The Full Suffer.

I’m stupid.

Not ignorant stupid, but aware enough to be confident in the reality of knowing where I am on the scale of being stupid about things.

Another confession: I know a lot.

I do not know even more than I do know. I’m assuming this, of course.

Really, the enormity of things I don’t know is of such size where I am not quite sure what I could even conceivably compare it to.

Having said that, I am also smart. Not book smart, and not really “street smart” which, I think, is just another way of saying “I’m not book smart but I don’t think I’m *that* stupid.”

There is a point to this blathering, I promise.

I am a frustrated person. I own this fact and rarely hide it from anyone. I talk about how things don’t work all the time. I also try to find ways to correct course, fix things that are broken and look to others when I don’t have a solution.

I try to always bring something to the table when I am being critical, such as a way to fix what I perceive as a problem. I know that a lot of people take this as whining.

I see it as more as drawing attention to issues that others might not notice.

Can’t say I know why I do it. I don’t know why anyone does anything. I do know that a lot doesn’t get done because there is a dull malaise of awareness that taking the time or effort to do things in the “right way” can turn into headaches, or pain, or annoyance to someone in the future because of it being the “wrong” thing to another set of people that don’t want to see genuine good or sincere action. Cynical folk, for lack of a better term, who benefit from what’s terrible.

I think many people gloss over what is happening and are happy with their distractions in lieu of critical thinking or action. I identify, most definitely, as one of them at times. The alternative is to be a stark raving loon attacking people for their political ignorance or complete lack of empathy for other humans. To wreak havoc on those who do no good for themselves or others and feel no obligation to, either.

I question almost everything I come across. I want to know not only why something is made but in what context it was invented, and I want to know the intentions of its creator. Were they looking to profit, either monetarily or through notoriety? What were they getting out of the things that they did?

Side note: Most people scoff when I say that I am not a cynical person. And by definition, I’m not. To question things is not the same as being cynical. I believe nothing is owed to me. I am open to the world’s interpretation of what is happening and take the ride because I am ultimately aware that the universe has a way of working itself out.

I joke about everything. Everything can be funny. Literally. Everything.

You may think differently. You have as much a right to be wrong as I do to be laughing at everything. Exercise your rights, and I will exercise mine.

I these things about humor, as a entrance into the idea of why I don’t think questioning of motives, which are rarely predetermined, is cynical.

It also explains a great deal regarding what I believe causes a great deal of my depression.

To those unaware of its trappings, cynicism takes root in a state of utter contempt for people. Time is wasted, thinking everyone is pushing their own agendas and don’t care to hear about anyone but themselves.

I, knowing much, but also realizing that I know next to nothing, take what my earned knowledge and see potential. Potential in things. Potential in concepts. There’s potential everywhere: In places, In the future and,yes, in people.

Being let down by what others ultimately bring back to “the table” is part of playing this game. When they don’t see the larger idea and get hung up on the details with a myopic tendency bordering on madness. This is mentally the time where despondency reveals itself when I feel as if I’m the only logical, sane person. When others relay that “well, people just suck” and “people are the worst”, I get more down because of their misguided cynicism pulsing out of their every pore towards the people who just let me down. It’s a naturally propagating cycle that infects and destroys dreams and hope and vim and vigor.

Unless it isn’t and I am just projecting my current feelings onto it…which is like blowing into wet paint. It’s still a thing and I haven’t done anything but make a mess.

Typically I get mad at myself for having expectations and ideas and ideals and the warped set of morals that I tend to abide by.

Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha, proposed that there are four noble truths, and they’re seen by some as cynical, or at best, negative-leaning.

They are as follows:

1. Life is suffering.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

3. The cessation of attachment is attainable.

4. The path of self-improvement is the path of cessation of suffering.

Basically, the world is what it is. You can spend your time becoming attached to things and materials and concepts and places. You can waste moments of your youth becoming engrossed in other people’s lives to a point of addiction. You can be attached to the ideas that you create and that you predict and when they leave, or alter, or just plain don’t work out, you lose that link to what you’re connected to and there is palpable, tangible grief.

