I think is only slightly ironic that the word lonely appears in the title of this blog, but it took me nearly a year and a half to finally say something about this overhanging problem.
The original intent of the lonely in the title of this blog was that in January 2013 I had gone through a tumultuous 2013 where I left the comfort of high school and my adopted hometown, Paarl, where I was respected and loved. I entered the New World for the very first time with no one there from the life I had lived prior to that point. It was only then, mid the newness, that I realized how socially isolated I was.
I have never publicly admitted this before, but part of the reason for my insatiable drive to be the best in the world in athletics was that I knew people would interact with me and that I would "gain love and respect" this way. To be frank, that still is part of the reason for my drive to be the best in my sport. Numerous factors (which will be too much for one blog to dive into) created a perfect storm where the appeal of fame and the respect and love associated with living a publicly significant life became a very appealing position for me to be in. For some reason, this idea rests in my being that unless I am significant in many peoples eyes then I am a failure. I know being externally motivated is not per se the best way to approach success, life and sport, but it would be wrong to not admit that I am motivated why the social aspects of sporting glory. Maybe that's why the prevailing feeling in my heart, the feeling of shame, ruled in my heart after my less-than-perfect debut at Nationals a month ago.
Going back to the point on loneliness in a new part in my life in America, when you go somewhere where no one knows you, your hard-sought for reputation might just as well never have existed. I actually needed to reach out to other peoples lives for the first time. Too bad I didn't do that in the beginning of my American odyssey. I didn't admit it, but I was very alone and obviously not admitting to a problem makes it nigh impossible to ever solve it. However, after the efforts of my parents, I committed to change this loneliness since June 2013. I have come so so far, but am still far away from being liberated from social isolation.
I now have friends and teammates at South Alabama that have become so important to me. I actually recall a moment from the Spring semester where one friend asked me at the lunch table at the caf where I would want to be right now if I could be anywhere in the world. It might have seemed cheesy or insincere but I said that I wanted to be nowhere else in the world. Just prior to the question being asked of me I remember thinking, "Wow, I am so content right now. My lunch table was surrounded by people I care for and respect and I am sure the think the same of me." I thought the same during my birthday party last semester where 21 friends and teammates celebrated my 21st at Buffalo Wild Wings. It's interesting, ever singe semester at South Alabama has been better than the one that preceded it. Every semester I ask God how He can keep these blessings on coming - when will this end? I couldn't go on forever? I just feel so blessed.
The thing is, this summer semester has been quite lonely. Almost all my people are out of town during these hot, stormy months. I often find myself resorting to solitary video games or YouTube videos to fill the hole left in my time that used to be spent around the cafeteria table sharing in memories with the people of South. I guess my social ability has regressed somewhat in the past two months because I spend most of my time hoping for and dreaming of August when everybody will be back.
To finish off proceedings I must say that it is only in these moments of separation from my people that I realise that I am not lonely anymore. That's a seemingly contradictory statement, as I am now literally alone, but I describe myself as not so. For the first time in my life (well, maybe not the first time, but we humans have a bias towards the present) I desire to with people. I always denied this within me; the seeds of being a citizen of an overly individualistic culture left me with fully blossomed disconnect from other humans. We humans are made for interaction, for other people, to cherish and to share with others, but modern day extreme individualism has told us that you don't need others. Man is the measure of all things, not men, apparently. Though this summer has helped me to start the breaking free process from the destructive asocial ideal of Western culture. I DO miss my family back home, I DO miss my friends, teammates and the familiarity of seeing known faces as I bike across campus. My atonement from Social Anxiety Disorder has reached a new mile marker - I now truly know that I am made for others and that without others there is not much to my existence except survival. Where we not made to thrive instead of survive?
Longingly
TheLonelyman
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Friday, 12 June 2015
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
I write now mere hours after finishing in an abysmal 20th place at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon in the discus throw having been ranked 8th or 9th. I had my third shortest meet of the year and it's really tough to deal with all the negativity in my head right now. In fact, I have developed quite the headache.
Let me go on a good old ramble because this is probably the thing I need most right now. This was my 3rd major sub-par meet in my life. I came 5th at the IAAF World Youth Championships in 2011, having been ranked 2nd. I finished 15th at the IAAF World Junior Championships in 2012, having been ranked 8th. And now today, my lowest ever position on any level in any discus competition. My previous worst was that 15th from 2012. I have received gut punch after gut punch at the major meets. The worst part was that I trained so well on Tuesday at Hayward Field. If I had one of those throws today, it would have been much different. Yet, that's not how life and sport work. There is no prize for winning training sessions. Unless your effort is displayed on the big screen and in terms of medals about your neck, there is no glory. This is a terribly hard thing about athletics. You can fixate yourself on something for years (9 and a half for me) and then seem like a fricken noob on competition day. After my performance today, you wouldn't think that I actually had a really good season so far with many breakthroughs and firsts. Yet the pain of inadequacy and under-performance looms awfully large. It was embarrassing to be on the field today after my third and final attempt. The 11 000 people in the stands must have wondered what this effeminate guy was trying to do - competing with men? Bah!
