Taking Responsibility

My partner and I were talking last night. This time about the responsibility that everyone has to better themselves. We both debated about it, but we agreed that for most people, it is a choice, and they are to blame at the end of the day for not taking responsibility for their life and their trajectory. That if they do not do what is right- and start themselves down the path to self-betterment, then they are to blame. But what we debated is the existence of those who cannot get started down this path themselves. My partner believed that this group is small, but I believe it is a bit larger than that. I think it is a privilege to be able to look oneself in the mirror and survive, without help. And while some people have the capacity to help themselves, I think the potential hardship of this path is a strong deterrent for a lot of people. But he has a point in that, even if it is hard, they are morally obligated to do it, because it is the right thing to do. But I am curious if that is a privileged way to think. Do I only think of moral obligations as someone who has not had horrible hardships in my life? All this is to avoid the declaration that I came here to make. It is time I start taking full responsibility for everything I am. My body, my temple needs care, it is not as I would like it to be. I would like for it to be more active and strong. I have a job now- I need to figure out my finanaces so that i can start saving money. There is a life I would like to be living- and the only thing holding me back from living that life is in fact, me. I am the one holding me back. I deprive myself of living my dreams.

ojibwa :

the crushing guilt of being unproductive vs the exhaustion of being burned out. fight.

quousque :

Plot twist: if you are tired and burned out, resting is literally the most productive thing you can do. You ain’t gonna get shit done when you’re burned out. If you do, it’ll take three times as long, take even more energy out of you, and will also suck because you were too tired to do it well. When you’re too tired to do the things you want/need to do, resting is the first step.

manawhaat :

IF YOU ARE TIRED AND BURNED OUT, RESTING IS LITERALLY THE MOST PRODUCTIVE THING YOU CAN DO.

Burnout

It’s funny isn’t it? I hate burn out. I push myself further and further until I hit a breaking point and then I felt so defeated, so tired, so exhausted. There’s a special kind of burnout that I experience, where I acknowledge that it’s there, but I can’t take the time to stop. Or I will procrastinate which just makes my burnout worse. I suddenly can’t focus on ANY task. My brain is clawing and screaming for a way out, but it’s not allowed. So I suffer, not letting myself rest because I have work to do, not letting myself work because I need to rest. I spiral and my stress gets worse. But then when I remove myself from the situation, and leave for a minute, a few hours, I can come back. I can come back and try again.

Vulnerability

I HATE being vulnerable. I hate it when my emotions are subject to the whims of others. I like having a control on them at all times. When they are under the pressure of my thumb, I can be a productive machine. When I control the machine, I can sink my teeth into the next assignment, the next goal, the next task. When one of them gets out, I feel like I’m driving through fog with my high-beams on. Everything seems kind of different, kind of distant, kind of blurred. Instead of sliding from one thing to the next, I am stumbling, falling, failing. 

I dont live in a world where I can just exist without consequences. I have to be productive. I have assignments to finish. I have relationships to build, skills to learn. I have appearances to cultivate, personalities to maintain. I have morals to uphold, agendas to advance, friends to support. I don’t mind exposing myself. I dont mind sharing my inner most thoughts with people I love. Or with strangers. I dont expect them to understand. But romantic love is something entirely different. I suddenly NEED to be understood by them. I need their affection. I want to lose myself within them for a short while. I find their existence and company pleasureable. But  an intense pleasure where it is hard to focus. Spending time with my friends is pleasant and fun, but then suddenly spending time with this person is pleasure. Akin to sexual pleasure in the way its suddenly the only thing taking up my mind. Its an intense sensation and I feel vulnerable. When you’re in pain it’s hard to notice the world around you. When you’re in love spending time with the person you love, the rest of the world fades away. In that way you’re exposed. Danger could lurk around the corner, and stab you, and then you’re STILL blind because all you feel is pain. Love takes you from extreme to extreme and I HATE IT. Its like riding a rollercoaster and you can’t get off. I dont live in a world where I can go from extreme to extreme without consequences.

Losing Control

I feel like I lost the reigns. A recent late-night confession has me spiraling. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this. I mean, I do though. It’s complicated. My instinct when looking on it reflexively is to say that I never LET myself think that this was possible. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I didn’t want to vulnerable, so I hid my vulnerabilities to the best I could. I didn’t ALLOW myself to think that he might harbor similar feelings for me, that I oh so dangerously held for him. He told me otherwise. My shaded reality came crashing down. I smiled before it fell. A stupid happy washed over me. Then my fake reality came crashing down and now im lost. I dont know what is the truth anymore. I keep trying to find an anchor, and I feel stupid for building everything on a lie that I told myself.

