Monday, September 22, 2008

Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

I guess it is funny how much a simple song can say about something. Our society has always based so much power and meaning in song lyrics. Many of the lyrics take root in our souls and in our minds and in our hearts. Those lyrics are carried with us forever. However, there are also those lyrics which we stumble upon in daily life, those songs that we never looked at twice, but suddenly mean something because of what has happened to us. The random occurrences of everyday life influence our taste in music, and which songs/bands we like at particular times. This must be true with everything, we search and hold onto deep meaning in so much. It's not just the Buddhists who believe in Karma. They put a name to it, they personify it in human interaction. But taking hold of something, finding a song that lifts you up or expands a single noun into lines of poetic rhythm. Not only that but lyrics, weather, attitude, reception, everything can be the entire basis for how a day can be shaped emotionally. Most importantly is perception. The way things are perceived by others. When someone stands up and gets in the way. When something occurs that seems to throw off the balance of the world. These things happen regularly, but do people have the power to handle them. Would it be fair to say that someone who gets depressed by the state of the climate around them is weaker minded than someone who is raped and can no longer face anyone, especially not men? Do they fall under different classifications, or are they the same? Does a chemical imbalance justify it or is the whole issue unquantifiable? I'm not really sure. Just like most things I just want people to try and cope. I want people to embrace their 'issues' and try to work past them. I guess that I've been misconstrued and abusive with my ideas and ideals. I never meant to harm anyone, and I think you all know that. I think part of the blessing/curse of people being incapable of staying mad at me for long is that you all know that I don't have any malicious intent with anything I say or do. I'm just trying to help you guys understand, but maybe instead of giving you the literary deep provocative version of me I should just hand over the spark notes version. This may make me sound like I am mincing words or being a hypocrite, but I am okay with that because all people are hypocrites. I try my hardest not to be, but I will not worry myself to death by trying to attain a level of perfection that is impossible in society.
To J: I received your invitation. I am sorry your letter felt the need to say what it did. I think some of the things you said didn't need to be said. I know that I am always invited. I got that memo, a long time ago. I'm glad it's still open. I'm sorry that I won't be able to attend your party because of too many responsibilities here on campus and not enough gas and no job-yet. As for your letter, well in all honesty that kinda just pissed me off. Yes, you are doing exactly what I am 'telling' you to do. Based on the way I am acting, the words I am saying you are doing what a person in 'normal' society should do. Yet, since when am I a functioning individual in society? Honestly, the fact that I need to explain to you that you are choosing the wrong wishes to respect, or respecting them in the wrong way. I never said leave me alone. I never said disappear. I said give me time. I said give me space. I don't understand how that can be so drastically misinterpreted. I stopped pushing you away to test you a while ago. I came clean over the spring. Since then it has been friendship, but a friendship that you keep trying to turn into something else. Yes you let me close, and I backed away. I backed away to keep this a friendship and nothing more, but you keep wanting to put me back against your heart. It's not that I don't want to be there, but all I am interested in is friendship. I'm not acting like I still care because I do still care. But the problem is J you think that the way I care for you is special. It is only significant and unique in the fact that you are an individual, a person who should be treated as such. I treat everyone the same in that I care for them and listen to them and genuinely want them to feel amazing. That is something you fell in love with I am guessing. I am sorry that it is a love I can't return. Hell I don't even know what love is, how can I return it? I don't know what you want from me, but I haven't gone anywhere. I have changed, I am much less of a naive little boy. However, I am sure you could still find a friend in me if you needed it. I just think the biggest thing will be you accepting that your feelings for me may not be reciprocated.
To S: Some would say I have nothing to apologize for, parts of me even feel that I have nothing to apologize for. However, I will do so. Maybe I have stopped just saying 'Hi' for the hell of it.