I now, more fully, understand the pain of higher level sport. Man oh man, I now feel so deeply for the Brazil footballers after bowing out to Germany in the World Cup semis (does 7-1 ring a bell?). I remember sitting in a tent right after the discus - gruesome thoughts were mulling through my seared mind. I was doubting my worth as an athlete and actually as a human. I already struggle with a brittle self-esteem because of negative thought patterns (such as an inferiority complex) I have had for many years. Believe me, I am fighting these ancient negative thought patterns very hard and I have made great strides but losses such as today only seem to scratch open old painful wounds. I guess, I still have much work to do (to overcome these old demons) because the man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right. It's all in my hands but there are still times when the ancient titans are too strong for the contemporary heroes. That's one thing I have learned about neurosis and mental struggles - you never truly eradicate them from your history. You only better learn to tie them down and inoculate them before they can attack. If you let your guard down for just a tad too long, the neurosis is back in it's full evil glory, but this time with a fervent determination to make up for lost time. My biggest battle has always been with self-esteem (most prominently social self-esteem) and to a lesser extent self-worth. So, until the end of time I will have to teach myself to consider myself worthy of another person's time and, maybe one day, know that I am worthy of another's life. Yet, that future Avalon/Valhalla/Sovngard/Utopia/Paradise is still a distant one for me.
I join the ranks of The Fallen once more. Once more I am subject to the annals of history where... no, wait there are no records kept of The Fallen. The moment they depart us from this Good Earth they are made a distant memory, slowly disappearing from history as the rememberers are sent into the abyss themselves. Ere the midnight strike, we are but gone from even being a byword for the greatest historians. We are lost. Gone. Forsaken from time. Such is the story of failure. Such are the struggles of not achieving. Such and so are the days of our lives. The feast and the famine. The light and the dark. The victor and the vanquished. The Yin and the Yang. The life and the death. Ashes to ashes we flow as leaves tossed to and fro in the perpetual winds of time - only to be brought hence by fate and chance.
If it is fate and chance, then this must be our destiny? Or maybe we tell ourselves this is our destiny so that we do not have to more truly accept the horror of reality? Reality bears an inconvenient truth that can topple empires and annihilate nations, but those who embrace it are deemed free. For the truth will set you free, but never was it said that the truth will cast you in the everlasting lake of bliss. Nay, the truth only lets the veil over our eyes be cleaved asunder and allows us to breathe, to look, to hear, to smell, to taste, to love, to hate and to experience more fully, more authentically. As someone who appreciates authenticity more than almost anything in this life - it's a blissful death. It's beautiful to die consumed in the reality. To know that you finally know beyond any doubt.
Yet, I cannot say that I know, but I will suppose for now is that this Shadow that has encompassed me round about can maybe mean something to you. Maybe my lamentations of my life and the honesty whereby I make these innards so public to the world might make you realize that there is another who struggles - just like you. I feel the depth of the field of the pain, both in the emotional and physical realm, of yours.
I must take a moment to say sorry. As I said in my most recent post on Facebook, this may be an individual sport, but without other people it would be pointless. I am sorry for building up your hopes and then fail thereupon. I am sorry I had to take away all the time and money that was spent on taking me to this meet away from someone else who might have done far greater things. I am sorry for everybody who has to read to this and be saddened. I am sorry for all those who will attempt to console me. I am sorry for taking your time. Most of all I am sorry to my parents. Anders as myself, het ek sekerlik vir julle die meeste teleurgestel. Ek wens ek kan net een dag vir 'n slag met oorwinning huis toe kom sodat ek darem kan probeer om vir al jul opofferings iets terug te bring. Die NCAA trofee sou vir julle wees, maar helaas.
