picture in my mind

Hello, 2018!

I've been waiting for today to blog;
I said I wouldn't blog again till 2018 and I had to refrain --
(oh, S, why always so hard to follow plans)
so, finally here.


I wanted to say that I tried to story-rumble -- sort of -- tried to confront someone and get my story more accurate; and I'm so proud of myself for being brave. On retrospect, since it was more or less my first conscious story-rumble, it didn't go so well beyond the first few moments, because I got increasingly angry and I couldn't step back from my anger and think clearly. But I certainly had more data and corrected my story so that I could understand and change things now. I am glad I left the wrong story in 2017 and am ready to brave newness this year.

It's becoming more apparent how true it is: that when you speak about what matters to you, however little or small you think it is, you build your self-worth. Of course this does not mean you become rude and spout any nonsense that crosses your mind; this is about things that matter to you and you felt a significant emotion in response: be it anger, sadness, disappointment, hurt, or even joy and happiness. Suppressing any of this over time, and allowing others to undermine your feelings, becomes an insupportable agony, which stems from ultimately your own disappointment with your very self for not standing up for you. That's what I've learnt so far that I think I haven't done enough of, maybe -- standing up for myself. When you don't, you actually feel betrayed and that's where the agony comes in. (BTS is so right, haha -- Love Yourself guys, then you can love others well.) It doesn't matter whether the people on the outside did really do some wrong or evil to you; it is a given people will try to invalidate your feelings or your experience. But the point is, you're trying to make it matter. It matters, you matter. People with good and open hearts will at the least not try and invalidate your experience and embrace you as a person.

This reminds me of something from e. e. cummings:

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

This may sound easy. It isn't.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel -- but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling -- not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.



Something else to tide me through the days of the year:

"You have done what you could --
Some blunders and absurdities have crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day.
You shall begin it serenely and
with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson