Well... my day started off pretty good. With coffee and some work being done. A nice chat on Facebook with someone across the Atlantic. Then some asshole had to ruin the day for me with his constant whining and pretentious movie scripts and personal antics. He wants to be taken seriously but how can he be taken seriously when he is a psycho?
This is an email he just wrote me:
How strange it is... the Internet. I've been thinking back to the old days when I was a teenager and everyone knew everyone. It was sort of a "living" social network - a friend of a friend new another friend - and that's how we'd all meet. Interaction was real. Chatting, debating, talking, singing was real time; up-close and personal. But eventually we all grew apart, we developed different interests, different tastes and ideals. Some had no clue what they wanted and went down the wrong path - fuck, I've been down so many wrong roads during my 36 years on this Earth - others went on to do great things, fulfilling things. After the time I spent running, tumbling, walking, hurdled down the wrong paths, I've been trying hard to take the right path for me. Except I feel that the environment that surrounds me is slowly sabotaging all my attempts. I am trying to be a better person, a person others can take seriously... but I am trying to compromise and the world just doesn't want to meet me half way. The world wants me to conform and become what I am not. I've been down that road before - being someone else to fit in, being someone that I hated, being someone society deems appropriate, being someone that doesn't disappoint - it didn't work out! It literally sucked the life out of me. I'm still recovering from that.
I used to be pretty popular 20 years ago. I had a ton of friends. Everyone "liked" me. Mostly because I had a car, I was privileged. I never thought about that... I never realized I was being used for whatever reason popped into some of those so-called friends heads. I had a HUGE meltdowns - psychiatrists and psychologists were involved - not a happy time. Mostly I can't remember what happened. I guess I just ran out of my built-in bullshit tolerance. It's all a blur anyway. But during those "hard times" all my "friends" just disappear. Some of them pass me on the street now and pretend I don't exist. I sometimes wonder if I'm the invisible woman. Of course my way to cope with these abandonment issues was to just become MYSELF. It was a long process - figuring out who I am and what I actually like. I discovered that I love writing. I love reading. I love 90's alt music. Right now I'm listening to Alanis Morissette's Ironic (well, isn't this Ironic?). I don't care for fashion. I hate shoes and frilly things. I'm not a girly-girl. I am an avid supporter of the LGBT community and, even though I live in the middle of nowhere in Portugal, I feel I am with them; I support them through the Internet. The Internet allowed all of us to connect in a whole new and different way - it became the global village. But now, it's a global community. The spread-ability of the message is so much wider it amazes me. I know that not a lot of people read my rants. But for those who do read them, thank you. I feel like you're my confidants. And you might agree with me (or not), you might feel sorry for me (or not) and I welcome your opinions. Like I said, I'm trying to be a better person. I already know who I am and what I like but I need to keep building on that, keep adding to it. I want to be all I can be. I want to stop being a disappointment to my parents - that's the one thing I want to overcome. They don't really understand me, or why I like the things I like. They don't understand the work I'm doing in grad school. They think it's sort of like going to high-school and there's no way of explaining to them how exhausting it is - all the research and work - blood, sweat & tears! It is taking a toll... but it's something I need to do for myself. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. I've been doing it for the past year and a half. And I'm going to keep on doing it until I drop.
The Internet... it's funny how you meet people though the Internet you wouldn't normally meet. I meet and talk to all sorts of people. Some nice... some not so nice... but sometimes, you meet someone that is totally in tune with you and after years of having people tell you that you're not good enough, that you'll never be anything but a waste of space, someone pops up on your screen and tells you that those people are wrong. I... I literally don't know what to say. Am I really a decent and good person? Am I deserving? Do I deserve happiness? That person has now gotten me to question everything about myself. Maybe my shortcomings aren't annoying. Maybe my imperfections are actually perfect. Maybe I can be myself and have the strength to brush off all negative comments. He saw everything and... it felt good because I didn't have to hide or conceal the bad. Acceptance... that's what it feels like! I've never been accepted by anyone. People just always try to change certain parts of me and I end up feeling like one big puzzle people are trying to fix by rearranging and cramming all the wrong pieces in all the wrong spots. But the past few days I've been feeling like a carefully realist painting - everything captured perfectly (even the imperfections).
The Internet opens a lot of doors but it sometimes keeps other doors harder to open. Sometimes one would wish to be the Kool-Aid dude and smash through the wall yelling: "OH YEAAAAAAAH!". The Internet makes us happy (because we have the whole world at our fingertips) but it also makes us sad (because Geography, man!). The trouble with the Internet, though, is that sometimes you have the Atlantic Ocean as an obstacle. So interaction is merely digital. And depressing as that may be, I still go to sleep wondering about that intriguing person that has been slowly building me up and opening my eyes and I wake up wondering what the day will bring us... and how rad it would be that the Atlantic distance was easier to tame.
Last night I had a dream I was myself again. It felt so real and awesome! It felt like I was cold and in the dark but someone came in, turned on the lights and gave me a warm fuzzy blanket. And I could feel it being gently wrapped around me. As I felt warmer I think I actually smiled as I was dreaming, like I was aware of what I was dreaming.
