open spaces

Ahh, but therein lies the rub, there's always someone living better, there's always someone living worse. But if you don't allow yourself to hit rock bottom in terms of self-indulgence I believe you lose some of your humanity - if you don't let yourself pity yourself, how can you pity others? How can you sympathise? How can you empathise? To have any empathy, we must first understand what the feeling is like.

We are not rocks. We have our sense of justice, we have our rights as human beings. Carry on yes, but it is a privilege to wake up and say, "Oh, my life sucks. I wish I had more ". It makes you human. Wallow away. It makes you a better man.

Just don't forget to get past it. That's what the best people do.

Whether or not you recognise the rub depends upon how you think and react to circumstances; I don't see it myself. I wasn't alluding to myself in any case, but were it so, I have rather little interest in preventing myself from experiencing anything.

You need only indulge for a second to know what self-pity feels like anyhow - most people aren't slow thinkers - and wallowing can be a harmful waste of time and emotion if it doesn't suit you; you don't need to wallow to gain perspective, and for the greater part, our ability to empathise tends to be borne of observation, our imaginations, and our ability to project, rather than from experience alone. This line of thinking condemns people who've enjoyed relatively pleasant lives to emotional and empathic passivity ;)

Humanity is as broad and diverse as the people that constitute it; there's no losing out whether your reactions to life are very much your own or the product of some popular, societal prescription, but I know what I prefer.

Try empathising with me if you ever find me in a "crap-out binge". Trust me, you won't know how till you've done one. If you do, wow - will you marry me? ;)

But anyway, in the interest of not arguing (and from the fact I'm not interested in arguing this anyway), perspectives differ. Poh-tae-to, Pe-tah-ta.

Having a pleasant life doesn't make you an emotional amoeba, but it does assure that the person hasn't had any rollercoaster rides on this great adventure we call 'life' yet. Come to think of it, neither have I, but then, hey, we can't all consider the possibility of jumping off buildings, slicing our wrists lengthwise, taking weedkiller or other such fanciful dreams in the interest of rock-bottom while on the morning train to work, now can we?

Not everyone can bear the thought of leaving their pleasant lives to run from it all with a length of rope and a tall chair. In the interest of observation, not everyone also takes copious amounts of drink, experiments in mind-altering substances and prescribes himself food binges in the necessity of feeling better about his situation.

Anything to keep his mind from all of the above. And come down to it, sometimes this fails as well. Thoughts come unbidden, feelings rush like agony through every bloody pore that just screams "Get me the f*** out of this body, I'm done! I'm through! I've had enough! Just let me go already!".

I've met enough people with 'pleasant' lives to know that while they are in the most general of terms 'nice people', they have the empathic skills of a piece of dirty laundry. Basically a wet rag. They can't handle people who are wallowing, they just don't know how.

How can you observe from the outside? Watch the violence? Where's the emotional backlash? Where's the pain? Where's the happy person in your head struggling to get out? How can you project into something so personal as to be almost incomprehensible without having been through it?

Why do you think alcoholics look for help from other alcoholics? Why do you think homosexuals band together? Why do you think crash survivors feel empathic towards other crash survivors?

You don't wallow to gain perspective friend Stairs, you wallow to lose it. Therein lies the rub.

Thank you, have a nice day.

Hmm. Just read through that again. Sorry about being angry boy. Dunno why that happened. Go figure.

No need to waste your sorrow on me; I don't think that what you've expressed is trivial, but it did make me smile; again, too much generality for me. I've met victims who've taken far too much to heart, and who carry unnecessary baggage with them as a result, and I've met those who have been through similar, but become stronger for it. And in parallel, I've met some mighty impressive wet rags whose insights are less subject to bias, and of far greater resource to me in that light than those of the wallowers who can't see beyond their own situations.

It's all about the individual; some are crushed, some become the tenacious old trees that cling, full of life, to the windswept and battered cliffs above a tumultuous sea. I admire strength of character almost as much as I do cheesy metaphor.

Poh-tae-to, Pe-tah-ta.

Be well.

hey, why aren't you blogging?!

Because of death-by-chocolate. And also because I'm just too involved with work to find the time or energy to see to it. Still here though... sob!

Finish what you started. Eat four squares a day. The early bird catches the worm. Live and let die. Don't go to bed angry. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Remember to have fun. :)