However, know also that this train ain't stoppin'. We may have returned this campaign dead on our shield back to our abode, but that is only the physical body. The mind and the soul still lives on. It may be that the flame of this soul that has burned so bright and hot before has lost some of it's Kelvin and Lux, but I am here and I still live. For now, the catharsis and lamentations will run their course, but the flame of this revolution will not be stilled so easily. Get thee hence, Satan, for I know my God has given me the strength to overcome this. And so I shall, that maybe if the only mark I left upon this world would be that I kept going, I never surrendered, I never lost the war and most of all, that I ran (threw?) the race until the very finish line - not an inkling before, but certainly anything beyond; albeit I receive no reward at the end of it, as long as it bodes well for the End of All Days. Onward, to a new dawn, however long this night may still be; this shadow is only a passing thing - for our day will come.
From The Fallen
TheLonelyman
Let me go on a good old ramble because this is probably the thing I need most right now. This was my 3rd major sub-par meet in my life. I came 5th at the IAAF World Youth Championships in 2011, having been ranked 2nd. I finished 15th at the IAAF World Junior Championships in 2012, having been ranked 8th. And now today, my lowest ever position on any level in any discus competition. My previous worst was that 15th from 2012. I have received gut punch after gut punch at the major meets. The worst part was that I trained so well on Tuesday at Hayward Field. If I had one of those throws today, it would have been much different. Yet, that's not how life and sport work. There is no prize for winning training sessions. Unless your effort is displayed on the big screen and in terms of medals about your neck, there is no glory. This is a terribly hard thing about athletics. You can fixate yourself on something for years (9 and a half for me) and then seem like a fricken noob on competition day. After my performance today, you wouldn't think that I actually had a really good season so far with many breakthroughs and firsts. Yet the pain of inadequacy and under-performance looms awfully large. It was embarrassing to be on the field today after my third and final attempt. The 11 000 people in the stands must have wondered what this effeminate guy was trying to do - competing with men? Bah!
I now, more fully, understand the pain of higher level sport. Man oh man, I now feel so deeply for the Brazil footballers after bowing out to Germany in the World Cup semis (does 7-1 ring a bell?). I remember sitting in a tent right after the discus - gruesome thoughts were mulling through my seared mind. I was doubting my worth as an athlete and actually as a human. I already struggle with a brittle self-esteem because of negative thought patterns (such as an inferiority complex) I have had for many years. Believe me, I am fighting these ancient negative thought patterns very hard and I have made great strides but losses such as today only seem to scratch open old painful wounds. I guess, I still have much work to do (to overcome these old demons) because the man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right. It's all in my hands but there are still times when the ancient titans are too strong for the contemporary heroes. That's one thing I have learned about neurosis and mental struggles - you never truly eradicate them from your history. You only better learn to tie them down and inoculate them before they can attack. If you let your guard down for just a tad too long, the neurosis is back in it's full evil glory, but this time with a fervent determination to make up for lost time. My biggest battle has always been with self-esteem (most prominently social self-esteem) and to a lesser extent self-worth. So, until the end of time I will have to teach myself to consider myself worthy of another person's time and, maybe one day, know that I am worthy of another's life. Yet, that future Avalon/Valhalla/Sovngard/Utopia/Paradise is still a distant one for me.
I join the ranks of The Fallen once more. Once more I am subject to the annals of history where... no, wait there are no records kept of The Fallen. The moment they depart us from this Good Earth they are made a distant memory, slowly disappearing from history as the rememberers are sent into the abyss themselves. Ere the midnight strike, we are but gone from even being a byword for the greatest historians. We are lost. Gone. Forsaken from time. Such is the story of failure. Such are the struggles of not achieving. Such and so are the days of our lives. The feast and the famine. The light and the dark. The victor and the vanquished. The Yin and the Yang. The life and the death. Ashes to ashes we flow as leaves tossed to and fro in the perpetual winds of time - only to be brought hence by fate and chance.
If it is fate and chance, then this must be our destiny? Or maybe we tell ourselves this is our destiny so that we do not have to more truly accept the horror of reality? Reality bears an inconvenient truth that can topple empires and annihilate nations, but those who embrace it are deemed free. For the truth will set you free, but never was it said that the truth will cast you in the everlasting lake of bliss. Nay, the truth only lets the veil over our eyes be cleaved asunder and allows us to breathe, to look, to hear, to smell, to taste, to love, to hate and to experience more fully, more authentically. As someone who appreciates authenticity more than almost anything in this life - it's a blissful death. It's beautiful to die consumed in the reality. To know that you finally know beyond any doubt.
Yet, I cannot say that I know, but I will suppose for now is that this Shadow that has encompassed me round about can maybe mean something to you. Maybe my lamentations of my life and the honesty whereby I make these innards so public to the world might make you realize that there is another who struggles - just like you. I feel the depth of the field of the pain, both in the emotional and physical realm, of yours.