I am sorry people don't appreciate me spreading things via the 'public' eye. Yes anyone can stumble upon this website, but honestly who would stay captivated by it? Who would see more than just another anonymous person whining all over the internet? If I stumbled upon a random person's blog that said nothing more than personal things that I was not more deeply privy to I wouldn't stay long. So here is where our problems manifest themselves. But I get my ideas out better on the page rather than in voice. Sure there are other places to do this, but this is what the blog is for. I am putting myself, what is bothering me, my ideas and my thoughts in a secure place. I just make it available for people to read. I can't see how some of the things that I've said here haven't made people feel closer to me. I've explained a lot here, said a lot, but somehow things get skipped over. People like to concentrate on the hurtful things, or get an idea in their head and misconstrue. Perception is a deadly thing and I am playing with it. I guess it is like playing with fire. The old adage says that: "if you play with fire you will get burned." I guess I just can't learn the part about getting burned. Or maybe I just don't care. It could also be that I am so selfish that in the end I will do what is best for me over what is best for other people. Who knows? I don't, most certainly I am still discovering the truest parts of myself in the deepest recesses of my own cavernous mind.
What I don't get is that if I am still on my journey, then how can people expect me to open up to them? I don't want to paint them a false portrait, I don't want to lead them in the wrong direction. So I just force them to hang back, force them to wait until I put something down concretely in my mind. My journey is for me to walk alone, that is why it is mine. There are other journeys which can be made with others and I fully embrace those. Just the deep one, the one that everyone so eagerly wants, is mine and mine alone.
I do put bits and pieces of that journey here, like I have said. And I think it is about time for another sliver of information. Maybe this puzzle piece will fit well together with the other outside pieces that I've established. I do believe that I've given you all the outline to who I am, just all the meaty middle pieces refuse to fit together.
So love. I don't know exactly what it is, but I have a better idea than I did even 8 months ago. Well I think I had a very good idea of what it is last fall, but that idea got lost in teenage adventure. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of things that S taught me about the world and myself and people in general, but they didn't necessarily fit into my previously referenced idea of love. They taught me about sexuality and where I fit into it. Which as a part of love is very important. It is a piece of love that I now understand better and appreciate more. It is a new factor into what love is. However, I am not here to discuss my sexuality as it pertains to love, but the less physical aspects of love. The emotional and intellectual aspects of love, those aspects of love that I hold in higher esteem.
Like for instance: what is the emotion of love? Where does it stem from? What are its facets? I don't think love is what they tell you in the fairy tales. I'm not necessarily talking about the chivalric knight on a white stallion type of thing either. I'm talking about the need for someone. I don't think love is something that one can't live without. Like all those stories about a heart dying when a true love dies. Like all those stories where one can't live without the other. I am not saying that one can't miss the one they love. I think that a requirement of love is loving yourself. I think that in loving yourself you learn that you don't need to love another or need another to love you in order to survive. I am not saying that if K broke up with me that I wouldn't be upset and depressed and lost for a while, but in the end I know I would move on. I would reattain this level of thinking that I don't need a relationship to survive. I am not a co-dependent person. I rely on myself. I think love is about giving, but you can't give if you don't rely on yourself.
So would I say that I am in love? No. I still am not totally positive about that definition. Also I think that K and I have a lot to learn about each other yet. But I do know that I am falling faster and harder with each day. And that alone gives me cause to cheer that I may discover what love is yet. I think that the end of the road to love is a journey that two people share.

1 comment:

Shannon said...

I don't think you get what I meant by public eye.
Your friends read this. Even if you feel you have not much to apologize for, you should still do it in writing to me (since that is easiest for you) not on your blog.
But..
Apologies mean nothing when nothing is going to happen from them. I know you will no longer say hello to me for the sake of it, or even return my waves. So I'm done with that. I'll let you go on your journey alone. Maybe I'll be here when you get back, and maybe I won't. I'm not so sure I want to be yet. I've heard things that may only be rumors and have not let them decide anything for me, but if they are true, I am truly hurt by it. So because of it, any speaking I will do to you will be in the public eye; afterall, with you, it will get there anyways.
I wish you would realize no journey needs to be walked completely alone.