Survival of the Fittest or The Softer Side of Me

Note, the following was one of many started but not finished pieces of writing I seem to have accumulated over the years.  I merely finished it recently.  This one I started over one year ago on 12/5/15 and can only guess what it was a response to.

Survival of the Fittest:

I’m not gonna lie, or try fronting.  Today got a little emotional for me.  Out of nowhere, I started to uncontrollably sob, the hysterical kind where after a minute or so, you realize how ridiculous you must look to anyone and everyone else if they could see you at that moment, and that thought makes you laugh, and you spending the remainder of your diva moment alternating uncontrollably between the two, until eventually it just stops out of the blue, for no apparent reason, and with as much advance notice and fanfare as it first came on with, which is none.

Maybe it finally got that snickers bar.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have this nasty habit of never allowing myself to feel proud or to be excited or to admit fear or many of the other basic emotional responses to various environmental stimuli.  I don’t know why I do this, or what it is I’m afraid of to where my instinctual response is to downplay my interest level or to not ever let on just how much something truly means to me, but it must somehow be tied into my survival as all instincts naturally are.  The only thing I do know is it often has the opposite effect in my life, stunting my growth as a person and alienating me from people and situations that I would otherwise stand to benefit from in the long run.

Maybe I’m afraid that by letting on the fact I’m excited about something will in some way influence the universe in delivering it to me or me to it, because there are many times I feel like the universe and fate, (if there even is such a thing), is out to get me.  It’s because those times I do show any outward exuberance towards something all I’m ever left with is a sense of disappointment when it doesn’t measure up, or deliver in the end, which it never does. 

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

After allowing myself to feel dejected for a while, I start to think to myself, who do I think I am to  have the audacity to feel I deserve anything from this world, from this life, from the universe? 

Such Hubris.

I am nothing, and no-one.

Nothing’s guaranteed except THIS very moment you’re currently living in, and even then the only thing you know is that this too will end, though you know not when.  Time is not a linear thing in this regard, all moments were not created equal, some last only an instant and some moments go on for longer like the energizer bunny.   How much of that is dependent on the individual, how much is by design, and how much would have happened the same way irrespective of who it happened to?

I’m not fooling anyone, am I?

What is it that makes me think not letting on about whether there exists a softer side of myself in any way makes me less vulnerable?  A soft underbelly is a soft underbelly, just ask Churchill.  The immobility this fear and these questions leaves me with cripples me, and leaves me paralyzed, at least from the brain down because my mind is constantly racing and working in overdrive, which acts as a counterweight to everything else about me.

The more effort it exerts, the less I’m able to do.   Classic cookie cutter example showing the pitfalls and dangers of overthinking, purely textbook.  In extreme cases, if left untreated, for long enough, a death of sorts is possible, even likely.

A slow and painful death, arduous to reach,  immobilized with fear, laying at the bottom of a kiddie pool slowly being filled with Piranha from the Amazon which would be easy enough for you to escape from if not for being paralyzed from the brain down.  All you would have to do, is stand up, step out, and voilà, crisis averted.

Instead, you just lie there, slowly dying from the inside out, one tiny bite at a time.  I know no physical pain remotely comparable to the psychic pain this causes and I wouldn’t ever wish it on another human being because it’s a pain I’m all too familiar with, having experienced it to some degree for my entire life, or at least as much of it as I can remember.

That’s what I get, for thinking the universe owes me jack diddly shit when it doesn’t, or maybe it does which is why that’s what I get and that’s another thought that terrifies the shit out of me.  What if I’m not nearly so good, or so decent, as I thought I was?

What if the universe has long since moved off of the gold standard, and the dollar, and now paid it’s bills using nothing but Karma?  How fucked would I be, would you be, would we all be? I’d be in debt up to my eyeballs either way and maybe that’s why my life has taken such twists and such turns as to make “move over murphy” become my new mantra?

I’m sure I’m not the only one this change in cosmic currency would affect in such a way either, because the universe, by it’s very name and definition, is universal.

