“If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going.”

“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.”

—

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist

Welcome Me

Lately I’ve found myself… lost.

I mean everyone has been in their own way over the past year and half. Been there, said that. 

But when I feel stuck…or lost..or wandering…it’s not good. Not that it’s great for anyone. I just tend to spiral.

I’m losing touch of what makes me happy and honestly maybe what’s even scarier to me is that I’m losing a sense of what I want. And I don’t mean in life. I’ve never had any answers to that question. But rather whenever I make a decision lately, no matter how small or large, it’s like I’m looking at myself from outside my body. It’s a stranger making that decision. 

Maybe thats imposter syndrome. I’ve heard the term thrown about a few times here and there. But I’m trying to walk away from labeling myself, those around me, and behaviors. I feel like we as a society are teetering on the edge of the toxic thought process: “If we label it, we understand it.” Right now, I’m not caring too much about the diagnosis and more about the symptoms. 

Interestingly enough, I just remembered a take on relationship communication that connects nicely to that thought process. They (@kyleleejenner on tiktok) said that “more often than not, when your girlfriend is sharing a problem with you she’s probably talking about an emotional one….what she is feeling about the problem is actually more important to her than the problem itself. Therefore listening to her feelings will solve the problem. She doesn’t want your practical solutions right now.”

I don’t necessarily care about the label or maybe even to the solutions right now. But I do care that I feel this way. I care that it feels like I’m someone I’m not. I care that I’m worrying about regretting decisions. I care that what I think I’m feeling is not really how I’m feeling. 

I’m hoping writing my feelings will help to acknowledge how I’m feeling or even to discover how I’m truly feeling. Next steps will come later.

Like a candle

set aside in wait;

Etiolated,

no more than ornamental.

Its life comes to a stand still.

No purpose,

yet—

hopeful.

The true flames

erase time.

They engulf the deepest of feelings

one can conceive.

Defying common laws,

negativity

turns into bright flames.

Scorching hot...

...happiness?

Blinded by reason

follow the heat

slowly abating in corners of your body.

There,

lies truth.

There,

lie your answers.

Happiness is not far away.

On Suffering

It seems evident to me that all living creatures must, in some form or another, suffer. So ubiquitous is the evidence for this, that I am forced to believe that the ability to suffer is a requirement for life. Even the most basic life forms who have no mind or complex thought to speak of are able to feel or experience discomfort. This, I presume, is a necessity to ensure the continuation of the individual and of the entirety of life. The modern scientific definition of life is quite in agreement with this, in that it recognizes that for a something to be termed alive it must respond to external stimuli, pursuing that which promotes its well being and avoiding that which has an opposite effect. 

The complexity of a species, or of a being, determines the complexity of its problems. The most basic of life also has the most basic of needs and adversities. Our species, like all others, began with the simple task of surviving, procreating, and expanding. Harsh climates forced us to create clothes, hunger transformed us into better hunters, gatherers, and eventually cultivators. We learned and adapted but our problems did not disappear, they were only replaced. As society began and grew, so too did many new issues as a result. As we learn to solve those and in so doing manage to progress our way of life, new challenges arise creating a constant need for improvement. All life follows this pattern. Certain struggles are presented and life must either adapt or perish, and, in the case of the former, what follows are brand new challenges equal in complexity to the new and improved life. Following this mode of thinking, it becomes clear that our modern way of life, indeed all of human greatness, is only a direct result of constant adversity and our attempt to overcome it. 

In this way, it may be said that all of life has been leading to us now. That many of our comforts, luxuries, and joys are the result of countless others who underwent more basic struggles than ourselves. And so we believe that suffering is a necessity for life and as such cannot be called evil or wrong in any inherent manner. If it has been through adversity that life has progressed as it has, then the true evil is found not in suffering but in suffering pointlessly. And since suffering is indispensable to life and its forward progress, then it must be that insofar as suffering may be called evil, it simultaneously represents an equal good found in the potential for improvement and the bettering of life.

03/25/2021+03/26/2021

The unconscious act of clinging to one’s tangible emotions removes all possibility of these coming into existence.

The backwards law plays a paramount role in these cases.

Trying to draw out something,which not even the owner can feel on command is foolish.

It’s like stomping on the ground and then start fishing,meanwhile believing to go home with a handful of goods.

To actually be able to accomplish what you set out to do,you have to immerse yourself in the environment and follow where the current brings you.

Then,and only then,the reward will come to you.

The focus should not be one’s own emotions,and therefore not even themselves as a person.

Shifting it on a purpose beside that which has been the constant object of such attention,would prove benefiting for the primary objective itself.

For one to receive love,they must first know how it would feel before being able to open the doors to it.

By bestowing close ones with your own small acts of love,each in their different shape,will open the one-sided path of love.

Do not covet from others what you have never given to them.

Over night

As I’m grasping the intentions of the storm, Breeding discord between thunderclouds, My hands try to touch the aerial body of the night, Chasing for voices in the air, That got locked out until sunrise to cool down, I’m Proficient to decipher the ordeal of summerdays. Catching the breeze, Like Nabokov caught butterflies, As subconscious ambiguities ascend like Bubbles in water, Piercing the surface of my consciousness, To tell vivid tales about the opulence My perception gathers.

Kerim Mallée

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When you decide to touch a woman

Remember who gave you hands

When you crush her with words

Remember who gave you a tongue

When her heart cracks open and flows like a red river

Remember who will make your heart stop

(I hope God cuts off every part of you that was used to hurt a woman)

𝒃𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒚 𝒃𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒉

“Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment. Which is pretty amazing, when you actually think about it.”

— Sarah Dessen

Everything you did to me, I remember.

Mama, I made it out of your home alive, raised by the voices in my head.

— Warsan Shire, from “Extreme Girlhood,” Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head