Wishing You Were Still

Hey there, all...

I'm feeling better today. No homicidal rages or negative thoughts about stuff on-line...as soon as I posted the thing I realized how...silly it looked. Hmm, this might end up being pretty long; I'm going to try to explain a mental state that I've been in for the past few months.

One common theme throughout my life has always been that of alienation, that feeling that I'll never quite be in step with a group of people no matter how hard I try. Sometimes, my nature just doesn't align with people...other times I'll deliberately sabotage myself to make sure I don't fit. Why? Well, fucking things up to keep a worldview is emotionally easier than proving yourself wrong and having to change, even if it is for the better. That's what it seems like, anyways.

There's the conflict of wanting to be a part of things, some kind of hope twisted into a desperation that someday, somewhere, I'll feel comfortable in a group of people. The other part says that this won't ever happen and that I might as well stop trying, retreat into my own little shell and just watch everything from a distance, only *really* communicating with other people through art.

Both of these voices are pretty negative, but from my experience it's really hard for me to envision a third option. It exists, and logically I know it exists, but it's hard to accept.

My friends RL have gone into an...interesting kind of period. One of them is experiencing the same general drawing-in that I am, while another is...rebirthing themselves (yay for the pronoun game!) in a manner that, to say the least, makes me uncomfortable. That discomfort is perplexing mainly because it provides *another* conflict, between my desire to be understanding of all viewpoints and conditions, and of wanting to be the voice of practicality. I won't go into specifics here, but another little rant may (or may not) be up in a little bit. At any rate, I'm feeling myself distanced from most of the people around here, and a good bit of that is just my fault.

On-line (a place I usually escape into when I'm not comfortable with reality) has been all the more frustrating. While I've been making some kind of progress in some fronts, most of it's been the same brick wall it's always been. With most people, it's just a matter of the stars being malaligned, but when it seems that every person you know is brushing you off...well, that gets hard.

There's a theory (I keep forgetting what it's called) that states that there's always a justifiable reason for you to perform a careless or malicious action, but whenever someone else performs that same action, it's always because they're "assholes" or "bad people". There's a fundamental lack of empathy in that statement, and for the most part it's true; a lot of people, both on-line and RL, have the egocentric notion that double standards are OK. It's all right for me to brush this or that person off because I'm just too swamped with people, but the minute it happens to me, there's been a gross injustice slapped down in the world.

I have not been immune to that sort of thinking, and printing it up on my Journal for the world to see kind of slapped me back into perspective. I've brushed quite a few people off, either because they poked into little areas of conversation that I didn't want to go, or just because I didn't feel like talking to them right then and there. Another fact about on-line relationships is that forbidden fruit always looks more tempting; the thrill of the pursuit for a new friend or new anything always supercedes the companionship of people you already know.

I've been trying for some time now to cheer up certain people. These people I've developed a connection for because they share a lot of the habits that I had (and still do, apparently) when I first stepped into the fandom. In short, they're lonely, moody people who think far too much and would like nothing more than to have a friendly word or two. I've offered to be that shoulder to lean on, that one person who'll be there to listen no matter what they've got to say, and time and again I've been summarily rejected. This makes me...angry. Does a homeless person complain when you offer them space in your house? How can these people complain about being *so* lonely and *so* unloved when they keep smacking the hand that's being offered to them? Where do they get off?

The fact that I get angry over something like that makes me review my motives for offering my hand in the first place. Is it *really* an act of charity, or am I ultimately looking to get something out of it? If there's some ulterior motive, what would it be? Am I lonely, too, then, just preying on the people who handle it a bit more emotionally so that I can get my companionship?

Looking back on the past few months, I realize that I've been selfish and hypocritical. There *have* been people who've offered shoulders and help, and I've rejected them because they're...not where I would have looked first. My 'reinvented' friend is needing my support more than ever and I've been pulling away because of...well, I think it's a fairly good reason, but still...that doesn't make it right.

I'm not a bad person, but these past few months have shown how good an imitation I can do.

I was talking to Eliahn last night about the Purpose of Life. He got into an argument with a cat (don't ask because I don't know) about it, and he's of the camp that life inherently has no meaning, but we can develop one to use while we're here if it makes us feel better. I'm in firm agreement on that; recognizing that your world-view and belief system may be (probably is) complete and utter bullshit keeps a lot of things in perspective...you don't get so hung up on being dogmatic, and the rituals you use to represent a state of being or belief isn't so much important as the state or belief you are trying to achieve. A lot of people believe that the concept of existentialism is inherently depressing (when I first heard of it, and read Albert Camus' "The Stranger", I thought so too), but to me it's actually very liberating. You don't get too weighed down and rooted into one mode of thinking. If you keep questioning, keep looking, your worldview and purpose constantly shift and change, much like everything else in the Universe does.

Eliahn asked me what my purpose was. I was a bit taken aback by this, since it's been a really long time since I've thought about it. To me, the purpose is a goal, and goals should be lofty but ultimately achievable. If you can't realize your destination, what's the point of going anywhere?

My purpose then, is this: To ultimately come to an empathy with everything around me. I don't think that this precludes understanding the specifics in a situation, because empathy goes beyond understanding into something deeper, but similar. As long as you can relate to the base mood, feeling or emotion that an idea or experience attaches to, that's an important understanding in and of itself.

I'm expecting a lot of people (one in particular, because he's just that type) to poke holes in the logic. I don't claim to be water-tight in my belief system; there's flaws in every philosophy. Some are just easier to find than others.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now; I don't think I'll abandon being on-line, but I'm definitely going to start spending less time there. I'm way off-base in my perception.