You wanna talk about a global economic crisis; try that shit on for size; then we’ll talk.

Karma, yeah it can be a real motherfucker and it always has a funny way of coming back around and biting you right in the ass when you least suspect it.  But if that truly is the case, by that logic, to have the string of shitty luck I’ve had I must have done something truly horrific.

My whole life I’ve felt singled out, picked on, targeted, taken advantage of, or had shit started with me because for some apparent reason, one I’m unfamiliar with, I look like I make for an easy target or something.  Sometimes I catch myself searching for the sign or the target that must rest right between my shoulder blades and paints a bullseye upon my back when I stretch my arms, which I do often on account of my bad shoulder, to no avail.

Nothings there.

Maybe it’s the fact I don’t feel the need to puff out my chest, mark my territory, inflate my ego, or brag about how I’m the man in bed, in the head, or anywhere else (save work), and that was only because work was more about effort than anything.  If you wanted to get better, you would, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t.  Simple enough concept really, or so I thought.

Maybe it was my general stature which is small, or my demeanor which is and always has been of a much larger variety because I always try to carry myself well through this world (and sometimes I fail at it miserably), because I’ve always believed that while it may not be about the destination, how you undertake the journey matters, the way in which you go about getting there really fucking matters in the end.

In this belief, as with many others, I’m left feeling all alone in sticking to my guns and my morals and in all those things which I believe develop ones character in the long run it always feels like I’m the sole person standing up for myself, or for others in a room full of people sitting down on those things.  The only sane person in a world of insane people…now doesn’t that sound crazy?

At which point do I stop being the sane one? 

But I know I’m not crazy and I feel it in my heart that I’m not wrong either, that a lot of things that go on which people have conditioned themselves to accept are in fact wrong, in such a blatant way, and with such wanton disregard for the very basic principles of human decency that it serves as a damning condemnation of society today and begs the question whether we humans still have any decency left within us.

We should all be ashamed of ourselves, and I say with intentionality because while I may not subscribe to it, there is more that I could be doing to change it as well and therefore my own inaction makes me just as guilty as anyone else.

The only recourse which prevents me from adopting the cold and callous attitude of my immediate surroundings, and not to have already said, “fuck it, I take what comes next”, flipped the switch and turned the lights off for good, which I’ve already tried to do once (though that’s a different story for another time), is to adopt a devil may care attitude, and give off a general aloofness to the happenings of the world, both of which are just as much evolutionary adaptation as they are a conscious choice.

How else could I exist in a world so filled with hate, and with such reckless disregard for the wellbeing of others when I have so much love in my own heart and care more about others than I do myself?    

A major complication this presents me with, is the extremely small number of people I allow to get close enough to see me past a very superficial conception which, on account of my aforementioned defense mechanisms, and natural tendencies is at odds with the real me, and with my true self.

Due to my poor track record with those I have allowed to get close enough to hurt me, this path has now become littered with booby traps and other hazards and one must overcome obstacles which are daunting if nothing else.

Anyone in their right mind would rather have a family picnic in the middle of Korea’s demilitarized zone during the height of the tensions between the North and South, or would prefer an honest answer to the question about whether that dress makes them look fat or not, I know I would.

Needless to say, more often than not, my dinner plans consist of a standing reservation for one followed by light drinks, some quality time with me, myself, and I; maybe even dessert, we’ll see how everyone plays their cards first.

Judging by what I’ve seen from this world, I’m content with that, though sometimes even I get lonely and feel hopeless, and even I can only do that whole me against the world routine, carrying the world’s woes upon my back like Atlas, before I’m eventually forced to either shrug or be crushed under the sheer weight of it all it’s just too much pressure.

   

Here’s some of my oldies but goodies

https://sammyscoops.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/the-passing-of-rodney-king-what-it-made-me-think/

https://sammyscoops.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/an-attempt-to-write-these-wrongs/

https://sammyscoops.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/modern-age-lynchingtrayvon-martin-emmitt-till-of-today/