Finding my voice

It's quite painful to feel like you've lost your voice. Amidst daily struggles, suffocating routines, and the busyness of people who comprise your support system. It's almost like screaming in a crowded place where no-one can hear anything but their own voice, until they realize just how fruitless it is, and resort to mumbling to themselves instead.

I used to be able to "express" so easily. Thoughts I've had pop in my head at 3 am used to flow in words as if they were being recited to me. I took it for granted for so long until I realized that there is a time when I'll be desperate to articulate my thoughts and fail to do so miserably. Or even worse, to think to myself that what I have to say isn't worthwhile, that my experience as a human doesn't matter and I should just shut the hell up to avoid annoying people about my useless life while they go on with theirs.

I don't know how long it will take for my brain to unwind the damage this warped thought process brought upon me. I'm just sharing this to say I know it won't last, I won't let it.

Answers

"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything."

-Oscar Wilde

I knew everything.

I had all the answers to every question that could cross my mind as a 17-year-old, as an 18-year-old I could profess a faith in innumerable things that I just knew to be true. I was not shaken, weak or unsure. Everything aligned perfectly with my worldview.

But then I grew up.

The questions got harder and kept piling up. The pressures arose and I tried to fumble for my faith that was only as big as the questions I once had as a 17-year-old. Nothing worked like it was supposed to. I was left confused, unsure of whom to believe. The way my faith was built on people's perceptions of things failed me miserably, because people. They change, they fall, they get their own difficult questions that they fail to answer.

I became infuriated, filled with rage and scorn over the loss of my precious peace of mind. Nothing and no-one could sedate me. I needed my answers. I needed my peace. I just lacked the patience and perseverance to look around for some.

Now I'm numb. I'm waiting for something to happen to change the way I live. I miss my answers and my peace of mind, but I don't have much of a fight left in me...

Take: One

I never watch the same movie twice.
It's a terrible nuisance when someone asks me about a movie I watched years ago, and I can only give a vague account of what it was all about. I mainly remember what I felt like while I watched it, or how the story left me feeling afterwards. I can never state its plot matter-of-factly; I'll always be blinded by my biases.

I recently discovered the same rule applied to a person I fell in love with.
I never looked at the way he really was, but was always entranced by how he made me feel the first time I laid eyes on him. Reruns of his words and his actions had little mattered under the influence of the premiere. It was like my brain was in a hurried loop to go back to that time when we first met, play it over and over again, and bury deep all the heartache his mere presence in my life caused.

He was not a bad person. He was every bit as intelligent, vulnerable, brave and scared as I was. Many a time even more so. He bore strong resemblance to how I imagined my knight in a shining armor to be when I was a young girl. And I was tremendously thankful to have crossed paths with him.

But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we wouldn't have worked out. Our attraction was the kind of insanity that causes people to die for each other, not the foolery that drives them to live with each other. It's the kind -I personally believe- that should be experienced once in a lifetime, but not every day for a lifetime. He was someone I wanted in every way to be with, just not someone I would risk everything I have for.

I pray time can reveal what emotions obscured...and maybe a rerun with a clear mind and a passionless heart.

The Ella Enchanted Syndrome

For my whole life, I've been the goody-two-shoes who follows laws, rules, and regulations with blind obedience. I was told it was best for everyone. I was told it keeps everyone safe, happy, and productive. I was told when things are in order, little could go wrong.

Throughout my almost twenty one years of life, I saw laws being broken, regulations ignored, and people doing whatever the hell they wanted to do, to little or no consequences on the greater good of the society. Sure, many of those instances lead to injustices that affected me directly and personally, but no one else cared and I knew it was best for everyone if I just kept my mouth shut. I realized I bend under pressure and cave in under the unjust rule of tyrannous figures who only cared about that elusive, mysterious "greater good."
And for the very few times I tried to play rebellious and pay no heed to their warnings, all hell broke loose.

