Unexpected Positivity

Good evening ladies and gentleman.

I find myself in a strange place, understanding more of what being “stuck between a rock and a hard place” really means. Its a particularly confusing sensation, in which its difficult to know what to do, where to go, or how to move anywhere, backwards or forwards from where you find yourself. Like I said last time round, its like falling through to the darkest parts of my complicated, ever growing and expanding Palace of Darkness.

However, in recent times of confusion, anger and irritation i find myself looking backwards, to the problems of being “defeated,” or allowing something, someone get to me in a way that i could do nothing about. I ‘ve already spent a dam long time thinking about that and its driving me down a road i don’t want to go down. Reality is far different though, as letting it play on every conscious fiber of your mind really isn’t an advantageous way of dealing with anything. The only real thing that can be taken from that experience is an insurmountable level of total and utter exhaustion.

Like many mental states and issues that occur in people across the different demographics across the world, exhaustion has a funny way of affecting us all. The lack of sleep being the foremost issue, beyond that It makes you rash, irritable, difficult to deal with, even by your own standards and unnaturally angry at what would normally pass through your periphery  without a second glance.  I suppose the point I’m not making very well, is that you can become very distracted, so lost about where your going and the path you want to be on.

I found myself at this point recently, after admittedly struggling for what has been a few weeks now. I’m slowly bringing it back, but there are always going to be days where i feel alone, lost on an island, finding solace and misery in equal measures at being on my own. I thought this was happily miserable for a while, until you realize (shockingly) that being what passes as miserable can’t be considered an exactly pleasurable experience. It’s at this point, at the low you don’t want anyone to see where the unexpected comes around.  The unexpected positivity.

For as long as i can remember, I’ve struggled to understand positivity. I’ve always been convinced its hiding a darker, more selfish intention; “why would people want the best for someone else?”- as for a long time i have done all i can to convince myself that my purpose, my reason to wake up in the morning was to show others how brilliant, wonderful, beautifully amazing they are and what they have the potential to be, at no matter what cost to myself. However a recent, albeit fleeting lunch with my best friend got me thinking and in many ways has made me wander about the life i was living, the life i thought was they key to the door of “everything.”

She says these days she is surrounded by powerful, inspiring, positive people, those so full of joy and happiness for everything they are and everything they believe she can be. Through this she feels a sense of purpose, of belonging among people who love her, and want for her only to be happy. The sort of people she surrounds herself with make her want to be a better person and work hard to be in a better place everyday.  Now as I’m sure you’d gathered she has always been that to me, a person so charismatic, happy, so full of positive joy even after going through so much. She proceeds with her head held high, looking for the next challenge, the next adventure of life and love.

Its truly something the way she is- i love her for it, she’s dam fabulous. Point being though i never really thought i had that in my life, beyond her, that positive outlook, that desire for me to be happy never really passed into something i thought about, being personally connected to someone and the positive influence that they could bring into your life. I guess being connected, wanted, arguably “happy” in a single moment was left largely ignored.

Less people, less connections, less risk to pain, less pain. That was always the thought. With the recent return to the Palace i find myself talking more to people who I’ve trod very carefully around previously, making sure to keep them at arms length and away from my inner darkness, for it meant they would not cause pain. My paranoia is a topic for another day, for its the results of letting people into my life and allowing them to see who i really am, more than the character i play, or the person i think i’m supposed to be that has created the point where i find myself now. I let these people in, did what i can to build them up as i would do before, but with a difference. A difference and what turned out to be a rather life affirming experience.

My recent period of darkness acquired the attention of people i thought i had at distance, but i realize now that we are closer than i thought, for they aren’t just people i know, people that work in the same building i do. They are my friends. The darkness made me realize this, for when they see me, feeling alone, stuck on this island with what feels like no way out, they did what they could to bring me back. In their own way, these two random, strange, confusing people, who 3 months ago i barely even noticed most of the time, considering how long I’ve known them for fear of what might or might not happen. You find yourself going through something and expect its easier to do it alone you’d be wrong, for people and their positive brilliance can be amazing.

Through this period, they were there for me, i guess that’s the best way of saying it. Listening to be miserable, sad, lonely and angry. Annoyed i let myself get to the point of what felt like no return, they listened. I felt, somehow not as alone, not stuck between a rock and a hard place, somehow more connected, to both the world and myself than i ever have done. These brilliant people, both in their own unique way, bringing me back from the darkness, shining a form of hope for what i want to be through the brilliant white hot light of what i had become.

They are weird. They are confusing. They are nothing like i thought they were.  I’m eternally grateful to them for this, their unexpected positivity, happiness and joy made me feel protected, like the problems i feel so powerfully weren’t going to be as difficult to deal with, because I don’t have to do it alone. I guess this is a lesson in unexpected positivity, you never know what people are capable of, for if you never give them the chance, you never know how your mind will react to brilliance like that. Simple yet brilliantly individual unexpected positivity.

