What a decade. I am going to be spending New Year’s Eve holed up at home, I think, trying to figure out just what happened these past ten years.
Have you ever realized something that seemed pessimistic, except that it made you a better person?
Secret Vespers
by Patrick Edwards-Daugherty
I realized that pessimism brings its own sort of happiness: if you always expect the worst, you can never be disappointed, and you are often pleasantly surprised.
Still, I wonder what it says about me that I can see the bright side of being a pessimist.
I’m with you, Patrick….where did the last 10 years go?
The much-touted Millenium certainly didn’t change things much. Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. Never mind…I was thoroughly underwhelmed with the whole concept.
The challenges in life that seemed like they would flatten me have made me what I am today. And it’s a good something.
Nothing lasts?
Love does.
Pessimistic if it has brought you much pain and it does still.
Optimistic if you know that real love can change anything.
Even your view of it.
Thank you, Ritz. You have said what my life means.
Someone asked me about the desire for revenge etc. on the Internet the other day. I found myself saying that indeed, the best revenge is to live well. When we step back into revengeful behaviour, self-pity etc., those who have hurt or abused us win yet again–because that means they’re still in our heads, controlling our responses.
It shows me how far I’ve come.
I am one with you in saying that vindictiveness isn’t the way to go. The cycle doesn’t stop if not one person refuses to be the link in the chain that makes it go on and on.
and on.
One principle that I live by: I won’t let anyone affect me up to the point that he or she will make me forget that I was never and will never be an adherent of vengeful behavior.
You can affect my emotion, but you cannot change my very core.
The only thing that ‘lasts’ forever is change. Cue up Alan Parsons Project ‘Pyramid’…
Someday I am going to go through and do a list of your songs, a soundtrack for Secret Vespers. I know I’ve said it before, but the list keeps growing.
You were perfect for me, until I realized that I couldn’t live my life by your standards anymore.
Funny how those who expect us to live our lives for them, by their standards, are seldom willing to reciprocate…
Funny how this reminds me of something that one great love would say. But as i would say before as I would still say now: nothing would last if you would do it because you think it’s what the other wants from you.
For then you’d only get stressed trying to be who you believe you are not, hating yourself in the process, hating the other thinking it’s her who has caused you to hate yourself.
What if what the other wants is for you to just be yourself? What if what the other wants is for you to find your core, your balance, yourself?
What if she already knew right at the onset about the things that you think do not fit her standards, but she knows it’s part and parcel of you and she just hopes you can see that for yourself and you can accept yourself for who you really are?
Change?
Yeah, it’s welcome when it’s for the better, human when it’s for the worse – but what change does one expect from one who doesn’t even realize he needs to change anything?
How can one fix something that he doesn’t think needs any fixing and he only thinks he sees reflected from the eyes of another?
However hard one tries to accept a person, it wouldn’t be enough if that person still thinks he’s forced to fit a standard not his own.
For then, he’ll try to jump into a box he thinks the other wants to fit him in.
And that box may not even be the other’s.
If so… tough luck!
Not only did he jump into a box he doesn’t wanna be in… he jumped into a box that’s not even the other’s.
That’s really stressful and frustrating for anyone, we can agree.
What if all that the other wishes is for him to realize he just needs to be still, and not be so caught up in standards not entirely his own but of those he mingles with, including of course, the one he’s most often with – the loved one?
What if the other has realized that for them to be able to LAST, for HIM to be able to last, LOVE has to last – and love will only last if he realizes that he doesn’t need to seek love or approval elsewhere?( for always, it won’t be enough.)
What if the other wishes he understands he has to love himself first. He has to approve of himself first. Approval that won’t stem from what he thinks other people expect of him… But by his own standards.
This very line : You were perfect for me, until I realized that I couldn’t live my life by your standards anymore. captures the very essence of two seemingly misaligned standards – but in reality, is it really?
You were perfect for me – shows that you are assessing the person by your standards, intended or unintended it may be. I couldn’t live my life by your standards anymore shows your perception of what the other person’s standards are, real or projected it may be.
May it not be that both are actually based on your own standards?
May it be possible that what you think of as the other person’s approval rating of you is your own approval rating of youself thru the eyes of your loved one?
The catch is, if you believe the person is perfect for you, then most likely, you share the same standards. If you share the same standards, may it be that it is you who thinks you’re falling short of the standards and because you love the other, you cannot bear for him/her to think of you in the very same light you see yourself in?
The very important question here is, does he/she even see you the same way you do? Is he/she as unaccepting of you as you are?
Or is he/she capable of loving you beyond the trappings of any benchmark?
Because ultimately, that’s all that matters. Love.
Only love lasts.
Standards?
They do not.
I pretty much agree with a lot of what you seem to be getting out of my statement. It was a matter of what I thought I wanted and what I thought she wanted from me, versus what either of us actually wnated/needed from eachother. In the end, I was trying to better myself to get her approval rather than simply to better myself, and wound up falling short of both of our standards for me.
As for love, it’s hard to say sometimes if it wasn’t more like misplaced idolization on my part, though there was certainly affection on both sides.
Idolization’s hard not only on the part of the idolater, but also on that of the one idolized.
The former feels an unceasing, imperative need to be accepted.
The latter knows whatever she does, however she relays it, her acceptance of him as a person would not be accepted.
In any case, I hope you’ll find that one thing that lasts.
Hint:
It’s not just a noun.
It’s not but a person.
It’s not superman either. (Or supergirl for that matter… however hard you wish that person could be.)
Love.
Just love.
Cue Jim Croce’s “The Lover’s Cross.”
Well I hope that you could find another
Who could take what I could not.
He’d have to be a super guy
Or maybe a super god.
And it seems that you wanted a martyr
Just a regular guy wouldn’t do,
But baby, I can’t hang upon the lover’s cross for you.
i’m not a statue in a pedestal
reaping praises, unfeeling.
nor am i a rug unclean,
stepped upon, unscreaming.
i’m but a lonely grass, ungrowing,
unique, with meaning,
a life worth losing.
sums up how a person who receives undue attention – be it being idolized or pilloried for being who she is – feels.
we are who we are, brilliant at times , sullied at times – but still human.
sometimes with some people, being idolized isn’t important.
being understood is.
maybe the catch is one has to find someone who understands
just that.
Idolization’s hard not only on the part of the idolater, but also on that of the one idolized.
The former feels an unceasing, imperative need to be accepted.
The latter knows whatever she does, however she relays it, her acceptance of him as a person would not be accepted.
In any case, I hope you’ll find that one thing that lasts.
Hint:
It’s not just a noun.
It’s not but a person.
It’s not superman either. (Or supergirl for that matter… however hard you wish that person could be.)
Love.
Just love.
One day, as most mortals do, I came to the realization the at some point I would cease to be alive. Sucks at first, doesn’t it? Something so shockingly outside of our control. It took me awhile, then I came to a conclusion: life is easier when you know it will only last for so long. That ‘sad little fact’ gives a person drive, gives them a reason to get things done.
If you were to live forever, would you ever accomplish anything?
It would definitely be easier to justify procrastination, if immortal. There is one creature that can, in theory, live forever. I mentioned it in one of the Lovesick posts. I doubt that creature gets much done.
Let me guess… It’s that fungus ring in the central USA area, isn’t it, the one that covers most of three states or whatever? Supposed to be the biggest organism on the planet…