I must take a moment to say sorry. As I said in my most recent post on Facebook, this may be an individual sport, but without other people it would be pointless. I am sorry for building up your hopes and then fail thereupon. I am sorry I had to take away all the time and money that was spent on taking me to this meet away from someone else who might have done far greater things. I am sorry for everybody who has to read to this and be saddened. I am sorry for all those who will attempt to console me. I am sorry for taking your time. Most of all I am sorry to my parents. Anders as myself, het ek sekerlik vir julle die meeste teleurgestel. Ek wens ek kan net een dag vir 'n slag met oorwinning huis toe kom sodat ek darem kan probeer om vir al jul opofferings iets terug te bring. Die NCAA trofee sou vir julle wees, maar helaas.
However, know also that this train ain't stoppin'. We may have returned this campaign dead on our shield back to our abode, but that is only the physical body. The mind and the soul still lives on. It may be that the flame of this soul that has burned so bright and hot before has lost some of it's Kelvin and Lux, but I am here and I still live. For now, the catharsis and lamentations will run their course, but the flame of this revolution will not be stilled so easily. Get thee hence, Satan, for I know my God has given me the strength to overcome this. And so I shall, that maybe if the only mark I left upon this world would be that I kept going, I never surrendered, I never lost the war and most of all, that I ran (threw?) the race until the very finish line - not an inkling before, but certainly anything beyond; albeit I receive no reward at the end of it, as long as it bodes well for the End of All Days. Onward, to a new dawn, however long this night may still be; this shadow is only a passing thing - for our day will come.
From The Fallen
TheLonelyman
Monday, 25 May 2015
Between Two Worlds; The Struggle of a Foreigner Growing Away From Home
There is one major problem with that awkward period between the end of Spring semester and the start of Summer school, one has far too much time at hand. Normally, I do some quick scrolls through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the semester, but when you have no classes and not too many commitments to attend do, you find yourself extending those quick scrolls to deep, lengthy analysis of the lives of others who appear on your timeline. Yet, no paper is published, no peer discussion groups are started, instead, all of the study builds up in one's head. The twisting kaleidoscope of thoughts, information, feelings and memories evoke a full spectrum of emotion. Old enemies are doing well and you feel terrible for not going for alliance instead of steely relations. Old flames transcend the fears you had of them, making you doubt why you decided to extinguish that flame in the first place. Some are still stuck in the emerging adulthood limbo of finding a way in this life. Some are sporting shiny rings on the fingers and others a shiny new four wheel toy to show of their mastery of worshipping the capitalist Empire.
I am a great lover of Facebook, it has allowed me to gain access to entire new worlds which I ne'er would have found myself in. Indeed, I am now in that world which previously was only something I could live vicariously through the shiny faces on the television. Being in this new world of America has removed me from the my native world - South Africa. I look through the pictures and videos and see how I miss out on the struggles and triumphs of my culture and my people.
The murder of farmers is a big ol' problem in my country. Thousands have been killed since rebirth of '94. Yet, recently a movie has been made to highlight and bring together all sides of the divide - the killers and the killed. I can only imagine how this movie will swoop farm murders into the foreground of national discourse in my beloved nation. Maybe this will improve things? I won't be there to see it. I will be living vicariously through the lives of Facebook friends who are on the forefront of the struggle and some even in the backseat of the struggle.
I see how young adults of my age in South Africa start to reach the Spring of their lives. The young women have reached the zenith of beauty, which, as we know too well, only cascades downwards from hence (even though I personally find the height of a woman's beauty to be in the mid to late thirties). The bad boys from school are finding their way in this life - realizing that their rebellion was merely a yearning for the discovery of their higher purpose which the identity moratorium (as we like to call it in Psychology) of the teenage years finally has brought them too. They are now ready to engage with the true manhood which is ambition, drive and passion.
Part of being a human and being part of a culture or a nation is that you get to share in it's highlights and lowlights. I can boast about my people having caused the British their most costly war since Napoleon one hundred years ago, but I must also hang my head in the shame to the fact that we only ended Apartheid 21 years ago and woefully suppressed a people - which is biting us right in the ass now. Our struggle nowadays is towards reconciliation and solidarity. I sit here in America and look onwards as the people who have been left behind try and fight this fight. If all goes well and we can truly unify our country, I cannot tell my children that I was part of this struggle. I was away, frolicking overseas, trying to get an education and experience some of the New World.
It's sad that I lose my part in the evolution of my culture. I can only support artists, musicians and filmmakers from 13 000kms away. Maybe that gives me the chance to spread the ideals, hopes and dreams of my people to a far removed place. Maybe that's why I am on these yonder shores.
