The Path of Thorns

This is my first update since being unemployed.  Which is funny, in a way, because of the increased amount of time I’ve had.  Part of it had to do with my trip to Boston and New York, part of it an accidental lack of inspiration.  I wasn’t sure if this site was going to continue to be my breakdown of people’s emotions, or if it would be about an interest of mine – music, baseball, comedy – but I’m starting to get centered again.  This site was getting good hits in its first two entries, so I hope to reignite the little light that was beginning to emerge.

Since I’ve been unemployed, I’ve been getting in touch with a side of me I’m familiar with – and my biggest fear – insecurity.  I’m at an age where people are forming the rest of their lives, or the next chapter in it.  Chapters where they need help lifting off, or doing what they want to, even if that just means emotional or mental support.  Most people get that from their families.  Family is what everyone rightfully puts first – blood runs deeper than anything.  Family gets you through – in the end it’s correct to actually depend on one’s self only – but for most people I’ve come across in my lifetime, few have had to truly be that extreme and be solo.

I see parents who put their kids before anything they do, and would rather die than ever wrong them or endanger them, or hurt them.  Parents who can support you with their wallet, or their home, or their friends, or at the very least, with their hearts and good will.  Those people may not always realize how good they have it to have such supportive parents.

But when you don’t have that, it’s a hole that really never gets filled.  Some say friends are family instead, family you can pick – and I agree with that, as I have many remarkable supportive friends that I’m grateful for every day – but the bond of blood will always have its unique strength that can only be self-filled.  Money is never an issue for loving parents, if they can give it.  If they turn their back on you, or let you down, it hits harder than if anyone else would.  The bonds of friendship, the bonds of confidants, in the end, never truly fills the hole left by a parent who isn’t there for you.

As a result, you overcompensate – maybe appreciating or looking to your friends more than others – or you feel lonely quicker, or less secure.  A lot of times you don’t even feel the hole – not at your busy job, or on a fun night out, and you may not on a plain old bad day either.  But you’re always reminded of that hole when you tread a rockier road, when you need all the stability and support you can get.  When they’re not there, when they can’t help or don’t care to help…it’s never something you really get over.

My mother and sister are amazing people.  A few relatives I’ve drifted apart from incidentally are as well.  Everyone else…leaves me with that gaping hole.  I am that over-compensator.  I am that of someone who needs stability in an unstable, darker world. I miss the father I thought I had, that ended up destroying so much, without looking back.

I’ve been scared to talk about myself so openly, and I debated with myself for weeks as to whether I want to get personal or not.  But I decided to let go and say what I need to say.  I don’t force anyone to know me, or understand me.  But this door’s open for those who are interested.  My blog will be about my thoughts, my ideas, my views, and as it seems, my history too.  I have decided to let go and let you all in, fearlessly.  I’m slowly stripping my walls, and letting this blog reflect the stories inside.

I write from the heart – and to be a good writer, I need to let go.  So here I am.

Love.

Arguably the most common feeling, or thought, or reasoning, for almost everything in this world.  It’s one of the most open-ended words to define, and certainly one that’s just as misunderstood as it is carefully examined.  It’s a feeling all artists touch on, be it their falling in love, falling out of love, doing something for love, saying something for love, being bitter and rejecting love, dumbing down love, or claiming it doesn’t even exist and that it’s just a fancy way to say infatuation or lust.

I looked up a few definitions of love.  The first one was certainly interesting:

“any object of warm affection or devotion; “the theater was her first love”; “he has a passion for cock fighting”; ”

What’s interesting about that was, my first reaction was to laugh at that second example.  A passion…or love…for cock fighting?  Out of all the things you could love and have a passion for?  But that just goes to show how vast love can be taken or felt. 

A ‘first love’, as in the first example, seems to be used when someone first finds their niche, or what they enjoy doing more than anything they have previously.  It’s another interesting way of using the word because you consider love to be mutual, and with some sort of affection shown.  Yet one could counterpoint by arguing that a theater could love the person back, by existing and being there for her to find her talent and excitement within.  By being there as a place of refuge, a place of success.  That goes to show how far love really can go; by being there, you can create love, and hope, and serenity.