I believed the lie, and now I have so many questions. The biggest one is, what if he is lying? I know, it’s stupid. I trust him with so many other things, and why would I question his own feelings? What right to I have to question that? Am I convinced that I am so damn unlovable and unattractive and not someone to place their affections on that I am more willing to accuse other people of lying to me? 

That’s fucked up. Why on earth do I hate myself so much? Is it because im not normal? It is. I’ve been avoiding that truth for so long, but I hate that I’m not normal. I hate that I can’t blend in and just be accepted at all times. I hate that people point out to me how different I am. It hurts. I feel so inbetween, an outsider but also not. People have told me my whole life that I should love my differences. I should love that I stand out. I should love that I am different. I just want to be accepted. I dont perceive myself to be accepted, but maybe this changes things. Ugh I just want to cry.

Was I really going to let myself get away with that?

Why, why was I punishing myself so much? I didnt do ONE assignment that is not even due for another three days... why am I punishing myself so badly for that?

Because I didn’t do that assignment today, I beat myself up. Whispers of failure tinged my ears. Whispers of guilt, of lack of control. If I found someone else in this situation, I would tell them that it’s okay, and that they have time to get the assignment done later. Why do I punish myself, when I uplift others? Why can I not uplift myself?

Do I not trust myself? I fear blinding myself by stroking my own ego. But am I not blinding myself by sending myself into despair? It is not an emergency. Why do I feel like I failed the universe if I didn’t do my homework (YET!)

Apparently I need to stop beating myself up, but I didn’t even notice until I watched a youtube video. I am so used to berating myself, that I didn’t even notice. I am so used to stabbing myself in the gut for enjoying myself, that I didn’t even notice it was me holding the knife. Was I really going to let myself get away with disemboweling my innards? Again? I don’t have to feel this way.

I am not going to feel this way. FUCK the system that made me this way. Why would I destroy what I am fighting hard to preserve?

Want to live

Okay before you presume to know what this piece is about, let me tell you. I have recently discovered the want to live. Now now, it’s not that dramatic. I never thought about killing myself. Instead I lived in a haze, and didn’t really think about the future. My mind was in the past. It still can be sometimes. What has changed though is an interest in the future. I know past me. She’s pretty good. But what about future me? What will she be involved in? Where will she be living? Will she be living her best life? Will she able to breathe in the essence of life without a dampening mournful quality? Can she feel green energy filling her and spurring her on? 

Recently, a friend helped me move the rest of my things out of my grandparents house. I had to throw a lot away. A bunch of it was stuff my mother had given me to hold on to. I had to get rid of a lot of it. Some of my dead dad’s old ratty sweat shirts, lots of things I had clung to. My friend comforted me as let go of this stuff. She told me, “You have to make room for new memories”. I’m still thinking about that. My life isn’t just pages of a book to fill. Its there to enjoy as much as my childhood was. My life isn’t over just because my dad died. My life isnt over just because I live somewhere else now. My life isnt over because there’s a global pandemic going on. I don’t see a reason why I won’t reach 30. I don’t reason why in a year or two, I could be living in my own apartment, with a dog while engaged in a career I like. I dont see the black haze. I see it’s left hand, light.

Serenity

God, Grant me serenity, to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Change is scary, is it not? Why are we so attached to different times in our lives? Why are we so resistant to change?

I am scared of the unknown. I think there are others like me.

I assumed the worst from it. I never thought about the good things change could bring me. Now, I crave change. I am sad. Things are bad. I want things to change. I am tired of existing at this level of bad. Not quite emergency mode, not quite safe as it was. I feel as though there is a looming trauma that we will have to deal with here.

We can’t speak of it, as we feel as if we have to wait until its over so we can analyze it. Meanwhile, a nation holds its breath. The world holds its breath. We all wait for there to be a solution to the bodies dropping around us.

Can I change this?

2020

Am I depressed? I ask myself.

My roommate thinks I am. “That sounds like depression” they told me after I explained my feelings. I can only feel a deep sad about everything that is happening in this year called 2020.