Dreams are, as I think of them, a sort of therapy or sub-conscious way that our minds have of supporting us and making us feel better. Sometimes we just don't understand our own minds and what they're trying to say to us. Sometimes we do, but ignore it. Other times we just don't listen. It's like being a teenager all over again and doing the opposite of what your parents tell you. My mind is telling me I am tired and weary. That I need to rest. But how can I rest? I haven't achieved anything... I haven't done anything. I'm this huge failure, a disappointment. I feel the eyes of disappointment burning holes through me every time I go visit my parents. I see disappointment in the face of strangers sometimes... I see it all over the place. It's my paranoia kicking in.
I have many dreams. I remember most of them (unless I take a sleeping pill in which case I get knocked out and wake up the next morning slobbering my pillow). Some happy, some sad, some weird. The weird ones are the most entertaining. But this one dream I had this night... it kind of crawled under my skin. It made me want more. It made me want things I don't think are (or ever will be) in my grasp.
I am going through some rough times and that dream made me feel all sorts of depressed, happy, melancholic, scared that I might not ever feel like that in real life, angry that I never felt like that in real life, and back to depressed. Now all the voices that represent each feeling are silent. I am sort of empty and I want to be myself but I don't know how. I want to be myself and not be shunned. An impossible dream. I want to be myself and be understood. It will never happen. I want to be myself and not be talked-down to. It's a funny notion. I want to be myself and be loved. Is something I miss without ever knowing the feeling.
It's all bullshit, what they told us when we were kids... that we could be and do anything.
They put these ideas in our heads and then they just crush our dreams and stomp all over us. Treat us like disposable human garbage. Not even recyclable. It's unacceptable and I'm pretty pissed off about it.
They kept us growing up on lies and vacant promises. All they do is take and take... they're bleeding us dry and the saddest part is that we're letting them do this.
We let them crush our dreams, murder our hopes and treat us like crap. And we keep going back for more. Why? It's taught to us in school... at a very young age - respect for our elders and our leaders; but what happens when our elders get Alzheimer and our leaders can't lead why can't we stand and speak up? media... media is in the elders' and leaders' pockets. so basically... we're all screwed either way. Damned if we do, and damned if we don't. If we do speak up, media spins it as if we're crazy, delusional, psychopaths, sociopaths, drug-abusers, criminals. If we don't speak up, we keep living these miserable lives we're dealt, not by providence or fate like they would have you believe now, but by them - our so-called leaders. They say WE as a people chose them. I never chose to be laid off so that they could make ROOM for someone else; I never chose to be discriminated by the way I look; I never chose to be pushed aside and bullied (and this, heck if I know the reason!). I never chose... because I don't believe in choosing the lesser of two evils. In this case, we have plenty of evil to choose from: I don't even know how many political parties Portugal has. It's a breeding ground for political parties. They grow and spring up like fungi. Then, they feast on tax-payers like LEECHES! If this really is a fucking democracy why is it that politicians don't get cut-backs like the rest of the people? Why is the fucking President not getting a normal salary but getting paid his pension? Does that mean that he is President but he doesn't work? I though Presidents were elected BY the people and FOR the people... guess I got that shit wrong too. Maybe I should have paid more attention while I was at the idiot factory... and everyone knows that by idiot factory I mean school. Schools are the biggest jokes! It's like all the politicians are restraining education, they held knowledge captive because they're afraid that children might out-smart them. But I tell you, even the biggest idiot on Earth would out-smart Portuguese politicians! That's for sure! They keep whining that they were once the biggest empire and blah blah blah! But when you ask them how they lost such empire they all go quiet of a sudden. Why is that? I guess they missed that History lesson, or maybe were even deprived of it. Everybody loves to blow wind out of their asses, and the Portuguese are no exception.
But what I've seen lately is starting to piss me off... I see children crying, hungry. Some of them are discouraged because they're crammed in a small classroom with 28 or 29 other kids and can't learn. I see teachers that really don't give a shit and just sit there, paycheck, to paycheck... they get to their job late even though they live across the street and still can't be bothered to run (well, they do run - to the cafe to have breakfast). I see homeless people going though garbage looking for their next meal. I see our best writers forgotten and slowly dying on shelves... All that knowledge, gone. I'm scared for my son. He won't have the good teachers I had to teach him how to think for himself and form his own opinions. That will have to be my job, which I'll gladly take on, if he lets me. Because... you know... teenagers never listen to parents. All this is going on right here, every day, and I see it. It's depressing... such potential thrown down the drain. Why? Politicians... and their "You scratch my back, I scratch your back" politics. There's an urgent need for a change, even the smallest change can make a difference. But I don't see anyone doing anything. There is no revolution. Why? Why aren't people taking any of this seriously? That is what I don't understand... are their minds so fucked up by TV that they can't muster up one last cry for Revolution? I guess so... Sad...
And nobody does anything. Nobody gives a shit. They all just go about their business as usual lives until one day they keel over and die.
shit!
I'm sick of this. I cringe at the very thought that most of my old high-school classmates have a seat at city council meetings making decisions, important decisions... spending tax-payer money. And we're home watching wheel of fortune (not me, I hate that show and I never watch TV - but my mom does; she loves that show) or some sort of stupid fucking soap-opera. Keep on going down that path... do nothing. And you'll end up laid off like me because you don't fit or dress the norm and you're position is needed for a "friend of a friend" who isn't even qualified for the job. Good one, Portugal!