13th December 2007
This is not exactly a Blog but sort of. Diaries have played an important part in my life. They're a place where I feel totally free and comfortable in my life. I don't always write in one but I always have one. I could write in it every day or once every six months. Sometimes years might pass before I write again. That's the nature of diaries I guess. For me anyway. They're a place I can go when I feel the need to be alone with my thoughts. I find writing out my thoughts to be VERY theraputic. It's unlikely that anything terribly personal will go in here but then a recurring theme in my diaries is my confusion and inability to understand todays world and that is something I might put in here.
For example, practically everyone behaves in certain ways because of their own fears and/or system of belief and they allow these fears to overrule their lives and their behaviour follows in accordance. Most people have more trouble believing in the good things about themselves than they do in the bad things about themselves. Most people seem more afraid of what's on the inside than what's on the outside.
Folks call me enlightened - yes, they really do. That in itself is a puzzlement to me. True enough, I'm not afraid to look inside myself and see what's there. My perceptions of myself were skewed for many years but I was never afraid to look.
I know someone who, in spite of their age, has an attitude of "you hurt me, so now I have to hurt you". They lash out at insults, whether perceived or real, in retaliation without thinking. It's an automatic reaction they have but why? Has their life been so bad that, that is all they can see? I find this person to be very insecure and full of fears. It was my own comments that created this retaliation and yet, from my perspective, I spoke only truth. As far as I ever knew I never was well liked by this person any more than I particularly liked them. I thought this was a well known fact. I didn't speak from cruelty, it's not in my nature to do so. I had thought that I was only speaking what was common knowledge. What we both knew and I didn't think it was any big deal. Apparently I was wrong. Wouldn't be the first time and it won't be the last.
Even so, I still don't understand the mentality of "you hurt me, so I have to hurt you". I admit responsibility for the incident, even if it wasn't my intention to cause harm but the deliberately cruel comments that followed seem to be a common response from this person, not only to me but to others. When things don't go the way they think things should, they resort to what you would call cruel and thoughtless behaviour with an aim to hurting the other person.
This is the part that I don't understand. If someone insults or tries to hurt me I usually think about what has been said and either accept it or dismiss it. It does include some brooding for a while, which I admit is bad for me, but I don't lash out at the other person or attempt to hurt them in return. It used to be because I didn't have a very good self-opinion at all but, even then, I still believed that it was wrong to hurt someone else. I'd been hurt enough in my life to understand that when you try to hurt someone, it does hurt. I didn't like how being hurt made me feel so I have always tried not to do the same to someone else. In recent years I've come to understand that you are only hurt if you choose to be. The old belief that we sometimes "have no choice" is a fallacy. There is ALWAYS a choice. I think we only believe that we have no choice because we don't like the choices before us but whether or not we like those choices is irrelevant. Those choices are still always there and it is up to the individual to make whichever choice they will.
Another thing that I have come to understand is that the only thing in life that you can control is your own self. You cannot control anyone else any more than anyone else can control you. If someone else has control over you, it is because you chose to give them permission to do so. The fact is that no-one can hurt you without your permission. I think folks give their permission to others because they're trying to avoid getting hurt but trying to avoid something doesn't necessarily stop it from happening. I don't like pain either. It's not very nice but it is and has always been a great teaching tool, even if it has only been to learn that pain hurts and you don't ever want to cause anyone else pain.
Absolutely everything in life is a lesson but pain is what helps us to remember the lesson. Perhaps that's why we so often give our permission to others to hurt us. It's about growing and learning and becoming the best that we can be but so many people seem to forget the lesson and only remember the pain. These days I choose not to be hurt, that is my choice, but there is always something new to learn, something different and unexpected around the corner so you never know. I try not to second guess anything but I am still human afterall.
Hmmm ... perhaps I should have called this section "ramblings". I do go on sometimes! Either way - I still have thoughts and feelings on the state of todays society (like everyone else) and sometimes I find it helpful to write it out. If someone hurts you, it's up to you how you choose to react but I, personally, find the business of lashing out at someone else because you chose to feel hurt by what they said to be quite immature - regardless of age - and I don't think I will ever understand the need for it.
