Masochistic Hedonism
Out of pure frustration will I write this. It will lack subtle beauty, expression, or any of many other literary elements that make reading it a joy. Instead, it will have the one thing no one gives two shits about anymore: realism.
I am lambasted from all sides for being realistic. People who think realism is some depressing disease, people who think realistic people are debbie-downers, people who think realistic people are jealous, callous, misanthropic enemies of happiness hell-bent on destroying the good humors of everyone they meet. Go fuck yourselves. I say this for a good reason.
Realism has a quality to it that is hard to be against: it's fucking real. Real, as in not fake. Unless you pride yourself on being fake, then you should probably be real. Optimism isn't fake, it's optimistic. But being against something real isn't optimism, it's delusion. Not wanting to hear something real doesn't mean you're a happy-go-lucky person who enjoys happiness, it means you're afraid of reality. Being afraid isn't commendable, so shut your mouth.
I'm sick to death of people not appreciating the things they have had, have, or will have. We have all done it, and we should all point it out when we see it so that eventually, it becomes the norm to appreciate things. Unfortunately, as I pointed out before, being real is evil incarnate, so caveat emptor. I've grown inpatient and tired with people who insist their lives are piles of dog poo with few redeeming qualities and even fewer redeeming memories. If you've had the ability to live in another country, or TWO, that's an experience. If you've regularly lived out fantasies you've had, whatever those might be, those are experiences, not to mention you're pretty lucky. If you have something you can't live without and have absolutely no problem getting it when you need it, then you're fortunate. You might not like needing it, you might not like asking for it, but it could be worse!
People act like being addicted to sex, or drugs, or alcohol are the worst things ever. They are unpleasant, I can imagine. I can think of something I think is far worse though: being addicted to feeling inferior, feeling ugly, feeling less than, feeling like complete shit. Maybe addiction isn't the right word since it's not like you go out of your way to feel that way. What about the inability to shake the underpinnings of complete worthlessness? When you're addicted to substances or actions, people are so sympathetic with you, coddling you and easing you through the pain. When your problem is negative thinking, no one wants anything to do with you. You are tossed aside like some garbage bag with a rip in it, left to rot and stink, leaking your rancid negativity around you. And when you try to pick yourself up, you are confronted with the aforementioned people, the ones who brood over what they don't have, when they've had so much. It's disheartening on both people's parts.
In some twist of fate, the sort-of-but-not-really converse of optimism is downplay. You know what you had was awesome, enviable, rare, your fantasy, yet you act as if it was flawed to the point where it became just as ordinary as the rest. Except it isn't. It never was. Maybe your mind perverted it to some dimension of skewed impression, but it was everything you said you wanted, say you wanted, and will for the foreseeable future say you want. Yet you say it was just okay. I don't believe you.
I hope I said everything I meant. Emotions are just so annoying sometimes. Strange that good-intentioned positive thinking can cause just as much pain as negative thinking. Why? Because both are skews of what is real. All dreams come to an end. Or was that too real?