#anti-prose

[irarelypostanything]

Feelings are stupid

I’m sorry for being sensitive.

I know it just sounds like I’m doing that thing where I apologize sarcastically, but I’m not.  Or I’m not trying to.  You hurt my feelings, but I’m sorry for being hurt.  I know it must hurt you, to know you hurt me.

Feelings are stupid.  Emotions are made of glass.  I don’t even know if that metaphor made sense, but think about it.  Imagine something that breaks so easily, you do it by accident.  Baseballs through windows.  Taillights.

I’m really reaching.

It sounds like I meant something and you heard something else, and then you meant something and I heard something else.  Imagine miscommunicating like that, and then repeatedly doing it.  We just kept doing that.  We kept making mistakes until after it was too late.

I don’t blame you.  I hope you don’t blame me.  I just...I don’t know why...

I don’t know why it still hurts.  I think feelings are stupid.

[irarelypostanything]

love is stupid

i’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and i’ve come to a pretty solid conclusion: love is just stupid. love isn’t even insane, it’s just dumb.

so people flirt, and that kind of makes sense.  flirting is like the love equivalent of sending an “express interest” notice on LinkedIn.  putting up your relationship status on Facebook used to make sense, but then there are all these other things you can list.  you can be in a relationship, or not, or it’s complicated, or you can be in an open relationship.  all of these things sound pretty absurd until you actually try them.  i’ve never done that, so it’s just absurd.

sure, it’s evolutionary. oxytocin and stuff.  but it’s like one second, you’re simultaneously proclaiming mutual love to each other for the first time.  next thing you know, you’ve both broken up and are simultaneously running calculations of the combined sum of money you wasted on presents, dinners, and miscellaneous crap.

a popular writer wrote this post that said “get married because you’ll have wasted a lot of time otherwise.”  i feel like that kind of speaks for itself.  that’s just an opinion of a relationship--either you wasted time, or you’re debating which of you two has to take your three kids to school that morning.

i just dont get myself at all.  my feelings are a roulette wheel.  the list of things i look for seems completely absurd to me, and what’s even more absurd is how often I’ll meet someone who makes me throw the list out the window.  other people are equally absurd.  half the time, i don’t know if two people end up together because of a good reason, physical attraction, practicality, or some completely stupid “none of the above” umbrella category. i feel like it’s usually the last thing.

anyway, i don’t even know what i’m doing anymore.  i think i’ll probably spend the rest of the night eating ice cream and rewatching the notebook while sobbing uncontrollably.

and, come to think of it, thats a pretty fking stupid way to spend a night.

[irarelypostanything]

Purple Prose

I reached a point when the words didn’t mean anything to me.  But I saw the way other people reacted to them, and it had to mean something.  We all carry this desire to feel things, to believe in things.  Who was I to spoil the moment?

Without tears, without smiles, without anything close to a reaction...I wouldn’t have felt like a person.  So I faked it.  I pretended to like everything.  And so I read it, over and over, until I reached a point where maybe I did like it.

I felt that if I didn’t react, nothing would really mean anything.  We’re just getting older.  We’re just going to be extinguished.  There’s nothing more cliche than cynicism.

So forget it.  I don’t want to reject it anymore.  If you think her eyes are like constellations and her hair is like golden fields, if you think every sunrise is like a perfect and tranquil something...go for it.  Believe in it.  Who are the critics to stop you?  Share your words, and spread them far and wide, and find people who share that experience with you through your words.

Your harshest critics will believe it someday.  I’m sure.  They’ll find love, or beauty, or maybe they won’t.  Maybe they’ll keep to their dark writing, their indescribable sadness, their discontent that goes deep into the soul and makes everything feel like nothing.  They’ll be there, but maybe they’ll at least feel a glimpse of what you’re trying to convey.

I don’t really know what side I’m on.  There’s a lot of light and a lot of darkness, or whatever.  There are haunting thoughts that stick with us and don’t go away, the way cancer is never really gone.

And yet there’s writing so wondrous and beautiful that it’s like...a sunrise.

[irarelypostanything]

Death

“I don’t need you,” said God.

[irarelypostanything]

Find someone who...

Find someone who is willing to listen, and to keep an open mind, and be thoughtful before she makes a judgment.  Find someone who’s willing to admit to when she’s wrong, but still has the confidence and resilience to move forward.

Find someone who’s passionate, fiery, perhaps intimidating to some degree...but whose traits are founded on a fundamental desire to help.  Find someone who, above all else, is kind.

Find someone who wants what’s best, not just for herself but for everyone.

She may have flaws, and she may have a lot to learn, and she may be wrong from time to time.  No one is perfect, so find someone who grows.  Find someone who brings others up with her.  Find someone who builds, who collaborates, and who helps not just you but the people you care about to meet their goals.

Find someone you argue with constantly.  Find someone who always tries to find ways to improve, and to help you improve.  Find someone who mediates your decisions, who asks questions when questions are needed.  Find someone who can think, who is capable, who supports you but who accepts your help when she has her own times of need.

If you can find someone else this, then you’ll have found this company one hell of a new hire.

[irarelypostanything]

Maybe the key to being happy is to stop trying to be happy.  

This isn’t to say that you’ll be happy by trying to be unhappy.

Let variable x denote the amount of effort you exert into trying to obtain happiness.  Let variable y denote your level of happiness.  Don’t ask what the units are.  My 8th-grade math teacher constantly asked what the units were, and it drove us crazy.

All I’m suggesting is that x and y aren’t directly proportional.  I don’t even know if there’s a term to characterize their relationship.  There’s probably some correlation, but I don’t know what it is.

My recommendation is that we go back to doing whatever it is we do, whether it’s being an engineer or a doctor or an artist or an undeclared student who tries to decide between two completely unrelated majors.

We’ll figure out this confusing happiness thing later.

[irarelypostanything]

Really, the key is to remember to breathe. That’s the only thing you need to keep in mind.

When you start, you’re going to feel a lot of things. You’ll feel tired. You’ll feel hurt. You may want to just give up, then and there, and collapse onto the ground. Don’t. This will make you stronger.

You’re going to reach a point where every moment of your past seems irrelevant, where every moment in the future seems distant. That’s the idea. You can raise your awareness, you can live a greater life, but it needs to begin right here and right now with you not giving up.

Hold steady. Keep it up. Believe in your own abilities, and amaze yourself with how long you can last.

Then, when the timer rings, you’re done with your plank.

[irarelypostanything]

I’ve been thinking a lot about chocolate.

A 3 Musketeers Bar used to be my favorite thing in the world.  I could save one for weeks, even though I have a sibling.  Having a sibling means you must face the very real possibility that the chocolate bar you have today might not exist tomorrow.

But if we make it a routine to do something we love, like eat a chocolate bar, the elation it once brought is forgotten.  Do something 20 times the same way, and it’s no longer fun.  Eat 20 chocolate bars in one sitting, and each one is worse than the last.  

I’ve been thinking about how chocolate is the one constant we have in our lives. Chocolate is delicious.  Chocolate has always been delicious.  Companies may claim that their new brand of chocolate is unique, but really, every time we eat chocolate we’re just diving back into the sweet familiarity that is our childhood and our happiness and the key to some of the memories we hold closest to our hearts.

Chocolate doesn’t change.  We change.