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[indubitablydyl]

I.

I wonder what it says about me, that I have only been able to find peace is being someone else for the vast majority of my life.  What is it about me that I find so utterly intolerable?  Why do I want to tear my body to shreds, to make myself scream, to make myself suffer so very much, refraining because of mere trivialities like medical bills?

Comments

[maddict]

Waiting for an ideal environment is a clever way of putting off the hard work of self-expression. Post-graduate life doesn't exactly include a dramatic rise in opportunities for creative freedom. This artificial college environment may be the one point in your life where intellect is free to dance with leisure before financial pressures erect that insurmountable wall between them.

Actions tell you more about yourself than internal monologue. What are you doing lately? Christ, make a list. Dog-paddling around a circular routine and clicking your heels for Cardboard Club and Beacon columns? I don't mean to trivialize the power of introversion or give undue weight to social engagements, but I think you might find some much-needed relief in the consciousness of the fact that you're doing something which you honestly approve of. Which is why I still want you to come to a poetry reading and recite some of your work.

Wednesdays at 7 in the World Grotto
Thursdays at 7 in the Eleventh Street Expresso House
Every 1st and 3rd Friday at 7 in the Corner Lounge

You really should come with me this week, even if it's just to listen.

[maddict]

The "Dylan" I mentioned earlier with Shakespeare was "Bob Dylan"

http://www.theory.org.uk/

But really, look at that post. It's nothing but a bunch of announcements of what you aren't being right now, what you aren't doing right now, and careful explanations as to why this is so. You've put your nouns in this past and your verbs in the future. When are you going to start drawing them in?

[indubitablydyl]

Pt. 2

And I wonder, how can you preach equality and anarchy when you can't even apply the ideology to yourself? How can you hope humans will ever respect one another if you can't do it yourself? You call yourself a narcissist, and I know you recognize so many of your flaws, but much of the time it's just reminiscent of my father saying "I'm a bad person" as if it was a factual justification for behavior instead of an aspect of an individual that can be changed.

And it's not even the hypocrisy that bothers me. It's bad enough for the effect it has upon you. But I really worry about the people you'll care about. You have the ability to completely destroy a person. Not any person, but those who are rather passive, have low selfesteem, and are drawn towards figures that are dominant enough to compensate for what they lack. At times, I've even found myself attracted to you, wishing you'd protect me by just being "larger" than I am. And I'm barely bisexual, if that, not to mention relatively assertive.

If you keep prescribing instead of assisting, you'll provide your solutions to other people's problems instead of enabling them to come upon their own. They'll be dependent upon you to understand, and either you will continue to find flaws and try to mold them into your ideas or you'll leave them and they'll shatter.

Overdramatic, probably. But you know (and probably have known) what I'm talking about. You're not my father. You're smarter. You understand more that he merely reads. But I don't want you to become like him, with his fatalism, depression, manipulation, and intellectual/rationalizing bullying. I don't think you're a bad or doomed person, I really think there's a lot of hope and good you can do. But you're dangerous, too.

At any rate, there's a lot here. And I doubt much of it will do much good, but I am worried about you. You can't speak to people like this, can't think about others like this, and ever expect harmony. I think the best thing that could happen to you would for you to be humbled to a point you couldn't rationalize away. I certainly couldn't do it, and I don't think I've ever met someone who could. But I think it would do you good to know what it's like to have someone smarter, more confident, more knowledgeable, and more certain than you to callously pick you apart and define you. I don't want to say people like you are the "powerful" and people like me are "the Other" in terms of psychology, but I think the parallel has merit. You are powerful.

Like I said, I do appreciate your comments and your input. I appreciate you. And, because of who I am, I won't abandon or avoid you if you don't want me to. But if you want to be the person I think you want to be, I think you need to really take on yourself before you take on the world.