Rant # 2 - Image

Do you ever get so depressed that it actually becomes pleasurable to purposely do things to make you even more depressed? Do you ever get to the point where you finally realize something but can't admit it becase a) it was your fault in the first place and b) admitting anything would only give "them" the chance to say "I told you so"? They say you can't go home again, but is that really what you want? Do you ever find yourself waiting eagerly for the next clean start because you've fucked everything up so badly and waited too long to do anything about it that there's nothing left to do? Do you ever find yourself resigned to a lethaly insipid and average life that you never wanted in the first place but chained yourself to through lack of confidence and initiative?

I know I do. I know I am.

We can only see others through ourselves. I think we realize this and knowingly, purposely, chose not to acknowledge it. The faults we recognize in others are our own faults that grate most harshly against our projected self-image in our minds. What we don't like about others is in truth that which we don't like about ourselves and not a reflection of the others' imperfections. Still, it's more fun to criticize others than to criticize yourself, and I'm getting nowhere with this. I told her that they were like Suz and Ted in the worst way possible, and she understood me right away, with cries of sympathy. I can only hope that my observations were not an overt reaction to a part of me that has yet to manifest itself. And still, just because we see it in someone else doesn't necessarily mean it is also in us. Does it? Perhaps we were allowed to see it in them in order to fix it in ourselves. And so if the only parts of other people we see are reflections of ourselves, why is it that we still cannot fully see ourselves? And why can't we see other people for what they really are? Maybe then we could see the reflections of ourselves and know what we really are. Perhaps then, perhaps never. Perhaps thinking is useless. Does it ever frustrate you how much, in attempting our uniqueness, our diversity, we are all the same, we all conform to the same uniqueness? I know it frustrates me.

I know this (and know that this encompasses a rather large slice of time) frustrates me immensely. Is it completely useless to fight fate? I didn't even know that was what I was fighting. I didn't even believe that I was fighting at all.

I shall leave you with this to think about: "Elle avait ainsi fait sienne cette totale impuissance, cette passivité absolue. Ne faisant rien, elle avait revendiqué tout." -Carol Sheilds