How can I get you to care about people? How can I get you to be kind?
Why do you think love happens? Why do you think people are altruistic at all?
It's not because someone told them to be, I'll tell you that much.
It's because love and kindness are what the world thrives on.
Nobody wins by being angry all the time. No man is an island.
The world is not zero-sum. Kindness shared is kindness tripled.
But I'll assume this doesn't convince you, or you would've found the path by age five.
Let's consider the people who were solitary. The people who didn't love.
Evolution filtered them all out. Evolution championed kindness.
And if that's not a good enough reason to love, then I don't know what is.
hmmmm... should I deprive myself of human interaction...?
I am really going to go crazy some day,
I am going to go fucking insane.
It feels like the whole world is against me,
when I know it is not in truth,
but I can't let go of truth nor lie and it all blends together.
What do I want? What the fuck do I even want?
Is it money? Convenience? Freedom? Ability?
Will I come to value material more than I value people?
Will I come to value society more than I value its parts?
Will I erase "myself" in search of a "successful" future?
What am I? What can I be?
Am I able to be more than the sum of my history?
More than trauma, coping, addiction, fear, anger, sadness?
Do I even want to be more? Will I lose "myself" in the process?
Am I even allowed to change?
Why should I care about him? C'mere. Just look at this train wreck.
Ugly face. UUUUUGLY fucking face. Cmon. Have you seen this guy? He looks like every single kind of criminal's face averaged into a final composite. A face only a mother could love, except not even that - his mother is trying to fix it as we speak! Hah!
Fatass belly. Musculature of a rat. Those arms you see? Maybe a twentieth is muscle, the rest is fat. Can barely handle 15 pound dumbbells, what a fucking weakling.
His terrible posture. Back hunched over like he's 90 years old and about to croak, reinforcing his own negative self-image. Eyes empty like his brain, completely numb to reality.
And what about the mind? Well, what about it? He's a fucking dolt. Can't do anything well, refuses to work hard, just escapes everything.
Why, I'd almost go so far as to say that he's the product of nothing but childhood trauma and bad coping mechanisms developed in response to that trauma, except he might also be dealing with some undiagnosed autism and ADHD and those two aren't really his fault.
And look at him even now. Hiding away, refusing to deal with his problems, just writing and yelling and wallowing in despair like a fucking sewer rat, afraid of even asking his time-tested friends for support or help. Instead he just screams into the meaningless void like it's gonna do anything. Newsflash, bub, it ain't doin shit!
He's even gotten himself stuck in a circular loop! He thinks he doesn't deserve good things, he thinks he doesn't deserve to be happy, or be loved, or be human, and this sort of thinking makes him undeserving of those things, and he knows that, and he keeps on thinking it because he wants to not deserve those things! This sort of negative circular reasoning is like getting hit by a parked car; just don't!
And he talks like he's the only one with these problems, like he's the only one who'll ever understand, as he looks right into the faces of everyone who's ever had worse, and tells them that he has it bad, like the whole world has been bullying him specifically instead of him choosing to dig further into the pit.
He thinks he's martyring himself! Like his own suffering makes anyone any happier! (Well, it evidently makes his father happier, but that's besides the point.) What a joke! Come around, everybody, look! An idiot! Let's all point and laugh!
He's not even doing it correctly! All that happens when he talks is he starts fucking venting and making everyone else upset at him and feel bad. If you're really martyring yourself, why even say anything if you don't have something positive to say? Just be a good person and die quietly in the ditch. Shut up about your problems, everyone else has it way worse and doesn't need you adding to it.
Anyways, as you can clearly see, this lil fucker is completely worthless. Waste of air and oxygen. I'd tell him to just jump, except he doesn't even know where his nearest bridge is and hasn't bothered to search it up. What a fucking failure. Tell me, seriously, why should I ever care about him?
Oh. Wait.
That's a mirror.
There was a young man from Peru
Whose limericks stopped at line two
A tree falls
Nobody around to hear
It makes a sound.
But it doesn’t matter.
I tell a joke
Not particularly good
People around
Nobody listening.
I laugh with myself.
I laugh at myself.
What a funny joke!
Both are funny jokes!
Is this how
God feels, in his kingdom
Of everything
High up above, alone
Just one more year until the Event That Decides My Life
and then I'll finally be free
The event comes and goes.
I am now free.
He takes it away again.
