Green Day is the thing that is most strongly tied with Australia for me. Maybe it is because they play them in the radio here quite often. Or maybe something even more. But "Basket case" is the appropriate song with which to end this series of posts.
This post is going to be about the things I left out in the previous posts. Personal revelations and realizations that have come to me during these two weeks and the like.
Firstly, some of you have probably noticed that since "New York City Boy", all the posts have been titled with song lyrics. Songs I used to like at one time or another. Depressing songs, mostly. Followed up with a fairly upbeat blog post. In some sense, this is my way of dealing with some of my past demons. Or current ones, in some other cases. I will not deny that a few nights here it got somewhat bad again. Lonelyness, hopelessness, despair and everything that comes with the three.
I would, of course like to blame it all on M. and say I still have very strong feelings for her. Nearly a year now. At least once a day, usually a bit more often. Pretty bad, huh?
However, I know that is not really the case. I do have a lot of history with her, and I do have feelings for her, but in most cases, it is not me missing her so much as me just needing someone to be close to -- mentally more than physically - and things that remind me of her (a lot of these lying around) also reminding me of that fact. Automatic thinking. Should put an end to that.
Moving on.
Most of us act in a way so as to earn the most respect from the people we ourselves respect the most. The "inner circle" of friends, or family. Most of us will also try to deny that and say they act by some higher moral code or by their inner sense of self or.. whatever. But that amounts to pretty much the same thing in most cases - as such people usually still interact with people who also act by the same principles. Chicken and egg problem and I will not get into the argument which comes first - principles to act by or friends who respect that you act by these. All I am saying is that in the end, most people end up acting so as to be liked and respected by their closest friends.
Now comes an interesting question though: what do you do if you have no inner circle of friends nor any strong and strict moral belief system to tell you what is right and wrong? Or if you are part of two circles whose views on many things are quite conflicting?
Enter me.
I really have noone to reliably set my good-bad compass for. So I interpolate from the few friends I respect the most.
I wish.
Anyways, all of us have achievements. For some, it is stuff like completing a PhD in 2.5 years. For others, it is having consumed 20 beers one night and still walked home. People who respect the first rarely respect the second.. and vice versa. Indeed, one thing I found here was that amongst backpackers, noone gives a damn if you had a PhD or how quickly you finished it. Conversation slides over it without anyone even noticing.
Playing your own game vs letting the other guy beat you at his. My main "problem" is I usually go along with other peoples games as I am not too interested in winning.. but losing also sucks bad.
Proper reaction to "I once drank 20 beers" is not "wow, cool" but "Do you think of your liver? Do you want to die of hepatitis before you hit 30?". One does make more enemies that way though. Not much less friends though, because do I really want friends who boast about their drinking habits?
Well, except I have done that a few times too (with 9 shots of tequila.. which was fun).. just to show some people I too have tried alcohol so am not as "uncool" as I may first seem.
Trouble is, though, I could spend years trying to catch up to people who spent their youth playing sports, drinking with friends and dating girls. Its pretty absurd to assume it would take me much less time to get good at these things than it did them. I have other strengths though. My ability to think.. or work hard.. or hold a steady job.
Which is another important point. Many "cool" people are on social welfare, students or are working one odd job after another. This type of lifestyle allows for much cooler stuff to happen to you than keeping a regular job.. but I think the latter is equally hard if not moreso - it takes resources, which others can easily locate to other stuff. Should we really idolize people who make one stupid decision after another?
Because, lets face it, stupid decisions always lead to better stories and always seem to "teach" us more. Usually they teach us to try a similar thing again though, because if things worked out once, theyll probably work out the second time too - you just have to change the details enough to make it hard to understand that the same thing is being done again.. and again.. and again.
And it is not actually about what you really did, but how you tell it. Coming back from the first rafting trip, there was this very cute Swiss girl on the raft. On the first bus back, we got talking a little and I mentioned I had studied french for 8 years.. she smiled nicely but then the conversation moved on. In the second bus, she was sitting next to a danish guy from the other raft and I overheared their conversation. He got a pretty similar positive effect with her by mentioning he knew just three words of french. One has to capitalize on what one has.
Biggest losers are usually also the biggest loudmouths - they have little, but they know how to use that little pretty damn well. After all, it is just a matter of forcing the other person to play by your rules - I did these things and these things define a person as cool. Done well enough, this premise is accepted without critique and the person indeed becomes cool in the eyes of the other person. But in reality, it is just good salesmanship.
Everyone reading this - think about how often has it happenned that you feel inferior to someone you have been talking to for a few minutes to a few hours. This is how it is done, by the way.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I have done a bunch of stupid things, stories of which I could live on for the rest of my life, if I really wanted to. And it has been tremendously fun. And not nearly as stupid as I first thought some of these things would have been. Furthermore, I now realize how cool some of the other stuff has been that I have done before in my life...
With my experiences over the past half a year, I now also have enough context to understand other peoples stories about drinking, partying and travelling... and give them due respect rather than over-idealizing them.
Should come in handy.
Another thing I have had a brush with is authenticity and masks. It is very easy to keep another person at a safe distance. Hold up a polite but fairly empty conversation, either about mundane or abstract matters.
However - it is hard to actually be authentic. To look a person in the eye and say that this topic is not interesting to you, but that you would instead like to know about something deep and profound within or about him. You know, go one step further.
Normally, the "one step further" thing just happens with people with whom it "feels right". But if a person is just very shy and likes holding up the polite barrier just for self-defence, he may well never get a chance to have an authentic covnersation. For these cases, a touch of brutal but caring honesty may come in handy. Or, well, there are of course less brutal ways of doing it, as any therapist worth their salt will tell you.
Might make for a bit more meaningful relationships.
So to sum up:
a) Direction is important in life. Be wary of how it is formed.
b) Most of my pain is due to automatic thoughts that tie M. directly with loneliness. Watch for it and make it stop.
c) Learn how to sell what you have well and to scrutinize what the others are actually selling.
d) Authenticity might be a good idea. As with everything, practice makes perfect.
Now to go and put all of that into practice.
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