This is a very personal post. You have been warned.
Out at the train tracks
I dream of escape
But a song comes onto my iPod
And I realize it’s getting late
And I can’t take the staring
And the sympathy
And I don’t like the questions “How do you feel?”
“How’s it going in school?”
And “Do you wanna talk about it?”
Porcupine Tree – Way out of Here
We are an odd species, and surely I cannot put enough emphasis on that remark so that it really illustrates the feeling I am trying to convey.
Let’s start by saying that I qualify as a Protagonist and that I often tend to consider other peoples’ interests and feelings way before my own. Sometimes it’s very fucked up. I can clearly look back and find some of the choices I made in the past that still impact my everyday life, putting the wrong kind of emphasis on less positive aspects and kind of hindering some other parts.
“Hey… that’s life” I keep telling myself. You win some, lose others but still keep up fighting “the good fight”. And that’s just fine And learning to love yourself after difficult choices is a process per se, but the only real path out of the dead marshes of self-doubt and despair.
Yet somedays, when looking at the proverbial stars, I cannot keep wondering how any omission of action from my end, again motivated by the ripple it could cause on others’ lives, could have had a surprising result. After all, life is, I guess, procedurally generated according to the nodes we decide to activate on a given instant (yeah, I’m such a nerd).
I wrote something similar in the past, and quite frankly it was a great eye opener and catalyst of change in some part. You see, again due to my personality, I tend to live by my words, and by writing public posts about my feelings and beliefs I feel motivated to follow them and push forward my own, self-imposed, mental barriers. Call it therapy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So where does this leave us (by ‘us’ I mean you, dear reader, and me)?
How long
Is the pattern going to speak for you
How far can your voice reach
Your song below the night
From my view
I can see you
Shudder where you are standing
In the vision
Cyan blue
Katatonia – Lethean
I honestly don’t know. But let’s do some analysis on this and try to make a few assumptions and define new nodes and pathways.
I know for a fact that inability to respond or repeated lack of action has been an incredible eye opener and I definitely have learned a lot from that. So let’s strike that from the list.
How long can winter
Color your every word
Katatonia – Lethean
Yes, for how long…
Just like when you are applying for jobs you get 1 response every X attempts (where X usually corresponds to dozens of attempts) one should not let past actions or fear of rejection project undesired outcomes in future possibilities.
“Do I know what I want? Can I express it in words?”
We should be able to respond to this, at least in a way that makes sense and is truthful to one’s values and beliefs. And when it is finally clear, even if just for a glimpse, we should stick to it.
So what’s the worse that can happen? Will you get hurt? Will someone else be hurt? What is the drawback of not acting?
Seems like something out of a SWOT analysis, but still, it’s not far from the truth. In fact, I consider this sort of approach as a sound mental exercise of cause -> effect. At the end of the day, and reflecting upon the words of my beloved stoics, if we reflect upon the worse outcomes of a given decision, then the end result will not have the same negative impact on us.
Yes, action is preferable to lack thereof. And if there’s a slight chance it could turn into something blissful for you and others then why not take the chance?
What do you think?
Defining Realities 