This is not to say I got in much trouble, because the last "serious" trouble I ever got into was back in kindergarten when I publicly defied a teacher who didn't like that I talked too much. The situation worked out in my favor after my mother meddled, but ever since I've always thought twice and thrice and a million times before defying authority. Be that the security guard in front of a building who insists on making my life harder because he can, to the teachers, professors, religious leaders, team leaders and so on of the people who have a say on what goes and what doesn't in my life.

I just don't like using uncivil manners, which might seem contradictory to my feisty personality and quick temper. But screaming and using foul language always comes with more internal repercussions than external for me. I have terrible guilt that breaks me down every time I lash out at someone, whether they deserve it or not. Added to the perfectly convenient (hah!) unlikable aura that surrounds me wherever I go, it just makes life pretty hard for me to not be a complete and utter angel. I can't -of course- because I'm human, but my failure to conceal contempt or disgust or any negative feeling there is always makes me dissatisfied with my performance in the system I am currently living in; the system that both repels me and repulses me.

But I'm tired of that. I'm tired of feeling scared all the time lest I step on someone's toes accidentally while I go on living my life. I want, for a change, to not care whether my existence is causing someone trouble or inconvenience. I want to stop caring about everyone's needs and desires, likes and dislikes before my own. I want to stop regarding the laws and rules and unspoken conventions (which failed to protect my rights uncountable times) as sacred laws to be regarded above my personal comfort. I'm tired of being a coward and fearing the consequences of every action I take no matter how trivial and insignificant it is. And I'm tired of being scared to stand up for what I think is best for me, regardless of what people say and rules dictate.

I want to embrace this phase of rebelliousness now that I can, for one day I'll wake up unable to defend my rights that I let go of, when I possessed the voice and energy to stand up for them and receded. 

The Chosen and The Damned

I'd be lying if I said I never wondered on what basis God judges a person as good or bad. I've had these thoughts since I was a kid when I was told that being certain things was good, while doing things or associating with certain people was bad. I tried to maintain those guidelines while growing up, looking at things purely from black and white vision goggles. It was easy, relatively. I just had to hold to some criteria that I thought were objective and fair, but that was as far as my child brain could take me.

But growing up, to me, was discovering that life has a wide array of grey-scale shades. And these shades often get tinted by a certain color representing where you stand on the spectrum. I learned that my idea of right and wrong is different from my sister's, and we grew up in the same house raised by the same parents! I'd be lying to say that it was easy, because I remember at a point in my life I was being constantly shocked by what other people viewed as true, right, good and fair. Let's just say it was a bumpy road...

Part of the teachings children receive, especially in religious backgrounds, is knowing which people belong where when it comes to the afterlife. We're taught that certain people who do a,b and c belong to heaven, while some others who don't, and maybe have 1,2 and 3 as their set values, they belong to hell. The first pile, The Chosen, often include people like ourselves and our parents. They're the familiar, the similar, the congruent to our codes of morality. While the "other," they're The Damned. Those classifications are often termed "moral tribes."

Setting apart moral tribes starts to take place by associating with only the people who fit our definitions of good. But like any other tribal behaviors, it ends by eliminating and alienating those who don't. A bit further down the road, the tribe starts having a more specific list of "admission prerequisites,"  which means that its circle shrinks and starts to exclude more people. And to ensure the survival and propagation of its values and morals, it starts to fight other tribes.

This means that fighting only happens when a tribe feels threatened by the presence of another option, or by the lack of enough followers. It happens when the "other" is viewed as the enemy who could possibly destroy our own tribal values, or at least when vanquishing the "other" is seen as a sign of strength that could attract a bigger number to join the victor tribe.

It's obviously primal thinking, using primal strategies. To fail at belonging to a community, having certain values and beliefs, while simultaneously being able to view the "other" as a human being with as much value on their life, as many rights as you possess, and as big of a possibility to be a good human being. This is all childish clinging to the black and white vision goggles.

But you know, sometimes those goggles don't work.