Just one more year,
Just one more year.
Just one more year,
Just one more year.
Just one more year until you can get what you want
and then you'll finally be free
The year comes and goes
You are free. Nothing changed.
Because he took it away again.
I reach for the bright future
and I fall just one inch short
It is good enough. I have done enough.
But it is all unraveling back again.
I changed my direction.
I chose the better path.
I worked towards truly living.
So why is it falling back apart?
I convinced myself I could be happy.
I convinced myself I was allowed to be happy.
I convinced myself it would be better to be happy.
So why do I feel like I deserve to suffer?
Do I have anything to say for myself?
Do I have some sort of penance to offer?
Do I regret my choice, or only that I failed?
Should I regret my existence, too?
was the pie in the sky just another fucking lie?
Lies, lies, lies, all the way down.
Do you ever really stop and think about who you're even talking about?
Do you ever think who gains off cheating you? Who wants you to stay stupid?
Do you ever think about what it means to vote?
You are deciding the fate of a society. You choose feast or famine.
So why, really, do you choose the man who has lied to you time and time again?
Why do you want the man who has shot you and left you for dead?
What the actual fuck is going on inside your head?
Do words even matter to you anymore? Do kindness and empathy mean nothing?
Are you just another sock-puppet of that moneybag in a suit?
Do you not see the bigger picture? The bots, the trolls, the media diversions?
Do you ever even think about what your vote really means?
A rapist, a felon, impeached twice, started an insurgency.
Do you even hear yourself? Do you even look at the man you're touting?
Black guy, have you seen the racism he perpetuates? Woman, have you seen the sexism he himself partakes in? Immigrants, have you seen what he wants to do to you?
Do any of you - any of you - really think about what it means to vote for this man?
Here's the test I scored well on.
Here's the competition I won an award in.
Is it enough for you? Will I be allowed happiness?
Can I talk to human beings again and pretend I am one of them?
The past year, no, two years, no, five, no -
The past over-a-decade has been nothing but more
so much more that whenever someone says "burnout is bad!"
I think inside, "I lived it; I breathed it; I became it; sounds like you just have a skill issue."
And I'm a terrible person for thinking that. If it hurt for me, it'll hurt for them.
But god damn if I have something else I'm proud of taken away from me again.
I come back with a 95. You ask, "why isn't it 96? 97? 100?" Or maybe you don't care. Just see that it's an 'A' and forget it by tomorrow.
I come back saying I did well. You ask, "and how exactly? What did you do? What did everyone else think?"
And I tell you because I'm a good child and I'm still that naive pushover who thinks the world is good and you are still family
And inside I pack up another bottle of anger and disappointment of various kinds of both you and myself.
And in the end I've had enough. You taught me how to shorten my fuse, and I've tried to make it last a little longer but you burn so hot.
I tell you to shut up and wait for the results. And inside I think but don't say: "You fucking asshole. Piece of shit that can't bother to be proud of their own child for fucking once."
So tired of your shit. So tired of being a good person to you because you're just an ass and you can't change that.
So tired of pushing forwards all the time. So tired of being pushed forwards all the time. Can't do it myself like a real human being.
So tired of being this mess who can't pull themselves together like a normal person. So tired of procrastinating and crying and sitting here wallowing in the exact same cesspool of angst.
So tired of doing everything wrong and right and being the perfect idiot child and pushing forwards and wading back and the whole fucking thing.
I'm just so, so fucking tired.
if I'm going to do anything I'm going to make sure I can't be forced to go back.
It's great to go from poor to rich, but it's hell to go from rich to poor.
To taste the fruits of victory and then be dragged by the foot right back down to hell?
No thank you! I would rather not eat at all than eat exactly once.
Anyways I am already at rock bottom and have been for years. What more is new?
Oh, do not get me wrong, haha! I'm not saying I have no hope for the future or whatnot.
I'm just being very careful. "Risk-avoidant?" Yes, that sounds like a good term.
I will reach for the grapes only when I have stacked up enough chairs and boxes to reach for it easily.
When I jump, I'm going to grab the whole goddamn vine, not just one or two measly grapes.
I'm a greedy little motherfucker, isn't that right? I ask for little, I want for little, but what I do want for, I wait for the right time and grab hold of it forever.
Anyways the future is only real if you grasp it and hold on tight, and I'm not going to jump and risk a broken leg for nothing.