The old cliche about how the most hurtful things are said by those that care the most about you has never really be a part of my life. I doubt it is a part of any one's life, to be honest. But it had to have been at one point in time, or else it wouldn't be a cliche.
This isn't the same as tough love, which has been perverted in one fashion or another. The cliche doesn't involve beatings that may or may not come with the undercutting verbal assault. In fact, it doesn't involve the undercutting dialogue either.
To truly tell someone something extremely hurtful and yet come across as if you sincerely care about them is an art form in itself. It involves selecting your words carefully so that they not only cut deep but initiate something positive. How many hurtful things can you say that won't have the opposite effect? Several, actually, having been on that side of the fence more often than the other.
However, that's the problem. Anything anyone says to me, no matter how close they are to me, doesn't initiate that fire to do something positive. It only opens the flood gates of negative thought. And as much as people want me to change that, those few that know me for a long enough time, I can't.
My first project for my Advance Seminar class was to think of a time when I was little and determine what was the most important thing to me at that age. Unfortunately for me, that time frame for me was the start of a lot of angst and trauma. All of which I cannot properly represent visually unless someone deconstructs it to the extreme. And I'm talking about reading layers into layers of what is ultimately a very simple visual piece to the point of being the butt of yet another joke about how hoidy-toidy and exclusive the art circle is.
My instructor mentioned in a round about kind of way that what happened then is probably important now because it helped define who I am. Which leads to yet another problem involving personal identity. In a society of labels and social circles being the driving force behind, well, pretty much everything, it is difficult for someone like me to see myself.
These days, the mirror keeps getting cloudy. What little I have to go on is based on what little pieces of crap I stick around the mirror. I like Disney at my age, both the good and the bad; I am a casual gamer thanks to TellTale Games and Sam & Max; I listen to music of all kinds with various levels of appreciation; I apparently can write very well; I work at a movie theatre surrounded by crazy elderly people that are similar to how my aunt is, as well as your run-of-the-mill teenager who is looking for some cash or job experience for whatever reason; I suffer from severe bouts of depression even though I was never officially diagnosed as such. And the list goes on and on in a very strange and yet colorful fashion of polarizing opposites.
This myriad of mixed-up-mashed-up characteristics does have one thing in common keeping them together. Most of my interests all are solitary in nature.
I mention this for one reason and one reason only. In order for me, as well as anyone really, to have any kind of initiative to do anything, there has to be an interest or a reason behind it. Reason, for me at least, has not been a part of what I do in most of the cases. The same cannot be said about interest. If I'm interested more in something, I will have more of an initiative to do that instead. Priority preference. There is no reason behind it.
Unfortunately, I'm slowly finding out that when one gives in to personal priority instead of logical reasoning given certain situations, one doesn't help one's self from getting anywhere. The circle comes back around and around again, and I find myself once again visiting my time share here at Rock Bottom. All because of the artistic ways someone undercut my lack of initiative, and therefore by association my lack of interest, in bettering myself by learning how to drive.
No comments:
Post a Comment