I found another interesting definition of love:

“…be enamored or in love with; “She loves her husband deeply” ”

Enamored is essentially the actual feeling of falling in love; the bonding that comes with it.  I will argue that this is most everyone’s utmost demand for love.  We find it, or attempt to find it, in any and all places; a coffee shop, a bar or club, online and through personals, through friends and family, at a party, and just throughout our daily lives. 

People looking for it too hard threaten the possibility of finding a false sense of it, or an incomplete love that leaves us feeling more lonely and/or alone than we did before it occurred.  The world is very tough, considered to be a lifelong fight and struggle to survive and find happiness in our mortality, and we all want someone to fight alongside us in battle.  It is for that reason that many people settle for and accept, and basically expect this lesser love.  As long as SOMEONE’s there, someone who we think knows us and understands us to a degree, most will accept the chronic issues and faults that come along with such a relationship.  It’s why many people bring back into their lives though that cheat, or lie, or steal, or hurt us in many other factions.  We bring them back out of familiarity; because we feel we may not deserve more, or our hearts and minds have become lethargic, but with the underlying reason that we need someone to help us  battle through life, and it may be easier to do so with imperfections than take our whole lives fighting it alone in hopes that perfect love will come along.  A perfect love no longer exists or is even deemed a possibility by many, and it really never was.  To err is to be human, so many unforgivable thoughts and actions are, in fact, forgiven.  And this lesser love continues.

My thought has been, and has matured over the past decade; do I REALLY want to spend the rest of my life with this person?  Would there be cracks in our relationship that would lead to a lesser love?  Can I wake up every morning, see this face, and know I have a good life because of this person?  Do I trust living with them in our home, telling them our deepest thoughts and ideals, and letting down every single teeny tiny wall we have?  Will that person never betray me, never hurt me, never insult the love we’ve created? 

Many have been duped after answering ‘yes’ to all of the above questions – another reason many accept lesser love, or the love of a place, or of our work, or of our friends & family only, with romance as secondary.  If one truly answers ‘yes’ to those questions, and are double-crossed, our hearts break.  That is to say, we feel the deepest hurt and betrayal in the darkest and most hidden part of our selves because of what all we let down for the person, and how much we had led them in.  If an associate hurts you, it’s nowhere near the pain of someone closest to us doing the same.  Humans can be unpredictable, and many question if they ever fully and thoroughly know the one we’re with.  Or the one we want to be with.

To have a non-human ‘first love’, like the previously mentioned theater, is safer for many.  It’s a place, it’s a lifestyle, it’s what you take it to be.  You always know where it is, you make it to be the relationship of your choice.  It’s always there.  If our first love is a self-made painting, it’s safe because it shows the colors of our choice, it’s love we created that exists as long as the painting is loved.  There’s no risk in a painting doing you wrong.

In the end, we all want to come home from the theater, or glance away from our painting, and look around us.  Many don’t mind going home every night alone, waking up alone, cooking alone, and planning their lives out alone.  Many others simply do so with friends and family.  Many have pets to fill something best filled with the love returned of another, whether we admit it or not.  At some point, all of these people who choose alternatives to a perfect love, by default or by choice, will ask themselves who notices.  Who cares what we do?  Who cares how we look?  Who cares what our dreams and thoughts are?  Why bother?

We bother because we all want, in some feeling in some crevice in our hearts and minds, or the pits of or stomachs, during a moment of weakness or self-pity or realization, that perfect love.  Knowing that someone or something can knock you down, and someone’s there to break your fall.  That someone that your heart knows will always be there for you, without doubt or question.  That two people can struggle through a single fight of life means a better chance at success, and a wonderful chance of happiness and safety.  And love.

In the end, our hearts and minds are there in existence to fulfill a promise.  No matter when, or how, or if ever it’s realized or noted, their goals are to fulfill that promise to another pair.  And fall into a perfect love.

