Just Another Sucker on the Vine

[Salty]

Ah, finally, there it is.

I do apologize for bleeding emo whining onto the board. You freaks are my most solid social connection, so you will have to suffer the occasional outburts when I am low. I feel I contribute enough otherwise to warrant and bit of leeway.

It is worth it. For me anyway.

It all comes down to this precise moment. Right here and now, I can finally feel freedom again.

You see, it's easy to see life as a game in which YOU, the player, must acquire as many HAPPY points as you can. Surely, your primate brain desires those love combinations of chemicals that the rat's nest of your mind recognizes as HAPPY and, likey, GOODSOCIAL STANDING. When your mate bails, well, your primate brain feels quite a bit lowered in social standing.

There must be some reason, yeah?

Or perhaps some other awful thing happens to you. Granted, life is more than capable of throwing more awful your way than you are capable of dealing with. It is imprtant to remember that no matter how much bad, good, or HAPPY you have, this is always a distinct possibility.

Some THING could happen today, or tomorrow that wrecks you beyond repair. Or, at least, puts a deep dent in your self

It's best not to be arrogant about such things. You don't have to count yourself lucky, but it does not hurt to be grateful for the days in which you are merely miserable and not in a state of abject torture, humiliation, or similar.

And yet....I am often trapped in conversation with resolute optimists. They will often say something along the lines of:

"Well, you have to enjoy the HAPPY you get."

Yes. This is true. And why not?

HOWEVER, that is missing half of the very important equation. You will NOT be HAPPY all the time. In fact, even if you don't expexperience deep, abiding horror that rips your mind to tatters, there will be moment of such equisite, delicate, nuances PAIN. Internal, external, bloody, meaty. It will fill your whole being the same way the HAPPY comes flooding in.

Now, I am not saying anyone should actively persue such pain.

But, it will find you anyway. What to do about it?

I say, from the seat of My Discordia, relish it. Savor the power of that exquisite, profound pain. It is a part of being human. And intregal and core component that drives people to murder, art, conquest, suicide, insight, love, war, ingenuity, and so much more.

More to the point, it is a beautiful thing. The same way a gaping, magma-filled chasm is a beautiful thing. It will destroy your weakand frail body, mind, and soul....given the chance.

But if you can, for a moment, step back and just behold it without assigning meaning or purpose...you can witness something that no one else can understand. Or maybe they can, but they cannot see it the way that you do in that moment in time. That tiny speck of reality that you inhabit...would you forsake it? Would you forsake your one and only true birthright, the brutal truth of being a highly self aware mammal?

No matter how much I have hurt, do hurt, will hurt...

ever since I found Discordia, I can watch that hurt, in all its delicacy, and be amazed at the miracle that is my small and mostly useslless, and certainly soon to be forgotten existence.

Your pain, mine, all of ours, is something to behold, to hold, to cherish. Because it is a fascet of your life that cannot be undone, and should not be.

So, this night, as I come so close to the, and I am sorry if I oversuse the word but it is perfect, exquisiteness of my own pain, I can only smile, then laugh, safe and secure in the knowledge that I, while living, truly live. And there will never be another time quite like this.

Like art, cast forever into impermanence, beautiful for a moment. I feel, perhaps correctly, perhaps not, the winding gears of thing cosmos reflected in a relatively small batch of chemicals assaulting my brain.

And I cannot live with regret.

[Reginald Ret]

Thanks for sharing. (ugh, i hate how that sounds in my head)
I'll think about this.

[LMNO]

There seems to be truth in your words.


I don't have much more to say, than that.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ah, finally, there it is.

I do apologize for bleeding emo whining onto the board. You freaks are my most solid social connection, so you will have to suffer the occasional outburts when I am low. I feel I contribute enough otherwise to warrant and bit of leeway.

You do.  Don't sweat it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And yet....I am often trapped in conversation with resolute optimists. They will often say something along the lines of:

"Well, you have to enjoy the HAPPY you get."

Yeah, that's true, but people who think that they needed to point that out are my natural prey.  When I deal with them, I feel like a u-boat commander watching a nice fat merchantman fall out of the convoy with engine trouble.  I grin.  I am enjoying my happy.

