Mental Charades
I’ve been trying to cope with a lot of things lately. One of them is my relationship with people. I know I have friends I can share some of what happened to me, but there’s basically no one who understands where I’m coming from. Maybe I’m not effective in communicating it? Anyway, I also think that maybe writing it down like this organizes my thought patterns into something more digestible, even for myself.
To start, I will wander off into tangents. The thing with reading my stuff is that I always enclose related thoughts in parenthesis (like this) which clutters things visually. Putting a footnote loses the freshness of the thought. Besides, I’m not writing an academic paper.
1) Why I Hate Humanity
The last thing I wrote for fun was around 10 years ago which was an attempt at stand-up comedy. People (friends and strangers) liked it and I got a bit motivated to do more (which I didn’t)
In it, I wrote about my growing pessimism that bordered on misantrophy. At that point, I was on the verge of breaking down and losing my sanity. The things that defined who I am (writing, photography, music) did not spark anything. In fact, I loathed all of these activities. Sure, I was able to talk about them as if I was still doing them but there was a detachment, a self-critical me that does not give a shit at all about art. Around this time, though, I was able to accumulate music equipment just to feel connected to it (which I did not, no matter how hard I tried)
Back to what I wrote, I explained that humans are hypocrites for living a life that does not make sense to me. All the illogical structures, the duality of religion, the quest for temporary pleasures, compromising beliefs to fit in, and raising social capital just to get recognized. I shunned all of them my whole life because, in my head, living a life based on genuine connections is more rewarding than sticking my nose into something that does not benefit me in the long run.
How do I know this if things are fleeting and “spontaneous?”
The thing with me is that I always expect the worst. Everything will fall apart eventually. Even if I put work into things, the inevitable outcome will always be negative. I have no control with things outside of me. And, really, that’s one thing that kept me sane. I choose to be comfortable with the idea that life is just a game and no matter how much I try to motivate myself into thinking of living in the moment, which is a healthy way of seeing things, my mind takes the other direction and prepares me for it.
Besides, humans are easy to read. Their behaviors are influenced by their external environments processed by their minds. In turn, their attitudes, values, preferences, are shaped by how they process their surroundings. At the end of the day, humans are bound by two choices: yes or no. Positive or negative. Choices that comes with their own set of two choices still based on those two. There is no escape. There is no “yes, but” in this situation. Justifying so just makes humans complicate matters by not simplifying what they already decided upon. Life is shit because we make terrible decisions.
So terrible are our decisions that it greatly affects my own well-being. I grew up empathizing with people. Especially those who have been oppressed in any way possible, because I went through the same thing. The more I became selfless, the more I lose my identity. Me? Who am I but a vessel for people to use.
That changed when I started to grow more and more resentful about humanity. As stated above, I’d rather be connected to people than stick my ass into something. But, sticking myself in something made me learn more about why humans are hopeless. I genuinely hate humanity. However, my hate is not an absence of love. Quite the opposite: my hate is out of concern and care for humans. I would not be aware of this if it was from an absence of love. And, yes, justifying it this way makes me comfortable about all the hate I can spew in my mind.
2) Hating Out Of Concern
One thing that sparked this whole idea is the fact that I never really formed bonds with people. Bonds that are equally selfless and beneficial, or just bonds that heal each other. (There may be a few but I don’t think they see it that way.) So, I did some introspection and found out that while there are some who I consider I’m close to, to varying degrees, there is this type of bond that I want to have. A bond that checks my well-being, a bond that provides warmth on a cold January night, and a bond that gives and receives love despite all the hate. Sounds simple, right? Of course not.
Humans think of relationships as transactional. That’s why they always say that it’s a two-way street. Bonds work that way, too. In a capitalist world, transactions give instant gratification. This instant gratification places us in a situation where we do think that we are happy when in fact we are not. The transactional nature of relationships also works the same way.
For me, though, I don’t expect things to go my way, in order to break the transaction. I do things because I find it interesting. I offer myself because I think there is something to learn from it. And, as always, I know I am right. By partaking in this process of transactions, I learned that showing genuine concern about humans places me in a position where I am helpless. Can I break free from it? Of course. I just choose not to. I think humanity needs more work in this aspect. As it stands, there is no truly “selfless” person. Everything is based on how humans want to live a life that gratifies them. Don’t get me wrong, that’s also a positive thing to do. It’s just that there is something flawed in how humans interact that I feel should be addressed.
This is why I am aware that people just use me because it’s more convenient. It gives them hope because there’s always someone out there who seeks gratification in a different way. But, again, out of convenience. And I always present myself as that. A convenience. Does it matter? I find myself indifferent when it comes to this. I’ve been in too much shit to even think otherwise. Besides, if it makes the person happy, then I’ve done my task. Just to prove how transactional things are.
I hate humans because of this nature.
3) On Love
This does not mean I don’t love, as I said before. Love is more than just giving what you have (materially, spiritually, emotionally) love is more than that. Love is a bond that encompasses a range of – for a lack of a better term – emotional and intellectual needs. On a basic level, love is respect. Love is showing concern and care. Love is a meeting of the minds. Love is when someone thinks you’re hot, even on your worst days.
And that’s why love is elusive for me. It does not come across as an ideal. It manifests as the clash between the ideal and the practical. And the practical nature of love is, you guessed it, transactional. Why can’t we be happy with things, anyway? I love a lot as much as I hate a lot. But that same intensity frightens people.
4) Hiding in the Veil of Intellect
So, to save myself from further pain, I always retreat to my mind where I can just be comfortable with what I know. I read and read and read. There’s also the occasional solo trips that I do to explore the world beyond my mind. The intellect is fallible and malleable. I do these to make mine stronger.
5) I Don’t Hate Myself, I Just Hate Everything Else
Diverting my self-loathing into loathing for everything else has its own faults, too. One of them being escaping accountability when it is needed. I don’t care because it’s their fault. The flaw of human logic becomes apparent when we put things in its place. We love, we hate. The in-betweens come later, when we have made mistakes. To divert my self-hate, I decided to hate everything else. And this entails a general sense of self-righteousness (which I also hate)
The problem to overcome now is going to be how much I want to take this thought and be accountable for my own mistakes, without regressing to hating myself again. It is a process that requires mental fortitude.
6) sure, be my guest
Love or hate, it doesn’t mean too much if we show concern for others while making them accountable. I believe we can achieve better connections when we check in ourselves. Firstly, within us. And secondly, with each other. Whether you are on the side of pure love, or like me, of hate, we are two sides of the same coin.
But if you want to join me, be my guest. No, rather, stand beside me and we’ll overcome everything.
The Digital Purgatory 
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