Tag: Personal

The Burial

Do not consider the version of you, that you are today, to be the best version of you that there ever will be. This presupposes arrogance, or a reluctance to learn, to improve. Stagnant and immovable, unlike anything else in this flowing universe. Which is a sign of the ignorant, and the boring. The version of you, that you are now, is not some post-best version of you. Even if you’ve been through times of greatness, or succession of success, and that comes to an end, do not then assume that something new will not come along again, or that you’ve played your part and can wait by the sidelines until the curtain closes. There is no stopping, there is no end, simply a change in the game, or in the rules that you play by. This feeling of lost, or ending, is a feeling we often get at the end of a long venture, such as a business venture, or maybe even the end of a period of formal education, such as school or university.

It’s at times like this we must most remember; the road is a long and arduous one – with friends and people you’ll meet at the start, while others you’ll meet at the end. Some will stay with you throughout, and some will part somewhere along the way. Some will carry you for a portion of time, as your feet tire against the persistent gravel, and there are others you will carry for some time too. If you’re lucky, you’ll smile and laugh as you carry or be carried, in the form of a piggy back. Sometimes it’s more that you are carried or that you carry, by the back and by the back of the knee, as you rest against their chest, or as they rest against yours.

Sometimes eyelids will be closed, shielding tender eyes from the searing light of the sun, or the unforgiving reminder of the vastness of the universe in the form of twinkling stars. Sometimes they will remain closed for longer than they should, for fear of all that  they’ll see. Or if you’re feeling lonely; for fear of whom you will not see, around you, when you need them most. Those whom your crave, to keep you warm amidst frosty nights.

Sometimes you will smile; and lie. Inside you curl up your toes underneath your bottom, and hold on tight to your shins as you fear the coming storm, in whatever form it chooses to manifest itself – and yet your outward projection is one of confidence, a frame that can withstand all the weather that can be thrown at it. When in reality, you are as sturdy, as Autumn leaves.

This is known as bravery, being the only one that knows that you are afraid.

But never let it be forgotten, that you do not have to be brave, to be good. You can be honest. You can be kind. And after you have been consumed by whatever life has become for you, and thrown at you, you must remember you can revive yourself or be revived with the support of others, and you can be brave again. Even if only a time, until you cannot be brave any longer. We are what we do consistently; not what we have done once before. Greatness therefore, is a habit. Not an achievement.

So you have not been great, and guided; and now you are lost, and mediocre. The road is simply not without its speed bumps. Its speed limits. It matters not that you slow, just that you do not stop. You are great, and you will be great, because of what you continually strive to do. It is okay to fail. It is not okay, not to try.

Do not long for a version of you that has passed. Rather, ensure their return, and eventually safeguard that they are improved upon, and no longer the standard by which your own personal greatness is based upon. Ensure the return is relentless, and without mercy. If the world is a fire, ensure you are a storm. Whatever life throws at you, as unrelenting as it is, remember that you are unyielding, and more ferocious than it can ever hope to be.

Do not find yourself giving up early, due to wearing parts and exhaustion; suppressing your dreams and ambitions off to one-side and pretending that you can gleeful accepted mediocrity, when in fact you have merely given into it. For all you will accomplish, is not realism – but an early death. One where you die, at twenty five – and are buried much later in life.

There is no point in giving in. There is no emergency exit. For not even the end of the road, can be the end. There has never been an end. Only a change of the game, or the rules by which you play.

Mature

What would be the mature option?

To accept continuous burden in silence; to live with worry about the future, regret of past actions, and anxiety in the present.

OR

Talk about it.

Ironically, it’s so easy to chastise someone for thinking terrible things about themselves, and yet so easy to do it to oneself. If a friend were to exclaim that they’re ugly, you would be startled, almost offended, and reassure them otherwise. And yet, give yourself a mirror and time, and you’ll pick out every flaw about yourself until you’ve convinced yourself wholeheartedly of it.

What’s worse, is if you’ve convinced yourself of the theory that you’re ugly beforehand, you’ll twist and warp facts until you believe it so, and have evidence (however twisted) to prove it.

This applies to much more than appearance. This applies to money woes – where you could convince yourself you’ll be bankrupted and homeless, it could be about career and dream aspirations – and you’ll think you’re going nowhere, or it could even be about friends – and that you worry you have none, or that they don’t care.

There is nothing too big or too small, to be considered. It’s okay to not feel okay, today. It’s okay to have an off-day, and off-week, or an off-heck-of-a-lot-longer-than-that.

What’s not okay, is to accept the burden alone, indefinitely. We shelf small worries everyday, and as long as we then deal with them in the next hour or so it’s okay. But everything that’s negative to us, regardless of size, will damage us if left long enough. You cannot simply accept burdens all your life, and shoulder them alone, because you believe they are yours to bare. They are not.