I’ve spent the past few weeks deciding on a topic here.  There’s so much that flows through my mind, so many things I’m passionate about and curious about.  I’ve wanted to balance that to what my readers may enjoy and want to discuss or think about themselves.

In the end, your best bet in beginning your writing career is to only worry about what interests you, and let your mind form your ideas, arguments and compositions along the way.

I begin my blog with a thought I’ve had in my head for a long time.  It’s a very humanistic fault, or strength, or habit – the descriptive word can be among many.  It’s something everyone does – it’s something I do to a point – and it causes many results and effects as a reaction. 

That is, we all put on a mask, to a point.  We all mold ourselves to be accepted and open to a specific point; honest to a specific point; unyielding to relate and give particular information or giveaways about ourselves.  Humans aren’t really all that different; our intelligence, comprehensions and social interactions and reactions are a few of the vast differences humans can have with each other – a lot of our differences can be placed into those few categories. 

So why a mask?  Why don’t we all just accept that we’re the same race, out to persevere, gain a wanted amount of power and enhance our selfish (or unselfish for those we love) ways?  I knew I was right when I told myself to just put words down and go with the flow with this blog – this post can easily be broken down into several, and I may do just that.

For the sake of unilateral thought and conversation (I’ll remind you all I’m severely ADD!), I’ll stick to the more social side of this ‘mask’ we all have. 

Let’s say you’re at work.  Your co-worker is clearly going through something troubling – it could be financial, or work-related, or it could be a heartbreak or bad fight they had with someone.  Either way, you have no idea what it is, and it’s upsetting you as well.  For argument’s sake, we’ll say you’re not very personal with this co-worker.  This co-worker has the ‘mask’ on – one that allows them to still be professional and courteous at work, but you’re the careful observer and you see through the mask to the distress on their facial expressions.

Clearly, the awkward and generally unacceptable thing to do would be to take the co-worker aside for a moment and see what’s wrong, and if you can help.  Such a thing could even get the two of you in trouble at work, and your co-worker would likely be even more upset and uncomfortable.  Yet all you’re doing is try to help.  The common thing to do is to ignore it, even be wary of them, and allow the ‘mask’ to go accepted and to not dare speak of it.

We all want to be consoled in some sense during times like these.  We fight it, we have humanistic semi-artificial reactions like pride and false strength to attempt to keep the fight going, but we all want to be okay.  We all want to be heard.  We all want problems to go away however possible.  Yet we only want it from certain people; people who have known us a long time, or who may know the situation, or people who have helped us before.  Even if that person closer to you may have weaker or even incorrect advice on how to go about the problem, and this co-worker pulling you aside, for all you know, could be the Conficius in your daily life.  99.9% will never, ever open up to you, unless you’ve passed these unmarked doors to their inner selves and their hearts & minds.

The result, of course, is because we’ve all been hurt in the past, or double-crossed, or anxious to open ourselves up.  The ‘mask’ is easier – you isolate the issue to your own head, and you already know your enemies – or at least you think you do.  If you don’t take the ‘mask’ off, this co-worker can’t open you up and tear down your little wall somewhat.  Better off not risking it, you think to yourself.

I’m not advocating the troubled co-worker open up to their associate, nor keep it in.  But we all know this routine, this ‘mask’, that we feel limits the already-existing issue.  Despite the fact that we’re all so much more alike than we’d choose to admit.  Humans can hurt humans if information is given, and at least if we have the ‘mask’ on, the most we do is hurt ourselves.  Which is less severe.  Right?

Maybe.

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my new blog.  After spending five years blogging on Livejournal, I feel it’s time to move on and get my words and thoughts out there in the land of the internet a little more thoroughly.

What I’ll write about remains to be decided, in terms of a main idea or concentration – it could be relationships, or baseball, or music, or life in general – or perhaps all of them together.  Perhaps even the contrasts between them.

We’ll see where my mind goes.  Knowing my mind like I do, I can imagine the vast amounts of convictions and opinions that will come across here.  Something for everyone.  And every word for myself.