AM/FM

After my latest blog, I found myself with a very big problem. How the hell do I top something that’s either perfection or near perfection? Don’t get me wrong, if I read it now, I’d think to myself I would’ve changed some stuff. But then again, it is known to me that a perfectly symmetrical face is found to be ugly. Which is odd, because a high degree of symmetry in the face is known to be attractive. So maybe writing it perfectly would have made it less perfect and humane in the process.

The biggest problem I found myself facing is that the openness and sadness I displayed in my previous blog I consider to be about as deep as you can go. But I’ve changed. The openness remains, but the sadness is gone. In other words, I now lack the potential to be as deep as I could have gone. Partially that bothers me, because I find myself constrained as a writer and partially I’m happy about it, since it means my wounds are finally healing.

I first intended this to be a piece that’s very critical about the world and to present a different view of what is wrong. Then again, who am I to say such things? Saying I know better is pure arrogance, I guess. Doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong. I wanted to make it very critical of how people interpret statistics, but who is going to read that, then understand it and lastly adapt his thinking to it? Let’s be honest here, that would be nobody. And again, I’d be writing it more out of arrogance than deep interest.

I’ve changed, but was that in the good way? I notice my arrogance hasn’t become less, I know I’ve found another reason to think almost everyone is less than me and I am honestly surprised when I find someone who thinks like me. I still don’t act like I really care about what some people I have to deal with, feel about my actions. Have I not only changed my ways, but remained factually the same person? The idea bothers me. Am I not only a more socially acceptable form of myself? I want to change myself. I see little value in becoming socially acceptable first to then change myself. I think it has to be the other way around. To first change oneself, and then change the outside.

The only significant change I’ve brought to myself is that I am less annoyed by what other people do. My opinion that most of us are gross scumbags with no tablemanners still stands though. And I like to judge people by it. There’s some people I systematically ignore because they do what I think is highly gross. In my head, I invent ways of killing them and visualize me doing it. Does that make me a bad person? I wonder.

I’ve seen people go down over the years. In that regard, my track record is probably a few times bigger than most. I’ve seen people forfeit their dreams because of the emotional pressure they were under, I’ve seen people discard all hope. I know one girl who killed herself over it. And even now, I see people struggling with themselves, what is going to happen to them, how to cope with what has happened to them and what has been happening to them all their lives. I want to be there for them, but I don’t know how. I doubt they’re even willing to give me a role that lets me help them. I don’t even know if interfering like that will only make matters worse. It might just be arrogance, claiming that I’ve changed and so can they, if they want to.

I wonder when I started to change. I think it was during the holidays, when I had sex for the first time but I had already started on the book(more on that later). The circumstances I find quite embarrassing, and I won’t talk about them any further. But I guess the most important thing about it was that I didn’t like it. I didn’t care for it. Up until that point, I believed that having a girlfriend(a sexual relationship), an active social life and lots of friends would make me happy. And in a way, I still believe that way of life would have made me happy. But having sex, the epitome of that kinda lifestyle for the first time made me realize that none of all of that would really have mattered to me. I didn’t do it out of love, but out of lust. Because we both wanted to do it and that’s it. And I didn’t care shit for it.

This experience confirmed something for me. I won’t find happiness in other people. So I had two options left. Find happiness in religion or find it within myself. I know of myself I can’t bring myself to believe in something supernatural so I had to find it within myself. Following this were some conversations with the man I now view as my mentor. He was the first person ever to ask me not if something was the matter, but if I was happy. He was the person, the role I had been looking for. Someone who asked me to tell my tale and didn’t judge me because of it. He recommended me a book. The book was a pivotal point. It gave me the general idea behind finding happiness and it confirmed to me that I won’t find happiness anywhere but within myself. I read the first seventy or so pages and had to think about the content for over three weeks before I understood it. Reading the rest of the book took almost two months. It bothers me a bit. I’ve always been viewed as someone who can find out almost anything by himself, when given time. But reality has shown me over and over that I need a book or person to provide me a basis in order to fully understand it.

In that regard, you could say that human society has always depended on the genius of few. Without the geniuses who went before me, I wouldn’t be able to understand chemistry, physics and myself as I do now. It makes me wonder then, why are we apparently starting to look down on genius? I know some myself and I observe them. Yes, they miss some social skills, but I also noticed another trend with the help of the book. Most people depend entirely on a set of social skills to get happy. What I also noticed is that these people seem to breed mistrust. Social techniques are an outside and I’ve noticed that while social techniques may be used to get temporary gains, in the end they always backfire. I guess that is because we miss a defined inside.

With inside I mean principles and goals. When I talk to people I know about principles, I see how most of them either don’t know them, can’t define them or let them depend on whatever has happened to them recently. When I compare that to a couple of people I’d call genius, I notice that while they don’t have a very robust outside, they know their principles. When it comes to goals, it depends on how you define them. Some would make a dream equal to a goal. And while I can’t find an argumentation against that idea that can’t be whipped off the table in an instant, I do believe they aren’t the same. Your goal is being happy, fulfilling your dream is a means to that goal.

Seemingly, we don’t really know what we want to do. I mean long term. I often heard the question, why would I bother if I don’t even know what it’s for? To what purpose, am I alive?

I think I’ve found an answer to that question. It is not I, who asks my life this question; it is life itself which asks me. We are free to do the things we want with our life. There will at this point be some people who yell “But I can’t achieve anything! I Won’t be president or anything! I can’t achieve nothing!” It’s a path of thinking I can understand. When we think of achieving something, we automatically think about a
“special” job. Like being the president, or a fire fighter, or a detective or a doctor. And yes, to most of us these goals are completely unachievable. But then again, why don’t you look the other way around? Why don’t you ask yourself “If I were to die, what would I want those dear to me to remember me for? What would I have want to have meant for them in their lives?”

I myself believe that, while making a career and rising the social ladder certainly are important thing, they are not essential to happiness. They are only of secondary value, when you yourself, your principles and true goals are of primary value, they are invaluable.

Finally, to explain the title. AM represents old, FM represents new. I am mainly FM now, but AM still remains. I won’t say that FM is my final goal, it’s still far from the quality of digital. I still have a long road to go.