Though, I can say it is not all bad. As you slowly feel your own people and culture slip from your identity, you have the need to replace that all with something new. So, I place America in my mindset and make that part of my identity. I learn about the struggles the common man faces here. I learn what concerns them, I learn what it is like to be them, I learn what makes them happy. By immersing yourself so fully in the culture and lives of others, you cannot help but feel that you become part of them. As each year ticks by, I feel myself more concerned and closer to the matters of the United States. Of course, the matters of home is still within me, but my personal experience of the happenings of my own people becomes ever more outdated with the passage of time.
Eventually the stories of the those around you become more important than those who were around you. You find yourself in a tension of opposites - the past, the culture you left behind and how it formed you and then the present, the possible future and how the present culture is challenging and changing you. The question is how to you act in the midst of this tension filled environment? Do I let go and let the concerns and ideas of the now absorb me and make me one of its own, or do I hold tight to tension that binds me to the past and it's reflected glory?
As ever, the answer is probably answerable by the Greeks. "Nothing in excess." the timeless maxim sounds out from Athens' ageless stones. Appreciate the formative power of the yesteryears, but envelop yourself in the new culture as well.
As for me though, I am still more bound to home than not, but, no doubt, I can feel the tension drawing me back thence weaken by the year. Where will the Great Decider take me?
Only his greatest equalizer could tell me - time.
Carry on, my wayward son
TheLonelyman
I am a great lover of Facebook, it has allowed me to gain access to entire new worlds which I ne'er would have found myself in. Indeed, I am now in that world which previously was only something I could live vicariously through the shiny faces on the television. Being in this new world of America has removed me from the my native world - South Africa. I look through the pictures and videos and see how I miss out on the struggles and triumphs of my culture and my people.
The murder of farmers is a big ol' problem in my country. Thousands have been killed since rebirth of '94. Yet, recently a movie has been made to highlight and bring together all sides of the divide - the killers and the killed. I can only imagine how this movie will swoop farm murders into the foreground of national discourse in my beloved nation. Maybe this will improve things? I won't be there to see it. I will be living vicariously through the lives of Facebook friends who are on the forefront of the struggle and some even in the backseat of the struggle.
I see how young adults of my age in South Africa start to reach the Spring of their lives. The young women have reached the zenith of beauty, which, as we know too well, only cascades downwards from hence (even though I personally find the height of a woman's beauty to be in the mid to late thirties). The bad boys from school are finding their way in this life - realizing that their rebellion was merely a yearning for the discovery of their higher purpose which the identity moratorium (as we like to call it in Psychology) of the teenage years finally has brought them too. They are now ready to engage with the true manhood which is ambition, drive and passion.
Part of being a human and being part of a culture or a nation is that you get to share in it's highlights and lowlights. I can boast about my people having caused the British their most costly war since Napoleon one hundred years ago, but I must also hang my head in the shame to the fact that we only ended Apartheid 21 years ago and woefully suppressed a people - which is biting us right in the ass now. Our struggle nowadays is towards reconciliation and solidarity. I sit here in America and look onwards as the people who have been left behind try and fight this fight. If all goes well and we can truly unify our country, I cannot tell my children that I was part of this struggle. I was away, frolicking overseas, trying to get an education and experience some of the New World.
It's sad that I lose my part in the evolution of my culture. I can only support artists, musicians and filmmakers from 13 000kms away. Maybe that gives me the chance to spread the ideals, hopes and dreams of my people to a far removed place. Maybe that's why I am on these yonder shores.
Though, I can say it is not all bad. As you slowly feel your own people and culture slip from your identity, you have the need to replace that all with something new. So, I place America in my mindset and make that part of my identity. I learn about the struggles the common man faces here. I learn what concerns them, I learn what it is like to be them, I learn what makes them happy. By immersing yourself so fully in the culture and lives of others, you cannot help but feel that you become part of them. As each year ticks by, I feel myself more concerned and closer to the matters of the United States. Of course, the matters of home is still within me, but my personal experience of the happenings of my own people becomes ever more outdated with the passage of time.
Eventually the stories of the those around you become more important than those who were around you. You find yourself in a tension of opposites - the past, the culture you left behind and how it formed you and then the present, the possible future and how the present culture is challenging and changing you. The question is how to you act in the midst of this tension filled environment? Do I let go and let the concerns and ideas of the now absorb me and make me one of its own, or do I hold tight to tension that binds me to the past and it's reflected glory?
As ever, the answer is probably answerable by the Greeks. "Nothing in excess." the timeless maxim sounds out from Athens' ageless stones. Appreciate the formative power of the yesteryears, but envelop yourself in the new culture as well.