An odd feeling, yet quite a beautiful one.

Yours, with love as always.
DR

 

Falling- or Growing?

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I wander, often aimlessly, through my Palace of Darkness. This mental playground, a battlefront surrounding the inner darkest parts of my soul from everything and everyone. My Palace has protected me for so long, it has been a sanctuary as i try to do something worthwhile, something meaningful with my life. With the most ironic thing being of late in this ignorance of life to try and find something meaningful, I’m not really sure what the word “meaningful” means anymore.

Its as if, and i know this is a horrible cliche- I’m falling, always falling. I work so hard to be open to life, to love and all of the advantages and pitfalls that have become all to familiar, to let myself get to the point of feeling what passes for happy, to feel something more relevant than the bullshit you listen to yourself go on, on and on about. It’s obviously rare to find something like that and what’s worse, to me at the moment has the potential to be spectacular.

To tell you the truth, no matter of the differences between the person i want to be, the person that i should be and the one i look at in the mirror every morning, i find myself confused. Perhaps because i don’t know where I am or where I’m going, but because once upon a time i was so sure of what was happening in my mind, so sure of what i wanted to be and who i wanted to be. Now though. it feels like i don’t know anything. The distinctions between these people i once felt were so clear and concise have become so much blurrier recently as this new version of myself begins to take centre stage.

Yet somehow as i start to fall through the gaps of these ideas, thoughts and feelings, i find myself yearning to return to the darker parts of the Palace, the wonderfully dark, peaceful, confusing, complicated, odd, misery inducing, fear enticing place i have for so long spent all of my mental down time meandering around.

The Palace has been my “place” for so long, i hate so much about it, but it, when all is said and done and whether i like it or not, is me. When all is said and done, and for what feels like forever now, I have been trying to understand the geography of this ever changing mental landscape, in some hope it would help me understand myself and the world around me a little better. More recently though i find myself confused whether I’m happy, proud, angry, or even wanting to feel anything,  because I’ve missed so much previously, in trying to understand myself and what I am. I don’t want it to seem like I’m blaming an idea that is essentially me, but especially recently i wander what i have been missing out on and what has the ability to make me feel so alone.

Being alone doesn’t bother me normally, so why all of a sudden do I feel stuck in the Palace, not really knowing where i am, what I’m doing or where I’m going? Why did i get to the point where i felt alone and it bothered me?  I know in the modern world connectivity has become a questionable topic, in the physical, technological and mental sense, but being distant throughout all of these left me lost almost. Sat in the Palace miserable and lonely in a place that i thought was everything to me, only for a development in myself as a person would create a question, and fleck of doubt in something i was so sure of, a confidence shaken in the direction i was going in, something i was once so sure of.

What if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way? What if I’ve been looking at the creation of a feeling that can easily be seen as misery, as running away, as avoiding what I’m doing or feeling in the present moment, the same way i always have? Thinking like this has never really been of any benefit before, so maybe this is where I’ve been going wrong? The question is, am i falling away from the resolve and the person i who choose to be, or is this a period of growth, a test of my mentality to come out the other side a better version of myself.

The argument i have worked to since i started Thinking Evolution has been to “choose to think better feeling thoughts,” and to me, is the most important thing i can ever say, write or live to, because when all is said and done, we are the choices that we make.  We can have chemical imbalances, bad days, good days, dramatic fears of loss , loss itself, grieving, misery or depression- the potential list is endless. It can seem like the world is forever looking for ways to bring us down and put a big dent into the resolve we have worked so hard to maintain, the resolve that exists for your creativity, the art you pride yourself on, that makes your heart beat faster and want to jump so much higher. We need this resolve, because its us.

Through all the disappearing into the lower, much darker regions of the Palace, i worry about myself, what i am becoming and what’s happening to my resolve. I hope though, for myself, that things will come good. I guess the main thing to remember, through it all, is that bad times are going to happen. The way i feel right now, living in this mental grand Palace i have devised for myself while locking parts of me away will get better. When you hit the lowest of low points, the only way is up right? I like to think so- i kind of have to.

We have to have days like this, for this is the only way any of us, how I am to grow as a human being and as a man. Without experience, of good days, bad days, misery, happiness, love, hate, irritation, anger, rage and everything in between, what are we really doing- what am i really doing? The times that give me pleasure, that make me feel good may seem so far away right now, but they will come back, for this is what I choose to believe.

I believed i was falling, as i have done so many times before through another period of misery. No, not this time. I am growing through this, soon to come out through the other side with a different perspective, from the same point of view.

For this, when all is said and done- is growth.

Yours, with love as always

DR