You cannot somehow value yourself worthless, when in reality surely you must know that you are not, because no one is ever worth nothing. Especially not you. It doesn’t matter if you feel this worry or negativity is stupid to others. Or small. Or that you’ll be mocked. If it’s important to you, if it weighs on your mind, then do not hesitate to talk to others. Let them know. They can offer support, and you can beat it, or they will make you see more clearly how foolish you are being, and can dissipate your woes altogether.

Sharing a burden, halves it altogether immediately. And in sizeable chunks, it can be defeated.

You are important. Your worries and concerns are valued. Remember that if your thoughts are damaging your mental health in any way (and that includes just making you have a bad day) then you should tell others and the ones you care about and/or care about you, because they love you. Others want you to be well, even if you don’t feel like you’re worthy of it. It’s not fair, for others not to even know you’re not okay. So let them know. Share with them. They want to see you happy. You know who they are.

If you bare a burden that weighs heavily on your mind, regardless of how big or small it actually is;

Talk about it.

That would be the mature option.

“I feel as though I haven’t really done anything…”

Isn’t it so interesting, that of the people we are kind to; often ourselves is not one of them?

How often, would you say that you can look at the accomplishments of others, and revere in astonishment, and yet upon self-reflection, you appear to see nothing to remark on the path behind you?

Even when others praise your accomplishments – or perhaps even simply your character – still there is a fog of doubt which seems to rarely clear. And so although you have done so many things, and many things right, it would appear to you that you have done nothing at all.

Perhaps next time you look at the person staring at you behind the glass, you should see them as others do; without the filter of you.

Shorts: Brevity Vs Verbosity

Brevity, alone, does not make you intelligent.

It is fine to speak a statement, and mean it exactly as it is said. To speak succinctly, and to the point. But the “problem” in language, is its open interpretation of it. Without clarification, you would be better off saying nothing at all. And yet it seems as though often, people regard it as profundity. As though to say, “With strength, you are delicate.” is insightful. When in fact, it provides no information at all. No evidence, and merely contradicts itself. And yet people can apply it to the self; “Well yes, I am strong, and yet I have feelings… so this is true!” … But actually that wasn’t what was said… in fact, that was just what you wanted to hear. In the context of when they wrote it, they could be a bodybuilder and have meant as your strength training increases, so too does your likelihood to injury yourself, and remain fragile. So actually, nothing of note was said, because we still don’t know what they said. So we may as well have thought to ourselves what we wanted to hear.

Obviously, the intended point of some forms of literature, such as poetry, is brevity. And it is to evoke personal feelings, discussions, and emotes, in as few a word as possible – so of course for the sake of this argument, poetry and certain forms of artistic prose are excluded.

Equally verbosity is not intrinsically the solution. With the addition of words that can be taken in multiplicity, you increase the chances of contradiction, or fulfilling a point that you did not make. Which obviously increases your appeal to a wider market, but your intended point might have never been heard. Remarkably enough, this can also allow someone to come across as intelligent or insightful, as long as someone persists long enough to find what they want. If someone were to write for twenty paragraphs, briefly touching different topics, the chances you cannot agree on a single thing they say, is insatiably low. Someone could say something horrific, bigoted, and downright rude, but if they justify it with, “We all want to move towards a brighter future for the children of tomorrow.” you would be inclined to agree with that end statement. And so you might consider something you otherwise would not have, simply because you feel like you agree on some points.

You must not hammer home the point, when it has already been made, for risk of bending the nail. But equally, it does not make you intelligent to say something to confidently, yet so vague, that it can be taken not so literally in so many different ways.

It is then important to understand, that extremes of either, do not fulfil a need, alone. We have all read poetry that makes no sense, because of its determination to succinctness, and yet we have all read books, that ramble on for hundreds more pages than they should have, to the point even the author becomes a little lost. Instead, a careful balance of the two may be the solution. To keep it brief as to say exactly what you want, without allowing for a thousand iterations of what you might have meant. Equally, try not to keep it so brief, that you almost cut it off in the middle of your –

A Response to a Selfish Writer – RE: Orphans

All it takes is a great reader, a great speaker – a great writer – to challenge the absolute core of your beliefs. Of that which you are, and that which you stand for. And while this is the beauty of human interaction, that it makes us cement our values further or change them entirely, either way allowing us to grow stronger or in a different direction – equally it is an extremely dangerous tool when someone has manipulative intent for their own agenda.

I don’t often use the word “I” on this blog, or speak in the first person – as I try to talk to everyone and engage, rather than focus inwards. However, this is an exception.

