Thursday, January 11, 2007

When it rains it pours

A very convoluted and pointless post this is, so I would advise you not to read it. Please.

This week my horoscope (read off 8 Days) goes: "Emotionally, this is a period during which you must continue the process you should already have begun, questioning all that is fundamental to your existence. Revise every assumption that you have ever held about relationships in general, as well as about one or two special individuals. And expect a pleasant surprise!" How amusing that horoscopes occasionally sound so profound and yet like they are reflecting your life at the same time.

And so, how exactly, pray tell, do I "continue the process" of "questioning all that is fundamental to your existence"?

Over the last year or so, I have thought and thought, and thought. So much thought spent on one silly problem, that if I spent the amount of thought I dedicated to it on a pencil I would probably have caused it to fly across the room. It's in the annoying nature of humankind to look at the past and dissect our decisions, especially the ones we made wrong, and think about how wonderful it would be if we were to be given the chance to correct that wrong choice, that one errant move. Even when we know we can't change the past, we are still inexorably drawn to agonising about it.

I keep thinking it was a wrong choice, or rather it was something bad that resulted from me not making a stand. I keep asking myself if things would have been different if I had said something, maybe I would have found that I was not the only person thinking in that way, maybe I would have found that someone agreed with me, perhaps things may have been different, probably better. But I know I can't change the past, and so over this year I have come to the decision that even if it might have been an undesired outcome, good things have happened ever since that, things that may not have happened if this outcome had not occured in the first place.

It's like getting a leg cut off in a car accident, but because of the stay in hospital you meet someone you eventually marry. If given the chance to not have been in the accident, would you choose that, knowing that in this alternate reality you would very well not have met the love of your life? Not the best analogy, but a lot of good things have happened over the year, a lot of great people I've met and worked with, that might very well not have occured had I gone back in time to change my decision 2 years ago. And so, if I were given the chance of changing the past, I would rather not, because I do treasure those good things that happened, more than I loathe the outcome of that long-ago decision that I am still stuck with.

And having come to that conclusion, for a time, I was happy. I was able to accept things as they were, and look at the bright side of everything that occurred.

Then, out of nowhere, there came a thought so insidious and yet sudden. What if I could do something, right now, to change the future, so that I need no longer put up with the result of that decision? What a horrible thought. Because, in making that choice to change the future, I would invariably be hurting someone. How can I say that this would be a better result for all of us, how could I ever say that, when what I really mean is that it would be a better result for me? It would be something I would be happier with, certainly, but is the happiness earned out of self-serving hurt of another any better than the suffering of tolerating a pain in the neck?

It frustrates me. How sure I had been of myself, that I had already resolved the difficult situation within myself, that I had fully accepted my lot and found the determination to endure this to the end, for painful as it is it will certainly end one day, and that is the hope that keeps me going. And now, this has to come along and break my resolve, to make me waver in the face of that enticing choice to choose a better path. Like showing a person resigned to his inevitable death's arrival a sliver of hope, of survival, a wavering light that extinguishes in a moment. How cruel. How terribly cruel.

How do I talk about this to anyone? What am I supposed to do, sit down and say, "You know, this is very bad of me, but I really can't stand it anymore, etc?" I wish I could. I keep thinking maybe a friend would understand what I meant, and agree with me, but that wouldn't make me feel any better even if he said so, wouldn't make me feel like I was less terrible for seriously wanting to hurt someone for my own happiness' sake. I don't think I'm a very noble or gracious person, or one who has many principles, but I guess even this goes against my way of doing things.

I wish I could say I won't do it, adamantly. Yet it hangs at the corner of my vision, enticing me, tempting me, and I think if someone were to just gentiy push me along I would hurtle in that direction and grasp that rope like a lifesaver, when really it's not. How do I resolve this dilemma, how do I resolve the need for me to no longer be annoyed on a day-to-day basis, and the need not to hurt anyone's feelings?

How I wish I could tell someone, a person that would be sympathetic and understanding, a person that would tell me something that would dissuade me from doing this terrible thing, tell me something that would soothe the pain and make things better. I'm going mad under the pressure of trying not to think about it and yet not managing to keep it from my thoughts.

It's amazing how far the simple dislike of a person can drive you. I wish I could be more forgiving, more tolerant. I could live with this for the next year, I could, I just very well can still go on, and yet at this point in time it seems like I may not able to live with it for the next few weeks. I am just so fed up of being paired up with him.

I know I'm not being fair. It's not fair that when you dislike a person everything that person does becomes annoying in the extreme, every noise, every word said, every movement gets under your skin and makes you want to get away. Nothing's ever fair, and I'm not particularly good at not being annoyed by someone once I have started letting it get to me. I don't want to make any excuses for myself, it's wrong of me and I know it, and I want to change it. I am weak. I cannot get over my asinine narrow-mindedness.

Typing this out makes it a little better, makes it like I am telling someone my woes, which really aren't very woeful but yet you can never really stand in someone's shoes and see things the way he or she sees it. Never.

人算不如天算。 That's something life has taught me. So, keeping that in mind, I may be able to accept that keeping the status quo as it is will be the best path to choose, and hopefully the new academic year (if nothing goes wrong) will bring better things. I think I just might be able to cope with this for the next few weeks. That's if no unexpected complications occur.

Wish me luck.

Avaris / 1/11/2007 11:30:00 PM

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