As for me though, I am still more bound to home than not, but, no doubt, I can feel the tension drawing me back thence weaken by the year. Where will the Great Decider take me?
Only his greatest equalizer could tell me - time.
Carry on, my wayward son
TheLonelyman
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Sunday Evening Musings of the Unloved
Something I find myself thinking about far more than I should is love. Then again, can one really think too much about such a powerful force? It shaped history like none other and even God likes love so much that he equated Himself thereto. Maybe my thoughts are spurned on more by the fact that I have been on the lesser end of love, rather than the greater end. I should say that never have I lacked love from my God, my family, my friends, my community, my team, my teachers, etc. If anything, I sometimes feel as though the Almighty might have dealt me unfairly too much love from these wonderful people. The thought process is, "Maybe someone else needs or deserves this love more than I do?" The average person would spring into action and quickly curtail my questioning soul and let me understand that this is a destructive thought process.
I suppose more than anything in this life, our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, shapes us and our worlds. Love is fundamental to the human experience. To live therewithout is not to live at all. Whenever, therefore, we start to doubt the love that is already within our lives, your average person would try and upend those thoughts long before they start to manifest and fester and inflame and infect.
Yet, as I indicated before, I thankfully lack not in the caring variant of love, what I do lack is the romantic, the companionate love which 90% of all literature, entertainment and art is devoted to exploring more deeply. I make this common knowledge in my conversations with others, but, at the time this essay is published, I, as 21 year old heterosexual male, have never been in a relationship before. I know not the lips of another. Is this situation brought about entirely by one factor? Nay, for all of life is interaction. By this I mean that in every conceivable situation (except mathematics) there is more than one explanation as to why what we behold is at it is. I am single partly due to lack of salient opportunities, partly due to fear, partly due to perceived inability, partly due to perceived unworthiness, partly due to idealism, partly due to romanticism and partly due to commitments to being the best I can be for the person I am to, hopefully, eventually share love with.
I have that unique vantage point (which, frankly, all of us have for a large part of the initial stages of our lives) of not really knowing the depths, the feasts and the famines of romantic, companionate love. As is human nature, one tends to ponder much about things which one has not, unless one comes to acceptance and absolution of the situation in question. Clearly, I am not in acceptance of a lack of love. When Wilde pens "The curves of your lips rewrite history." I am driven to the power and effect that a kiss can have. When The Perks of Being a Wallflower delineates that "in that moment we were infinite" I desire to feel, to experience this sense of mortal immortality. When Grey's Anatomy questions love, "'I'm afraid it's going to destroy me.' 'It's not love if it doesn't.'" I am intrigued and enticed to know more about this immaculate force that has the ability to conceive and create human life, but also seems to destroy it as readily. When U2 and Bono sing, "I felt the healing in her fingertips." my soul almost lusts after the touch of another that can potentially obliterate all my fears and anxieties in a such a simple gesture.
Being without and being constantly told what it is to be therewith, one cannot help but be desirous of being therewith. Will I stay in my stay perpetually? I do hope not, but what I hope even more than being relieved of my lack is that I may be relieved in God's Good Time.
Love is what I want. It is what all who tread this Earth want, for it is hard to argue against something that is felt so strongly - such is, has been and always will be the story of love.
Love
TheLonelyman
I suppose more than anything in this life, our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, shapes us and our worlds. Love is fundamental to the human experience. To live therewithout is not to live at all. Whenever, therefore, we start to doubt the love that is already within our lives, your average person would try and upend those thoughts long before they start to manifest and fester and inflame and infect.
Yet, as I indicated before, I thankfully lack not in the caring variant of love, what I do lack is the romantic, the companionate love which 90% of all literature, entertainment and art is devoted to exploring more deeply. I make this common knowledge in my conversations with others, but, at the time this essay is published, I, as 21 year old heterosexual male, have never been in a relationship before. I know not the lips of another. Is this situation brought about entirely by one factor? Nay, for all of life is interaction. By this I mean that in every conceivable situation (except mathematics) there is more than one explanation as to why what we behold is at it is. I am single partly due to lack of salient opportunities, partly due to fear, partly due to perceived inability, partly due to perceived unworthiness, partly due to idealism, partly due to romanticism and partly due to commitments to being the best I can be for the person I am to, hopefully, eventually share love with.