To provide evidence to my point; I read an article from a rather selfish man (which is leading, I know), who had disabled comments on his blog, perhaps because he knew there would be a backlash from the ways in which he speaks. I am aware there are a number of reasons one might disable comments, but I digress. I will not call out the exact name of the post, or the authors name. This is not a doxxing attempt or a witch hunt. But in his post, he wrote very clearly and categorically that we should not feel sorry for orphans, because even non-orphans can be alone.

…

…

Now forgive my stunned silence, but these two points, are irrelevant. This would be as though I were to say, when a rich person dies, don’t feel sorry for them, because their family have money. Or that you can’t have a bad day, because there are war-torn countries whose people live in fear everyday. It doesn’t make sense. Pain and grief, good and bad, exist in all facets of life, in all manners, relative to that person whom is experiencing it or can determine a perspective upon it. Because someone else feels worse than you, does not mean you cannot feel bad also.

I cannot emphasise more strongly, how much you should ignore this kind of thinking, this kind of talking. This is someone, who had felt alone, as we all have and is deciding to inflict his own need for attention, his own requirement to be victimised, upon the reader. In doing this, he’s calling out a vulnerable group. Which is deplorable. This would be as though I were to say, “Don’t be appalled by police brutality towards an ethnic race in your country, I’m not that race and was pulled over for a speeding ticket the other day. I get it bad too.” It doesn’t make sense, and it’s just targeting a group to make a point, that you aren’t even making well.

Now to his credit, he then went on to say how he visited an orphanage and they were all living in the moment and enjoying life, free from a virtual world. Which is great… but this is not their fault. Because he feels sad, alone, perhaps distanced in an online world, does not somehow validate his point. We can still empathise with an orphan, who has lost their regular home, their security, and the loving embrace of parents. Equally, of course parents can be bad influences, but it is scientifically proven that significant trauma is likely to be caused in a child, whenever a significant life event happens upon their parents. E.g They leave the family, they pass away, they get divorced, etc.

Fortunately, the author wasn’t a great writer. He had numerous (obvious) spelling errors, and clearly did not manage to sway my views. But if he had been, someone may have walked away believing this. In fact, it had likes on it, so some people did.  Some people were convinced, that you should not empathise with an orphan, because you can feel alone, or lost in your own family. Of course you should empathise. Just because a non-orphan can feel sad or alone too, does not diminish in any way, the plight of the orphan.

To that point; what is upsetting, is that this author had numerous likes already on his post, after only posting it recently. Perhaps his blog had some followers already, or perhaps people who were vulnerable themselves, were easily swayed upon the read. And relatively, this post disputing his point, based on basic human kindness, may not receive any attention at all.

 

There Isn’t Enough Time With You

There was a time when as the stars passed by in the night outside my window, I would stare out at them with hopeful eyes. They were most beautiful thing I had ever seen. So full of potential, so full of life, so grandiose and yet so small in comparison to the black sky. I saw my future in them, every star a new possibility and awed at their very presence. And they filled my heart, with such great wonder.

Isn’t it amazing that we share the same time as every other person on this planet Earth, and yet when we are together, each passing moment seems to move so unforgivably faster.

How ironic it is, that no matter how much time I get with you, each second still seems to shorten its length, and that the time I do get vanishes, more fleeting than he last. The more I love you, the more that time seems to slip away from me without my permission. And as I love you more, each and every day. And each and every day I come to realise, more so than before, that no matter how much time I get with you, it will never be enough.

How remarkable it is, that mundane tasks are now no longer taxing. As I make coffee in the morning; if it is for myself, my feet scuff along the carpet and my eyes roll around my head uncouthly. I loosely lift the kettle and the weight of it clashes against my mug. I rub my eyes and shield them from the light of day, as I consider returning to bed instead, and snoozing until I no longer can.

But when I make coffee for you, when I have the pleasure – my heels lift off of the floor as I walk to the kitchen. I select ground of coffee that look the freshest, I stir for longer than usual, to make sure the sugar that you like does not settle at the bottom of the mug that I bought you. I clean the rim with a dishtowel, to ensure it looks as good as I hope it tastes and then I carry it slowly, and I bring it to you with a smile on my face.

I will never tire, not for one day, at the look you give me when I enter the room. The way your resting body seems to come to life, and your eyes meet mine. The way your body rises, with new air, and the way you seem to brighten up the room with every breath. That smile that you give me… that beautiful smile that appears from nowhere. It renders me vulnerable every time.

As the day begins to pass with you, never once is there a moment when I am not completely and utterly in love.

Never before, could I imagined that a human so beautiful, so thoughtful, so kind, and so wonderful could exist in this world, let alone choose to spend their time with me. Never before, could I have thought someone could be so delicate and fragile, and yet so strong and fierce all at once. So caring, so clever, and so determined as you are. Never before could I have dreamed, that a room could be brightened, and that the grey of colours could dissipate into the background, just by your very presence. You bring about the sun to shine the smiles of faces. You are the warmth, through the night.