“Don’t you feel angry? I feel angry” they explained. I don’t feel angry. I feel like I’m in immense pain but also numb at the same time. Maybe I’m too empathetic.

My roommate says that after feeling sad for so long, the waves of sadness left them with only seething anger. Maybe I haven’t experienced as many waves as they have. Maybe I’m incapable of anger, I’ve always repressed my anger since I was a child.

Every time I think about what is happening, I’m wrecked by a tsunami of the pain I imagine others are facing. Why do I imagine the pain of others? I will never know their true reality, but I feel it’s important to imagine the pain of others. Why?

I value putting myself in other’s shoes. Trying to at least imagine what others might be thinking and feeling makes me better. It allows me to predict how my actions might hurt or benefit others. But all I can think about it the insane amount of people who have died this year. Their deaths were entirely preventable.

I imagine how many wrecked hearts this pandemic has created. It’s easy because I multiply the pain I’ve felt from my own grieving by the amount of people who have died. And then another five times because it is never one person grieving the loss of another person. All I see are networks of pain.

I see a wounded world. I see it gutted and exposed. I see now the rotting flesh that it already had. It was dead a long time ago.

Why can’t I stop imagining the pain of others, when it’s killing me? I’m in so much pain. We’re in so much pain. The worst part is that I know there’s more to come.

The Villainized Mind

I have villainized my mind.

I have chronic low self-esteem. People have pointed out to me that it is wrong. They say, “it shouldn’t be like that. You’re wrong to think of yourself this way.”

As a way to avoid the blame for my own hurt, I separated my mind into two. The victim and the problem. I tend to say, “I know that, but my mind can’t help but think that...”

I blame this other, this unknown entity for my low self-esteem, for the damage done to me, as if damaging me is it’s greater purpose, its only calling, all it has ever known and can do. I have painted this part of me as a cruel creature that is only capable of hurting me- something other than me. After years- perhaps even a decade- of thinking this way, I realize now that is a mistake. This othering of myself is what hurts myself. By declining citizenship of this other- by treating it as something else, I ensure that I will never be whole.

How can I reach my goal of recognizing the consciousness in every other person, if I cannot recognize the consciousness of my entire mind? I cannot truly stop seeing other people as villains if I cannot stop seeing my own self as one either.

To be humble is not the opposite of being egotistic. To be humble is to understand that each one of us is on a journey. Some will be further than others, but it is no use to compare, because each journey is a different test, a different version, a different life, a different consciousness. What we are, is here. This is reality. It is unpredictable, and it is here.

I've been thinking lately. A lot honestly. And I've attached myself to this idea that in order to finally be at peace with myself, I need to be able to meditate without music- now this is difficult for me because previously I have used meditation to escape reality and be present outside the moment so that I may better understand what is happening in the moment. Music allows that of me. It allows me to block out all the things that tie me to a moment, to presence. So then the goal is, if I can meditate without music, then I can work towards being present both outside and within a moment. The closest I ever got to that was sitting on my dorm room floor high on shrooms in the company of friends.

Whenever I'm sober though, it's scary. There's this primal fear of sitting down, closing my eyes and letting my mind wander without some sort of hand on it to keep it positive, as what music ensures for me. It's scary because I am afraid of what will happen if I left my thoughts unchecked. As a way to deal with my chronic low self esteem, I have villanized my mind. Blamed it for this particular problem. If it were to blame, why would I then let it run wild without any leash?

Is it not a subconscious bashing of myself, and instead a conscious choice I make every day, to degrade myself ever further. Have I declared what I thought once as a law of nature, a mere construct? Does my frame of thinking inform my perception of the world, or does it change my reality? Aren't my perception and reality one and the same?

Further more, by letting my mind run wild and free without a leash, wouldnt that also be accepting this reality not only as the one that I am in, but also as the one I want to live in? Do I want to accept this reality? Can I actually accept this reality with all the pain and wonder in it? Can I accept 2020 as a year of human history?

Can I accept this reality? Can I accept my role in this reality, which is infinitely miniscule? Can I accept that I am powerless and powerful depending on the scale of the current reality I am considering?

Do I choose this existence, this reality? Is the only alternative wandering through the void aimlessly, never accepting anything except distractions? Do I give control to the universe despite my never having any control in the first place?

Do you take this reality, until death do you part? To cherish and to hold, through good times and bad.