It’s mourning for a thing that was never there. A concept that incubated and lived and died in the ether.

Where my ignorance and acknowledgement of my own not knowing anything comes in is the lack of understanding of how my mind is attached to all these impermanent things. The reasons for my own suffering are (and this is just scratching the surface) desire, passion, jealousy, pursuit of wealth and/or pursuit of prestige, striving for fame and popularity or even just basic human acknowledgement, or in short: craving and clinging to the things I want.

So, because the objects of that I obsess over and want so badly are, at best, transient, their loss is inevitable, meaning that my depression will not be far behind.

You wanted the best, you got the best. The Full Suffer. It’s on.

Where this suffering ends is in the eventual freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, and ideas that is known by most as “nirvana.”

Put simply, the goal of it all is to learn to not be swayed by shit that doesn’t matter.

I’d like to to be good and kind and make people laugh. It’s the idea of myself that doesn’t exist, and I mourn it, even though I know I shouldn’t.

I don’t know why.

I am really good at being contentious and mean, finding flaws in others because of a defense mechanism. Find the flaws in myself and others and bring them up before anyone else because then they have no ammunition.

I hit them so quickly, they have no opportunity to strike first.

It’s awful.

Ultimately, where the Buddha ends up is saying that the path to being a better person, unattached to things and ideas, and trying to be a good human who is truly them-self, bringing the best out in others… THAT is your goal.

That’s the meandering and woefully paraphrased short history of the basic tenets of Buddhism, and they appealed to me in a great way.

Because I’m in a constant battle of head vs. heart.

And, because I’m in a constant battle of me vs. everyone.

My friend Kelli and I were talking at lunch years ago, sitting on a patio in nice weather, and saying that it was just nice to hang out because we didn’t have to care what we looked like or about what “important things” we were doing or blah-blah-blah. There was no need to showboat or act more important than we were and it was refreshing. We could just be our genuine sincere selves and talk about anything and enjoy it.

She has since stopped regarding me as a friend because I thought something was funny and she did not and I held to my position. I should have not held onto the concept of defending something that to me was “funny” because it was already gone. It came, I laughed, it left. The only thing remaining was her anger, and I took offense to it, sticking to my guns and losing her friendship.

I wish her the best. I miss her terribly. But I’m fine never talking to her again, because that’s what she wants.

Head vs. heart.

This is a path I’ve traveled down for years, occasionally losing ground and rarely making huge strides. But I have earned wisdom in my mistakes and have a few pointers you can take or leave.

Let down your guards. I’m trying be more me than I ever have. I’m a wreck and I know it. I get sad for no reason. I think everything is amusing unless someone is trying to be amusing. Anti-humor is what makes me laugh. And, I want to see everything and know everyone and I don’t want to waste time with people or things that aren’t on the same mission that I am of trying to find the real, genuine and sincere pieces that make up people, places, things and ideas…and so that I can enjoy them for what they are exactly while they’re in front of me and so I can truly know and love them to their fullest, while fully understanding that I have them for that specific time and maybe never again.

I am fine with letting go. I am getting better at dealing with never having had.

Losing my need to want is the hardest thing to let go of.

I’ve lost some really good friends in the last few years, and I think about one of them daily. I know she’s not here. Not in any physical or living sense. But, I know the memories and I’m so thankful I’ve become friends with others that loved her now that she’s gone.

I have her friends. A fitting last gift. What was most valuable to her is now mine.

Some of them are the kind of people that I want to surround myself with and enjoy. There are fewer locally and I’m always intensely afraid to let my true guard down around them. They’re too close. They’re too real.

I have to keep saying this or I lose steam: I will not hide behind “who I am” anymore if I can help it.

It’s time for who I really am to step out and try on the world and see if anyone actually likes what they see. And to be fine with it if they don’t…

But I’m not going in with any expectations.