eat me henger

the cost of wanting a response is the anxiety of anticipation.  i hate having to wait. having to want. i get it though. the payoff appears to be worth it. exciting. addicting. so you put yourself out there. possibly put on hold. possibly reciprocated. but while it's still up in the air, the uncertainty is unsettling. in all objectivity, it's just fabricated fear. whether it happens or it doesn't, life goes on. ambition sets a good direction, but it must be tempered with adaptability. iron eventually cools down and any further striking is simply sunk costs. you win, you lean into it and keep playing. hooks you in until the next hit. but if you lose, you need to step away. my coping mechanism has always been pretending to not care. lying to myself makes it feel easier to move on. but it's leaving without the lesson. you can't learn if you don't recognize reality. harboring the hurt is harder but it's a necessary evil. i need to be at ease with the pain. i over

i haven't been fighting the war raging in me. for years i've been avoiding the battle. never really seeking refuge. keeping the conflict unresolved so i can continue to play victim. pitying myself was the second most rational plan of action. until i heard myself justifying my insecurities with strangers. for a while now, i've been keeping myself bandaged. perhaps as a reminder that danger could happen at any time. my wounds have long since hardened into scars, but i persisted with the phantom pain. however, when i stepped away from the proximity of the perceived precariousness, i found that people at peace have no prejudice. i just realized i was imposing an impaired identity when they said "there should be more people like you" it took a while for that to sink in. only now as i write am i really grasping the power of that statement. granted, newcomers don't fully understand my deeply rooted flaws. nevertheless, there is still good in me that i need to revalid

gratitude for what happened. that's always a good thing to be grounded on.  as passers-by, we merely scratch the surface. relieving the itch is the best part. when you keep at it, you dig deeper. it comes with pain. when you stop, it ends in scars. scratching lightly leaves no mark but gives enough satisfaction. safe from potential harm, but also never leaving a mark. pristinely vanilla has its appeal, but not with good stories. i know a loss when i see one. it hurts. i would've wanted more. it's been a while since my spirits leapt senselessly. it's been a while since i wanted to live in the past. it's been a while since i didn't want the brain to take over. it's perhaps never over. life continues. it will always be there as an artifact i will appreciate every once in a while. but i wish i were realer.

a victim of narcissistic personality disorder is likely to unreasonably blame themselves, apologize profusely and feel impostor syndrome. saw that in a youtube video and it rang true. i don't see any academic literature that verifies that, but i really haven't done my research. it felt true and therefore i'm stuck ruminating over it. suppose it's true, it's still difficult to come to terms with it. i already hate myself as it is. the feeling is amplified by the scars of how i was once treated by a narcissist - one whom i trusted and been vulnerable. i'm unsure to what extent i was at fault and by how much am i responsible for their reaction. i can't seem to have a solid grasp of personal boundaries. i can co-opt hard-nosed beliefs of ruthless self-determination. i am responsible for my thoughts and actions, but they sure as hell can't pin it on me when they overreact or misunderstand. but that feels like too much of an over-correction. the middle ground

the modern world needed christianity, but at our core, we are greek gods.  nowadays paragons should be pristine. we don't want our idols involved in indecency. we go as far as to scrub them off from history. privacy is a godsend. it protects us from entirely ruining our personal narratives. but if there's anything we ought to recall from pre-abrahamic mythology, it's taking the great with the abhorrent. with the many magnificent accomplishments of olympus, there are just as many terrible crimes committed. it's disgusting to put rapists, kidnappers and murderers on a pedestal. perhaps modern sensibilities ought to kill these gods. but i think the real lesson here is infallibility permeates all existence. and a judeo-christian principle of forgiveness is a remedy to our imperfections. people can be pieces of shit. sometimes we don't think things through. sometimes we renounce respect for others. without a morality guiding us, our decisions between good and bad is as p