I don't know yet. Is it still scary?

dippersballoon :

I saw an opportunity and I took it

chemisquid :

This is what they mean when they say life flashes before your eyes as you die

lumnie :

For those wondering, the song is ”Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO.

Perhaps someone beat me to it, but here are ALL of the featured vines, in order of appearance:

I won’t hesitate bitch

Hi my name is Tre and I have a basketball game tomorrow

Whaddup, I’m Jared I’m 19 and I never fucking learned how 2 read

Kermit the Frog jumps off building

Fr e sh a voca do

back at it again at Krispy Kreme

There is only one thing worse than a rapist

Club Jam (yes a really good book)

At least the taco was free

I am the Sand Guardian, guardian of the sand

Grandma loves ping pong too much

If your name is Junior

Welcome to Target

I’m just cooking pizza

Cole Sprouse dress-up game

On all levels except physical, I am a Wolf

Kid hits ceiling of gym with rope (breaking free)

Kid smacked by fly swatter

Fuck it up Kenneth (my boy going to school)

Um I’m not finished (Tyler the Creator)

WE’RE BREAKING FREE

SAIL

I’m Squidward

So I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies

So no head? (breaking skateboard)

Actually, Megan (I can’t sit anywhere)

No off topic questions (Chris Christie)

What the fuck, Richard

Drop it like it’s hot (its just luke)

Bored as shiiiiii

Liberian accent (plasma globe)

New haircut (Parker Kit Hill)

Summertime sadness (chicken)

More like hurricane TORTILLA

I got an a-bor-tion

All Around the World (TheJasminator)

When there’s a cutie next to you at a red light

Snake licks lollipop

Accept yourself, love yourself

Be whatever you wanna be

Don’t touch Zac’s music (LENARR)

Whoever threw that paper, your mom’s a ho

Can I please get a waffle?

Turn off the flash you fucking moron (Star Wars)

Ebony Jenkins (shut up!)

Kevin, watch the light dude

Horse meditation

A girl a dream & a clothing hanger

Is that a weed? (911 microwave)

Helium balloons (floating car)

Fireplace fairy

I’m your freestyle dance teacher

I can’t believe you’ve done this

Which way the Quiznos is

Impossible paper toss shot

Hemtube (dancing with cat)

I nurture my skin (Shaq)

Why are you running

Happy birthday?

Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal (courtroom)

Farkle falling

Fuck you (soda machine)

Squash banana (the branch I was holding broke)

Take On Me

And now my sock is wet (water gun)

All I ever wanted was some motherfuckin guala

When there’s too much drama at school

Two bros chillin in the Hot Tub

What’s your name? (ouija board)

Chillary Clinton (chillin in Cedar Rapids)

Guy drops slurpee (7-Eleven)

Girl scared of convertible car

Guy who is self-conscious about his lisp (Rice Krispies Treats)

Would you like the spider on your hand?

Shopping cart crash

We actually have the chip reader now

I’M A GIRAFFE

Dinner with Zayn Malik (Chihuahua eating spaghetti)

I HOPE IT’S HELPFUL TO SOMEONE! Peace ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

leaveittotegan :

this gave me such a warm feeling i legit teared up no joke

221biotchplease :

BEAUTY

I feel a pound of peace as I stare at the ceiling in my dark dorm room, dew dropped windows warping the street light shapes to my left. I lay exhausted from a finished, perfect assignment and am assured, I will get through this next week.

Stress

I can feel the creeping, crawling tentacles squirming their way into my grasp. To touch the last remaining bit of sanity I clutch so desperately. It wants to taint the tiny last bit of hope I hold onto, and send me into the void of total despair. My mind feels it’s dangling by a tiny, weathered string, with fibers that are snapping, one by one.  I’m not sure if I can attach the fibers together, or grab the other snapped string in time.

Potential

okay, short rant time, but do you ever think about how children are given worth based on their potential? When you are young, you are told you have the potential to become anything, the president, a firefighter, a genius and it hurts oh so much once you become anything less than. It’s like when I was young, I saw a series of doors, and as I get older they seem to be closing. I thought perhaps that teachers like children because of the potential they see within them, but thinking about that I hope that’s not what they see when they have a classroom full of children. I hope they see a room full of soon to be citizens, and not romanticize about what they could be if they lived to their fullest potential. Perhaps life should not be about reaching the fullest potential, but instead about enjoying oneself?