I have that unique vantage point (which, frankly, all of us have for a large part of the initial stages of our lives) of not really knowing the depths, the feasts and the famines of romantic, companionate love. As is human nature, one tends to ponder much about things which one has not, unless one comes to acceptance and absolution of the situation in question. Clearly, I am not in acceptance of a lack of love. When Wilde pens "The curves of your lips rewrite history." I am driven to the power and effect that a kiss can have. When The Perks of Being a Wallflower delineates that "in that moment we were infinite" I desire to feel, to experience this sense of mortal immortality. When Grey's Anatomy questions love, "'I'm afraid it's going to destroy me.' 'It's not love if it doesn't.'" I am intrigued and enticed to know more about this immaculate force that has the ability to conceive and create human life, but also seems to destroy it as readily. When U2 and Bono sing, "I felt the healing in her fingertips." my soul almost lusts after the touch of another that can potentially obliterate all my fears and anxieties in a such a simple gesture.
Being without and being constantly told what it is to be therewith, one cannot help but be desirous of being therewith. Will I stay in my stay perpetually? I do hope not, but what I hope even more than being relieved of my lack is that I may be relieved in God's Good Time.
Love is what I want. It is what all who tread this Earth want, for it is hard to argue against something that is felt so strongly - such is, has been and always will be the story of love.
Love
TheLonelyman
Thursday, 26 February 2015
F.E.A.R.
The word fear was perched nice and high on the white board behind my laptop above my desk. I look at this white board (aptly named "The Situation Room") numerous times a day, as I plan my week on it. I also have a small section on the board where I place ideas and other long-term to dos. Fear was one of the topics which I have resolved to post about for quite some time now.
Why? Well, it has been a driving force in my own life and to know fear is to know me better.
Elliott Hulse, one of the great YouTubers and "philosophers" of our time, once said on a video of his (if I remember correctly!) that in this life we have two major driving forces - fear and vision. The idea is that almost all the things we do is related to fear or vision somehow. Fear is self explanatory and I will come to it, but vision is less so. By vision he means your dreams, your hopes, your desires for your own, your family's, someone or something's future. If you envision yourself to be the person who finally gets all nations to agree on a comprehensive deal that will curb Global Warming, you will wake up each morning doing things to realize that vision. I a sense you could say that you
are driven by the fact that you do not want the image you see in your brain to remain bound to fiction anymore. You want it to be born. You are thus a creator. This can obviously be good or bad as someone may envision becoming an evil mastermind.
Returning to fear, I know that my life has always been a tension of opposites - fear v vision. I am the man in the middle of two great forces pulling on me from distant ends. For much of it, fear has been the dominant opposite. Revealing emotions to others for example is a fear. Maybe I am going to eat and on the way I see trash lying on the ground or I see someone throwing trash on the ground, I get upset. Walking on, someone stares at me for no apparent reason - anger builds. By the time I reach place of eating, I might be quite frustrated and borderline angry at all the small things that happened. A friend wonders why I am so quiet and I just say that I am always quiet.
Really though it is fear that prevents me from saying what really happens. I know that if I let my walls come down and tell the person "I just hate it when people stare at me for no apparent reason" or "It really is hard for my to see wastefulness and pollution." there might be further questions. "Why do you have a problem with starting people?" "Why do you care about one bit of trash?"
Obviously as the questions explore the undergrowth of psyche even more I might start showing the societally determined negative emotions sadness and anger.
No, people shouldn't see my angry or sad because that would require too much explaining which might force me to show more emotion. So, I put on the old mask of introversion, detachment and stoicism. No emotion, no feelings - no questions.
I thank God that this fear is weakening within me and I am much more open about my feelings than ever before, but it's still a long way from being where it can be. As many of you know, I have/had social phobia. An example might be that someone visits our house (even if it's someone I know) and I run to my room when I see them at the gate. I stand in my room knowing that this fear is nonsensical and baseless, but I can't seem to move towards the door where I will be seen. That old enemy fear grabs hold and anchors me to the ground. The vision of me being a confident, expressive and assertive (yet sensitive, empathetic and caring) you man pulls my thoughts toward how I will walk out of my room, greet the visitor to our house and converse. I am slap-bang in the middle of the tension of opposites; fear pulls me to the comfort of my bed and browsing the internet whereas visions pulls me over the edge of my comfort zone. For a camera focused on me, I seem almost frozen (stoic, detached, introverted) but for the Great Storyteller who can see the workings of my thought and feelings know that the tension of the opposites are near breaking point within me.
How did this situation end? An external force got me out of my room and then I seem awkward as the decision was made for me and the tension of opposites never truly got resolved. With enough of these my vision becomes dependent on the external force and we all know that's not the best way to go about things. True change and improvement can only come if it is from within. Don't get me wrong, more often than not we need those external forces to shove us in the right direction and let us know that fear is pulling is far too strongly and we are being pulled away from the vision. Sometimes we can only know this when an outsider can look upon us and see what we cannot see. This can only be done if we let those walls come down and let people know what's going on.
