Caveperson

There really isn’t anything like the freedom of the road, which ever way you travel them. There’s an intersection I used to pass on my way home from Alex’s at night, back when I was still getting around on a bicycle, the streets wet with rain and the long reflected images of traffic lights over the asphalt, I don’t know why I always recall it, but it’s one I like, since we don’t pick our memories I guess, happy, sad or otherwise.

I forget a lot of things, like that after being inactive for a while, waiting for things to change, waiting for some passion or interest to come around is the worst way to handle the matter, I have to do start doing things yourself, especially when I’ve become stagnant. So I’ve done some good things this week, little things, nothing major, but, I’m regularly talking again, which I haven’t been for months, I’ve barely had a conversation for a long time now, and I think I’ve dwelled too much on the why, I think I’ve almost convinced myself silence is the best way, which it may be, but I stopped giving anything else a chance to see if I was wrong.

It’s not something one can really answer but how do you tell someone you’re, unsure of yourself? And, even if you tell them, what can you hope to come of telling them it?

I take pride in my control over myself, because I’ve worked at it, and because it’s my major goal, I knew what I wanted to achieve, even when I was a teenager, I didn’t want to be famous, an academic, to travel, to write, to change the world, nothing socially noble, what I wanted was to be happy. Which would then give me the platform to do the noble and passionate things that I want for myself and for others, and the terrible things I want for myself to be thoroughly honest.

I thought that if I was happy, I could then start looking at the world around me, working with that. It’s hard to contribute to the world when you’re struggling just to respect, to like yourself. 

The reality is that it’s hard to give when you don’t have anything, I know people who have gone into jobs that demand a lot of them, but I don’t think they’ve put the time or thought into making sure they’re good first, those jobs take so much out of them, you need a great deal of strength and confidence to be of help to another without it becoming detrimental to yourself. Eventually, worn down by others, you end up being of no help to anybody, I know plenty of people, generally older people, who have stopped contributing to the people around them, who no longer protect or help those they are surrounded by but actively take, harm, undermine and sabotage them. They weren’t bad people to begin with, a lot of them have spent their lives doing noble work, which they weren’t equipped to do, and it wore at them until they became husks of what they wanted to be, of who they were even. I don’t blame them, but I don’t make any excuses for them either. People are quite happy to take offence, entitlement, but responsibility, that’s rarely taken.

We are all naturally selfish, which is nothing to be ashamed of, it has to be that way, we’re designed to survive, even, or rather, particularly at the expense of others, giving is a learned trait, you aren’t born giving away the things you need to live, you do learn it though, a cultivated habit, and it is infatuating too, but again, often detrimental as well.

There’s a terrible, beautiful sadness to it though, this desire to help others because they know what it can be like when things are weighing on them, because they don’t want that for others, but, a hermit, a pauper, can’t protect much more than himself, you need a lot to be able to ensure the happiness, the protection, of others and not just yourself. Which is a hard truth. Nobody wins by being uprepared.