Death

Death, it’s weird. We spend a good portion of our lives avoiding it. Pretending it doesn’t exist. Yet if you look around, it is there. I see it on the forest floor, I see it the wood stacked and piled by the furnace. I see it on my dinner plate. I see it as my grandparents age. Their wrinkles and groaning joints evidence that death has started to snake it’s way into their existence. I see it in my mother. When it was just the two of us, for a while she was the stronger, and now.. I doubt that. I see it in the way that I can carry bigger and heavier things than she can. I can throw the wood into the furnace farther than she can. Perhaps the biggest indicator of death is the holes it leaves behind. Where there was once a strong, tall man who loved me there is nothing. Where there was someone who supported me, he is gone. Death had slinked it’s way into his life when I was only fourteen.

I have the most trouble trying to understand what he would think of certain situations and what he would want me to do. I did not understand his thinking process when I was only fourteen. I only knew him as Dad. Someone who would make me help him with various projects around the farm. Someone who would drag me to social gatherings when my mother did not want to go. I went everywhere with him. I never tried to understand the way he thought because it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

He was supposed to see me graduate. He was supposed to help me move into college and smile proudly at me when he left. He was supposed to help me through my first heartbreak, and not be it. I am supposed to move on with my life, yet how can I? I am constantly reminded of him. Every time I see a dad joke, or a picture of a friend and their father, it’s a thorn in my heart. Every milestone I hit, it’s a hit in my core. Every great, happy event is tinged with sadness because he is not there. Life is passing before my eyes, and I cannot help but want to sit on the side. I want to wonder and contemplate life itself, and I lose my passion to join it. Although I wonder if his death has given me a lens on which to view the world differently than others. But sometimes I wonder if I had always had it, or if everyone has it and fails to mention. I see life in two aspects. The rush, the inner circle that occupies the minds of people in everyday life. The mind navigates the mundane but thrilling life. Working through interpersonal relations and trying to figure out how to make ends meet. However, there’s the contemplative life. I’ve always looked out at the stars at night pondered my existence. Who am I? Who are we? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to live where I do? Are we destined for some greater purpose? Am I? Will my losses and gains eventually aid me in the end? Do I suffer for a purpose? Do others suffer for a purpose? What is it like to look out at this same sky across the world. Is religion mind control? Why do we need money? How did this, this collection of human cells come to sit here on this mass of plant cells? Why is it that I can see, that humans can see? Will we survive our destruction of the planet?

These questions fly across my mind, but I am calm. I feel as though I am looking into the void. However, I cannot tell if something, or someone is looking back. Death lies within that void. It is dark, but it is natural. I want to stare death in the eyes, as a challenge of authority to say that I have experienced it and that I know what it is, but death is beyond my comprehension. Death is Life’s greatest mystery.

Breaking Up

According to most media sources, the breaker upper of a relationship should be fine. All sympathies go to the one who was broken up with. After all, their world just was shattered wasn’t it?

Maybe because it is the just my own hurt I nurse within my own heart, but I believe there is something to be said for the one who breaks up with someone. I am not talking about the kind of heated breakup where there is a lot of heated discussion. I am talking about the kind of a breakup where you have to carefully weigh your options, and once realizing that you cannot and should not go on like this, that as much as you do not want to admit it, this relationship is making you miserable, and you have not been okay in a long time.

I attribute it to building something that you were really happy with. Be it a bird house, a shack, a piece of pottery. Then realizing there was something really wrong with it. Something small, it’s location or a detail. But that little thing irritates you, till all you see when you look at it is wrongness. Your vision is infected with that until finally you decide to take it apart. Of course, you could fix it, but that wrongness seems too ubiquitous. It is not guaranteed that another detail will not just pop up later. You have withstanded the misery for so long that it does not seem fixable. You just want to smash it and get rid of it. However as you look at it, sledge hammer in hand and poised to strike, you see it as you loved it, not so long ago. You see the opportunity you had once seen in it. So instead of smashing it, you carefully dismantle it.  But in the case of the pottery, when you disassemble it, it is broken in the process. The heat of the relationship had formed it, and that same fire ensured that it will never be put together the way it once was.

The break-up-ee is seen to have their heart broken, but for those of us who break-up with someone who you really care about, it’s like shattering someone else’s heart that you hold in your hands, and then proceeding to crush your own.

Then again, it seems to hurt less when you’re the one who splintered yourself.