Part Five

Been away for a few days, lovely to return to so many positive and thoughtful comments. Thanks guys!

Part Five

People try to justify too many things by trivializing life, condensing the enormity of something so beautiful and grotesque into manageable nuggets of clichéd dialogue from the last rom-com they saw.
“Life is what you make it,” a piece of pop-philosophy from the pat-yourself-on-the-back school of “you can be like me one day” School of Arrogance. The implication being that one would ever choose to fail.

Being lazy and apathetic is never a choice, nor is alcoholism and nor is unemployment. If somebody is expressing the idea that they’re choosing not to “better” themselves, ask why. Don’t assume they’re bad, wonder why they’re making such a destructive choice. Why would someone willingly ruin his or her life? They must hate themselves to some degree to wish such a half-hearted fate on themselves, and if that’s the case then I believe they need to be helped. Not so they can contribute more to the world, but so they can absorb more of what the world has to offer.

We may be running out of resources in the form of energies and money and love and whatever else, but the jungles are still beautiful and the beaches are still idyllic. Birds are still majestic, so why can’t a man be happy in noticing these things?
If I knew, I’d be happy, but I don’t, so I’m not. Does that make me bad?

I was told a few days ago that “everyone has their problems.” I was expected to buck up and smile after hearing this. One of the most ignorant and idiotic attempts at a motivational line I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard plenty.
Yes, everybody does have their problems, but how is that a positive thing? I don’t hear that and think “wow, they have problems yet they smile and live life!”
Instead, I think “wow, they smile and live life and yet they’re still unhappy beneath it.”
That’s one of the ugliest things about this world, the perpetual lying. On top of the lies, come lies regarding the lies and then lies regarding those. If someone wants to cry, let them. Hug them while they do. Don’t make him feel like it’s the right thing to do to bottle feelings up until he implodes.

Part Four

I’ve realized recently though, with the help of my counselor, my editor, my dad, and my online friends, that I am good at talking. Whether it’s blagging a fiver from my dad, landing interviews and writing jobs that I’m completely under-qualified for, boldly attempting (although often failing) to chat up girls, or selling double glazing for Zenith - I can talk. I can lie.

Accepting this, I don’t feel my ego swelling or my heart sinking with the usual disapproving resentment of such arrogant self-aggrandizing. I feel proud.

I can do the things I want to do with this skill, such as it is. I can live on the continent; I can apply for jobs, chat up girls, sell my own personal brand and feel completely at ease with myself. Just the thought makes me feel happy. I don’t want to die when I imagine this, I want to live.

So it’s time to do it, I’ve found what might make me happy and so I’ll leave. I want to wake up when I want, sit in a quirky French café and write on my laptop. I want to harass the girl at the counter for her phone number in my broken French and smile even when she declines, and I want to blag my way into the biggest and best situations imaginable. Why would I do anything I don’t want to do? Because “life isn’t fair sometimes”? Bollocks, life can’t be summed up some second-rate quote from a straight-to-DVD drama; it’s too vast to comprehend and too small to waste.