Promise me you won't laugh. Don't pity me either. I don't want your ridicule or sympathy. This is a public diary entry, mostly because I don't maintain a diary. I also write this here, I admit, because I want this to turn up when people search for Unhappiness, Depression and First World Gloom.
We all view life as a long, uncertain story, that progresses through time. Something like a YouTube video - only here, you can't skip forward. The only difference between life and the YouTube video is this: in life, you are inside the video.
So you are being conditioned by the story until now, which in turn influences how you perceive future occurrences. From an engineering perspective, perception is a function of time. And this perception usually shapes your future actions, which in turn changes your story and thereby your future perception of reality.
It's fucked up. You exercise even lesser control over your existence than you think you do. And what you can control most, and what you feel most helpless about, is this: how you perceive things. Because you're going to see many crappy things.
In fact, humans always reach a stage (in the twenties, or if you're having a really crappy life, in teenage) when they think anything that isn't horrible is actually nice. If a door is held open, or if someone tells you that you dropped your boarding-pass, or if a random stranger smiles at you, or if a car stops to let you cross the road. Human beings have the amazing ability to lower their expectations until normalcy seems like heaven. That, of course, is the trick to stay happy.
But if you're like me, you won't do that. I shan't lower my bar just because I've seen my share of idiots. I live in the hope that people will, one day, stop being so hopelessly irresponsible. I put my faith in that Justice Clock, high up in the sky, beyond my range of vision.
In a strange way, I'm fighting what the world is telling me: "Hey, I'm really shitty! No, seriously dude. There's no redemption here. I will stay this bad, for ever and ever and ever... Ha ha ha." And like an idiot, I say to the world, "No, no. You're good. You just don't know it yet."
I do this because I think the individual can prevail only by holding on to certain beliefs. I actually think that there is some intrinsic virtue in existence. Let me ask you something: do you think conscience is a universal construct?
There are certain things I would never do, because I think they're shitty. For example, I'd never want to murder someone, or physically hurt them, or extort them, or betray their faith. When such things happen to me, I rationalize them. Rationalization is the easiest route to forgiveness.
But should there be forgiveness if there is no remorse? I mean - if someone tries to kill you, fails and then walks away, but never expresses remorse, is it reasonable to forgive that person? And does this forgiveness mean you've lowered the bar? Have you stopped expecting people to be better than they are?