It should be mentioned that someone else might be pulled by fear and might cause you to be pulled by fear even stronger, but generally the people in your life really wants you to move closer to that vision. Let them do that.
I thank my family that they have always handled this situation really well for me. Now I am far more able to regulate the tension of opposites truly on my own.
As a final note not all fear motivations are bad (researching cancer because you want to have a cure when you or a family member is afflicted is a good motivation), but it is down to each of us to know when to gravitated fearwards or visionwards and other people can help us do that.
Face Each Affliction Readily
TheLonelyman
Why? Well, it has been a driving force in my own life and to know fear is to know me better.
Elliott Hulse, one of the great YouTubers and "philosophers" of our time, once said on a video of his (if I remember correctly!) that in this life we have two major driving forces - fear and vision. The idea is that almost all the things we do is related to fear or vision somehow. Fear is self explanatory and I will come to it, but vision is less so. By vision he means your dreams, your hopes, your desires for your own, your family's, someone or something's future. If you envision yourself to be the person who finally gets all nations to agree on a comprehensive deal that will curb Global Warming, you will wake up each morning doing things to realize that vision. I a sense you could say that you
are driven by the fact that you do not want the image you see in your brain to remain bound to fiction anymore. You want it to be born. You are thus a creator. This can obviously be good or bad as someone may envision becoming an evil mastermind.
Returning to fear, I know that my life has always been a tension of opposites - fear v vision. I am the man in the middle of two great forces pulling on me from distant ends. For much of it, fear has been the dominant opposite. Revealing emotions to others for example is a fear. Maybe I am going to eat and on the way I see trash lying on the ground or I see someone throwing trash on the ground, I get upset. Walking on, someone stares at me for no apparent reason - anger builds. By the time I reach place of eating, I might be quite frustrated and borderline angry at all the small things that happened. A friend wonders why I am so quiet and I just say that I am always quiet.
Really though it is fear that prevents me from saying what really happens. I know that if I let my walls come down and tell the person "I just hate it when people stare at me for no apparent reason" or "It really is hard for my to see wastefulness and pollution." there might be further questions. "Why do you have a problem with starting people?" "Why do you care about one bit of trash?"
Obviously as the questions explore the undergrowth of psyche even more I might start showing the societally determined negative emotions sadness and anger.
No, people shouldn't see my angry or sad because that would require too much explaining which might force me to show more emotion. So, I put on the old mask of introversion, detachment and stoicism. No emotion, no feelings - no questions.
I thank God that this fear is weakening within me and I am much more open about my feelings than ever before, but it's still a long way from being where it can be. As many of you know, I have/had social phobia. An example might be that someone visits our house (even if it's someone I know) and I run to my room when I see them at the gate. I stand in my room knowing that this fear is nonsensical and baseless, but I can't seem to move towards the door where I will be seen. That old enemy fear grabs hold and anchors me to the ground. The vision of me being a confident, expressive and assertive (yet sensitive, empathetic and caring) you man pulls my thoughts toward how I will walk out of my room, greet the visitor to our house and converse. I am slap-bang in the middle of the tension of opposites; fear pulls me to the comfort of my bed and browsing the internet whereas visions pulls me over the edge of my comfort zone. For a camera focused on me, I seem almost frozen (stoic, detached, introverted) but for the Great Storyteller who can see the workings of my thought and feelings know that the tension of the opposites are near breaking point within me.
How did this situation end? An external force got me out of my room and then I seem awkward as the decision was made for me and the tension of opposites never truly got resolved. With enough of these my vision becomes dependent on the external force and we all know that's not the best way to go about things. True change and improvement can only come if it is from within. Don't get me wrong, more often than not we need those external forces to shove us in the right direction and let us know that fear is pulling is far too strongly and we are being pulled away from the vision. Sometimes we can only know this when an outsider can look upon us and see what we cannot see. This can only be done if we let those walls come down and let people know what's going on.
It should be mentioned that someone else might be pulled by fear and might cause you to be pulled by fear even stronger, but generally the people in your life really wants you to move closer to that vision. Let them do that.
I thank my family that they have always handled this situation really well for me. Now I am far more able to regulate the tension of opposites truly on my own.
As a final note not all fear motivations are bad (researching cancer because you want to have a cure when you or a family member is afflicted is a good motivation), but it is down to each of us to know when to gravitated fearwards or visionwards and other people can help us do that.
Face Each Affliction Readily
TheLonelyman
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