people around me reciprocate?

Can I count on ()?

I want to think so.

I don’t have a reason to be otherwise?

If it came down to, would I even be willing to defend myself?

If I knew that I could hurt them?

Sometimes, I do not question if I can or cannot.

I question my control of my own self.

And it’s frankly, quite terrifying.

(ignore it. Don’t use it, and then you’ll never have to deal with it.)

What ifs are bad thoughts.

–

[12/11]

It is now the early morning,

and I am anxious.

Because of things and

not things and

friends that worry me and

I about them.

Everything must pass

but this is not what I intended.

If I were to live in a village by

the sea,

I would have chosen to be free.

Rather than make that choice

and pretend to be,

Only for them to close them off

for me.

No,

I do not like this,

and I will never claim to again.

Ask me and I will answer in sooth,

for I know now,

why I am so sad.

It is wrong,

“I am nuts”

and this does not make any sense, any more.

It does not make any more sense for me to stay here,

than it does for me to take the exam.

But if I am already doing so, then the intention

is to stay.

(There is no one left

in the cave

where my questions

echo.)

Was I wrong at the beginning,

or was this a self-fulfilling prophecy?

And (you), when you ask things like that and poke at me

I…

find it hard to summon up ().

And they who seem to have filled the prophecy then

have () me.

…

Did they ever () me?

If I look back on it now,

with a view like this,

every time came the same response.

luke-warm and unwilling to take any responsibility.

Yes.

Mine.

My responsibility, but

() look down upon me.

This burden I have carried has crushed me.

Are () not even partially responsible?

(Ah, well, people are good at shifting blame.

I am not so good at it.

I will become better at it.)

()s,

the expression of self-censorship

and the anger that bubbles away in me.

Like I have said.

I am afraid, sometimes,

of what I could do.

But they () you.

What can I do to you that would not hurt them?

Do they matter that much to me..?

I thought so.

I really did think so.

That’s also why I keep trying to avoid ().

Until they go with me.

Where they can watch over me and then,

I feel less off kilter.

–

Everyone is having a hard time.

Don’t look if you are not willing to help.

Just leaving someone in a bad mood in peace (pieces) is enough.

Don’t have to smile like that,

don’t have to try to reassure when

you don’t even

mean

it.

Don’t waste your energy on me.

–

(In a bad mood,

bad way, bad day.)

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