The Importance of Being Honest with Oneself

Since finishing up school in February of last year, my hopes have been dashed, plans went awry, and perspectives endlessly challenged.  It sucks.  It really does.  I feel a mix of, but not necessarily simultaneously at any given time, confusion, disappointment, anxiety, self-doubt, and a loss of control, self-esteem, and confidence.

What also sucks is that I have pride.  I find myself naturally wanting to appear to others that I have things under control, that I am fine, that I've got everything under cover.  I swallow my pride every time I state that I am unemployed, jobless.  I dont have my life under control, this voice in the back of my head will say.  And I continue to lie to myself that simply "getting over" undesirable feelings and negative emotions is perfectly fine in terms of dealing with the many adverse things that come my way, that by stifling your personal issue and sweeping it under the rug, you won't have to deal with it again.  But I'm getting this nagging feeling that... maybe that's not the way it works.  That just continuing to sweep issue after issue under the rug doesn't really end up with them magically disappearing from your conscience and affecting your emotional well-being.  That just drinking away your sorrow -- every sorrow and disappointment -- will also wash it away, never to be seen again.

Because, you know, I want to be emotionally strong.  I want to be emotionally invulnerable.  I don't want to be hurt, I don't want to be disappointed, and I don't want anyone -- or more, anything -- having a grip at my heart.  I'm so sick of emotions.  I want to be strong.

I promised myself in boot camp that I was never going to cry again.  But I broke that promise several times now, with the last incident during a new church visit this past weekend.

Maybe I shouldn't try to be this way.  Shenny suggested that my military experience was not a positive one for me.  She may be right.  In hindsight, it also seems right that my method of dealing with issues was and is unhealthy.

But I want to be emotionally strong.  I don't want to become soft, even to myself.  They say acknowledging that a problem exists is the first step in solving a problem... but I thought I didn't have any problems or issues?  Doesn't it mean that there's an issue only if you acknowledge it?

Then why do I shed tears?  Why do I feel lonely, and why do I desire warmth and unconditional acceptance?  Why do I yearn for loving arms?  Why do I want to be told that it's all going to be okay?  Why am I on the verge of tears?

Scribbling

What great achievements would you pursue if you knew you would not fail?

Saturday November 21, 2015

Can you see the anguish in his face?

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Conviction for Blogging in Chicago

I am strongly convicted to resume personal blogging here, as I deem it fit as one of the only outlets that I currently have (other than alcohol, or in combination with alcohol) for letting off frustration, loneliness, sadness, and, to a lesser degree, disappointment.  Perhaps, it is an attempt for me to fend off any one, or combination, of them, including depression.

I think depression is real.  You don't know it unless you've had it.

You don't know anyone else's suffering until you've experienced it firsthand yourself.

You don't know suffering until you've experienced it firsthand yourself.

Powerlessness

D+27 into Chicago, IL

I remember watching Interstellar on TV this past summer in Walpole, MA, where I was blessed to find a place to stay with the Norbergs while I was figuring my life out after graduating from Middlebury.  I remember feeling deeply touched by powerful emotions on several instances during the movie, emotions on a level that I have not felt before in quite a long time.  I remember this once scene where Cooper, the protagonist in the movie, trapped in the Tasseract for an unknown period of time, gets to somehow see his past self futilely consoling his young daughter of the fact that he will be going away on a... quite uncertain space mission to hopefully find a new, second home for planet Earth.

As he painfully watches a pivotal scene of his past unfold where his daughter becomes upset at his upbringing of the news, Cooper himself becomes wracked with deep anguish and intense anger, yelling at his pre-teen daughter, named Murph, through the space-time continuum of her bedroom --

"Tell him, Murph. Make him stay."

Of course, he only sees the past events leading up to the same course of history that has led him here.

"Make him stay, Murph." But his voice is useless -- nobody can hear him. And his voice starts to quiver, as he starts to observe his past self begin to leave the room, begin on his way back to the space station, begin on his one-way journey off to outer space, begin on his path of no return.

"Don't let me leave, Murph! Don't let me leave, Murph!"

And Cooper starts to break down, banging his fists on the invisible wall separating himself from the other side of ... time,  He is powerless.

"No! No! NO!" He keeps banging on the wall, with tears running down his face inside his spacesuit.  As much as Cooper wants to try, as hard as he can bang his fists on the wall, no matter how loud he yells at the other side of space, there is nothing that he can do to change what has happened.

But his voice is unheard. Cooper is powerless in that moment.

As much as I like to believe that we, as humans, are capable beings, we have very limited control over certain aspects of life.  In those moments, we become - or remain? - powerless. We become powerless to bring change.  And one of the strongest convictions that I developed over the short span of life I have lived so far is that I don't want to be powerless, ever.  It is one of the greatest fears I have developed.  It is this specific reason as to why I hate seeing myself become mentally, physically or emotionally weak or dependent upon others at certain times in my life.

I wish I could actually help the ones that I love and need, instead of being powerless.




But as I write this and watch the clip again, the scene, with Zimmerman's music, moves me to tears.  It reminds me why I was so moved to conviction from reading Cannery Row.  It reminds me why there are so many other things in life that are of much greater importance than the short-sightedness of my mind and emotions allow me to think.