I could watch the hair fall over the corner of your glasses a thousand times, and still catch my jaw in awe of falling strands. I would watch as your curled fingers grasp around them, and pull them back into place behind your left ear. If I’m very lucky, you’ll smile at me as you do it. And just as in the morning, it will take me by surprise. Suddenly I’m smiling too; although I think I have been for a while and not realised it until now.

At night you sit on the couch with a blanket cradling your toes. Your legs are folded underneath you, and if a book is not in front of your eyes then you hand rests gently against your chin as you “watch” something on TV. Really, we’re both just trying not to stare at one another. Still, I play the game. I’ll watch random iridescent images flash in the iris of your eyes. A slightly skewed version of those images on your eyes reflects onto your glasses, dancing. You close your eyes. Slowly, your eye lashes begin to open, and you look at me.

I still melt. Every time. If I’m lucky, you’ll give in and look at me first. You’ll shake your head – same as I do. We’re laughing; we’re smiling. Because still it is unbelievable a concept to us, that we love each other as much as we do.

There was a time when as the stars passed by in the night outside my window, I would stare out at them with hopeful eyes. They were most beautiful thing I had ever seen. So full of potential, so full of life, so grandiose and yet so small in comparison to the black sky. I saw my future in them, every star a new possibility and awed at their very presence. And they filled my heart, with such great wonder.

But that was a time.  Now, as I walk to bed, I do not stare up at the sky, and the splendour of the great beyond outside my window. I close the curtains; I don’t need them anymore.

I lie in bed, and struggle to stay awake for as long as I can; for the dreams I’ll have, could be no comparison to the reality of you. My eyes begin to falter, and I stare at your face as they do. I wish for just one more day; so that I can spend it with you.

And as sleep comes over upon me, I do not miss those days when I gazed out at the sky. For I no longer see my future in the stars, but instead I see them in you.

Hurt

If you think you are irreparably hurt; remember that at some point, you have lied to your mother.

You have broken the heart; of the person who formed yours, and stood steadfast staring into eyes that love you, and told lies and untruths. And as she watched you, wrapped in clothes that she worked so hard to put you in, she was torn and crying inside. All the while she had to remain resilient and strong, for little did you know that you were not brave, cunning, and clever – but instead small, weak, and deceitful. How very childish, that you cherished your pride in that moment, more than you did unconditional love.

How very foolish that would be? – If you were to repeat that again. Wouldn’t it be foolish?

To let pride, and pity take precedence over someone, or a group of people even, whom love you unconditionally? To let such a small thing, as being right be worth the hurt you may cause?

It does not always matter that you are right. Many men and women whom have lived for pride, the knowledge of being right, and stubbornness have done so for a lifetime – and in return they have died sad and alone. And realised that being right, was not so worth it after all. That being right, or proving it, never did hold any value, and the hurt it caused to others only served to worsen their life, and yours. And the horrible, soul destroying fact of that scenario – is that if you were to do the same; if you were to live in such a manner, and realise only on your deathbed, that it was all not worth it at all, and that you are scared, having driven everyone who may care for you and love you – that you lived a life no where near as happy as the one you could have, you will then, after some time realise a second thing.

The second thing you will realise, is that you cannot undo it. There is no going back, and there is no time to fix it. You will slowly fall asleep into darkness, with tears in your eyes, and no one around you who truly loves you, as you turned your partner away and any children you had, and you will realise it was all not worth it. It was all not worth it, and you cannot change. You will die, knowing you are bitter. You will die, knowing you will be forgotten.

Think proactively. Do not build that future for yourself. Do not be the person now, that the you in the future will regret. If someone matters to you, let them know. And show them partly through words, but mostly through action, that they matter more to you, than pride. Do not lie, do not act selfishly, do not deceive, and do not degrade. They are worth more than that, and so are you.

We all make mistakes. We all act hastily. Rashly. Out of anger or pain. And you are human, so even the best will do this. But be sure to minimise it. And most importantly, if you do it, be sorry for it. Show that through changed behaviour, you will not repeat the same mistakes. Slowly you will build a life where pride is not a concept you hold important.

Understand that hurt to a loved one, intentional or otherwise, is such an abhorrent concept – you should not aspire to do it – especially for the boring sake of “winning”.

Show this to others. To loved ones, or otherwise. Spread it around. Hope it rubs off on them, and that next time they go to do something hurtful in the name of pride, they will take a moment and think of this. Your loved ones and theirs are worth more, than ego.

Quote of the Day: What Day?

“What day is it?” asked Winnie the Pooh

“It’s today.” squeaked Piglet.

“My favourite day.” said Pooh.