Being a real, live person is so unnatural. The automatic instincts we have are apparently wrong, so we must adjust our behavior to give the appearance of normalcy. There are all these rules and they're stupid, because rules are the only thing that separates us from the animals.
I mean, offering comfort is a natural inclination, but obsessing over the ramifications of your method of comfort is just fucking insanity.
I'm not saying YOU are insane, I'm saying that HUMANS are.
(Dear Ruby, that is the end of my initial reaction to your blog. Thank you for keeping me going)
But we are taught that there are rules on how to do these things. Always with temperance. We cannot just go around having feelings about things, because we have to think about how having feelings affects everyone.
I cannot eat when I am hungry, I must wait until the time when the sun hits a certain point in the sky because that's when the king was hungry 2000 years ago.
I cannot speak the way I think because it is too loud, fast, and intense. Escalating conversations, apparently, mean you're angry, stubborn, and a big fat wit one-upper, when in reality I'm trying to find someone who can play. Then again, I've never been accused of being a one-upper...I'm just always afraid I'll come across that way, when what I really want to do is have a word battle. No, not a battle...a word farm, where we plant and grow and harvest and bake delicious word pies. Together. Blogs are like word pies.
I cannot be skeptical when I receive compliments, and must accept them graciously because I'm supposed to. But instinctively, compliments from strangers and acquaintances (if I trust you already, I will be happy and affable as fuck) make me suspicious and unravel any thoughts of trust, because in MY experience people only use compliments for manipulative purposes instead of genuine appreciation.
I cannot get angry at someone for calling me a 'fat cunt' (this is a new phenomenon for me. Before people thought I was feisty, or a spitfire or something. But sure, you gain weight and your clothes don't fit right and the game fucking changes. It is unforgivable to be heavier than your peers and also outspoken. As long as you're within someone's acceptable body range, they find you clever) I am supposed to ignore it because society frowns upon anger, when everything in my gut tells me to attack, diminish, destroy. And then everyone's all, "Calm down, that guy's just a douchebag" and I'm all "yeah, and if no one ever does anything about it he's going to stay that way." But if you do that you are crazy. And then everyone wants to know why you're crazy. MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE FORCING ME TO SUPPRESS THINGS, SOCIETY. EH? YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT? YOU EVER THINK THAT SOMEDAY I AM GOING TO WAR ON MYSELF BECAUSE MY NATURAL INCLINATIONS ARE INHUMANE? Some people have the instinct to run, and I have the instinct to stupidly, ridiculously, stubbornly fight to the death.
Fucking philosophy. Philosophy is such bullshit. All it does is lead to more rules that don't make any fucking sense.
It is natural for us to disagree and conflict with each other, why can't people see that? Why can't they see that shiny happy people living in harmony is DISCORDANT WITH NATURE? Sure, there are interconnecting patterns and if you slice a seashell in half it's made out of math, whatever, I get it, but polarizing forces are how things are shaped, it's how things grow, and the more people try to stop them out the more polarizing the outskirts become and the fucking crazier we all look, those of us on the emotional fringe.
The trick is to celebrate the differences and use them instead of getting angry about them. Okay. I will work on this.
...
I heart Rassles. Oh God. Is that ok to write here? Are they going to think I'm weird? Will they think I'm a lesbian? Not that there is anything wrong with lesbianism .. Shit, now they're going to think I'm homophobic. But I really, really do love Rassles.
ReplyDeleteEllie, I heart you too.
ReplyDeleteI can only tell you that at least for me, I obsess over the way I give comfort because
ReplyDeletea. I was rarely comforted as a child and when I was it was not my mother. So not having someone do it for me I worry that I'm getting it wrong. It is something learned and still doesn't feel entirely natural.
b. I have had, at least so far, the most difficult year of my life. To confront sexual abuse, reform my identity separate from my mother, draw appropriate boundaries with no(or little)retribution toward her, stand firm in those even when being assaulted by the woman that I still wish was capable of real love, it has taken a lot out of me(and the effort is just really starting to pay off), and I am sometimes over emotional and it is often ugly, and not really commensurate with the situation I haven't "felt" some things from the past, so it leaks out with it. My kids don't need that.I wasn't really allowed to have feelings, so I have to work at feeling them instead of pushing them down where they turn inward as depression and anxiety.
I am also completely neurotic and think about my thinking more than any person should. I think lots of people go around thinking and feeling in a normal, not second guess or mediate kind of way. I'm trying to model healthy behavior so it comes more naturally to my own kids.
Anyhow, I do get what you're saying