Because the problem with HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY people is that they do not value anything other than "positive" emotions as valid.  Sadness, pain, rage, hate...All of these things have their place, or they wouldn't be there.  They would not even have the evolutionary excuse of the tailbone, which USED to have a function.

So when a romance goes bad, yeah, you're not gonna "cheer up".  When you get fired at work, you are not (usually) going to sing along with snappy tunes on the radio while cleaning out your desk.

And people who tell you to do so are offensive as hell, and this needs to be pointed out to them.

[LMNO]

Has anyone told you that "everything happens for a reason" yet?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Has anyone told you that "everything happens for a reason" yet?

There isn't a jury in the country that would convict after that shit. 

[LMNO]

(PUNCH)THE REASON I'M (PUNCH) DOING THIS (PUNCH) RIGHT NOW IS (PUNCH) YOU'RE A TOTAL (KICK) DOUCHEBUCKET (KICK, KICK).



(CURBSTOMP)

[Suu]

We've all been there, Alty. All of us.

This was an article that was sent to me a few years back,  I think by Telarus actually. Not saying you should, you know, convert to Hinduism or some shit, but it's a good read.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/

[P3nT4gR4m]

Pain is a big part of the human experience. I take pleasure in overcoming it. I've endured less than some people and more than others. None of it beat me. As much as I hate "everything happens for a reason" I love "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" That shit is a mantra that runs in my head, sometimes for months on end and I can feel it through the tears - me - getting stronger, growing strong enough to stomp whatever pain is assaulting me, right into the fucking ground.

Any time I've done battle with demons, the demons lost.

[Salty]

Has anyone told you that "everything happens for a reason" yet?

I typically interrupt them if i am able.

SsshhSSHHHH. No.

It's usually my mom that tells me that. She gets a pass.

[Salty]

Pain is a big part of the human experience. I take pleasure in overcoming it. I've endured less than some people and more than others. None of it beat me. As much as I hate "everything happens for a reason" I love "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" That shit is a mantra that runs in my head, sometimes for months on end and I can feel it through the tears - me - getting stronger, growing strong enough to stomp whatever pain is assaulting me, right into the fucking ground.

Any time I've done battle with demons, the demons lost.

I think I will do the same, thanks. It's a good mantra.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That was very Zen, Alty!

Discomfort is necessary for growth and for understanding and interacting with the world. You can see it even in infants, who, when they are born, can't cope with even the slightest discomfort without freaking the fuck out. Fast forward three years, and the child who used to wail piteously at a slight breeze across their face doesn't want to go inside just because of a little stupid rain... they've figured out that being slightly damp or chilly isn't an immediate threat, so they don't want to let it get in the way of playing and exploring. But let that kid get a scraped knee, and it's like THEIR WORLD IS ABOUT TO END. We even grow from cognitive discomfort, that dissonance when one thing we believe conflicts with another thing we believe. When we face, examine, and revise our beliefs in order to resolve inner conflict, we grow.

The more you've lived through, the less survivable setbacks seem like insurmountable setbacks. The less a breakup or even a divorce seems like the end of the world.

A friend of mine recently started dating a man who lost a child. He said, "Not much really gets to me anymore". Most of us don't need that level of inoculation against discomfort, and will hopefully never experience it. But we will all lose loved ones, we will all get sick or injured, we will all lose jobs and face disappointments and have our hearts broken. While we will never (and should never) get to a point where we no longer feel anything when these happen, and will never shrug the pain off as if it's nothing, as we learn to cope with each loss, our capacity to recover and grow and move forward increases, along with our empathy and our ability to help other people who are dealing with a loss.

[Reginald Ret]

We've all been there, Alty. All of us.

This was an article that was sent to me a few years back,  I think by Telarus actually. Not saying you should, you know, convert to Hinduism or some shit, but it's a good read.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/

Agreed. Good read. Surprisingly Woo-less.

[Salty]

We've all been there, Alty. All of us.

This was an article that was sent to me a few years back,  I think by Telarus actually. Not saying you should, you know, convert to Hinduism or some shit, but it's a good read.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/

Agreed. Good read. Surprisingly Woo-less.

It really was. Thanks for that. Definitely inljne with where my head is at. I dig Hindusim, it is so mutifasceted and complex.