Since my birthday video, and possibly even before that, I've been thinking the Criteria of Sad. To explain, at what point can a person be sad about his life and not get shit about it (gossip, complains, other negative things).
But that's not what drove me to write this post. For a better part of today i was thinking about growing old, and being a senior citizen and particularly looking back and reflecting part. I wanted to ask an old person, like my god-grandma, was there an age or a period of time, where her life was the greatest. Because, in this world, some people are truly happy and they will tell you that they have never been happier. 2 cases that may be true, one, eternally optimistic, happy throughout his life, or 2 just so happen that his old age coincides with the happiest period of his life, i.e he had to suffer a lot as a youth or adult and could finally retire with relative peace and happiness.
So, naturally, being the selfish person that i am, I put myself in that shoes and thought, would i want to be that old. Because for most of my life, all I've wanted is to reach that semi-permanent state of happiness where i have a great wife and awesome children. And while I usually think of my end-state when i do reach any of my long term goal is around the late 40s or 50s. That is the age i would be when i either "win" or "lose" at life, in my imagination. So, as a result, i never really think that much about the silver age with greying hair and whatnot.
A few moments ago, i did. And it occurred to me that i don't want to grow old. Well, i pretty much assume that but i never really had a good reason besides dementia and other brain or age-related disorders. Not 10 minutes ago did i realize the most compelling reason to want to be a kid (or youth) forever. This is the only time in my life where i can wake up and not do a single thing and then go back to sleep again. This is why bachelors never want to be tied down and mentally 12 year olds never want to get a real job.
So i guess i should be happy about that fact, but I'm really not, aside for just discovering something that I hadn't before. Perhaps it would be necessary to go through the pain of doing something in order to appreciate nothingness. Like how people living in peace like to complain about boredom and other high-maintenance problems, while the people in violent conflicts just want to get out of it.
That was part one, moving on to part two, something i actually thought about for quite some time now.
The Criteria of Sad is something i came up with after going to about 3 or 4 funerals. At that point, i was pretty sure i was at the lowest point of my life. Turned out, the universe wasn't done with that. There has been a seriously ridiculous number of health and/or medical things that have struck at my extended family this past 1 1/2 to 2 years. And it has gotten to the point when my god-uncle called me, i hesitated for a while before picking up. And while i am forever thankful nothing has happened to my parents and my brother, this constant stream of bad news is very unnerving to hear. I can be talking about a certain topic in the car and all of a sudden one of them just talks about another one of my relative who went to the hospital and i would be shocked at hearing this 3-4 day old news.
And it's not just health, personally, i have been suffering a lot of blows to morale in relations to work and SAF but not only that. my friend has also suffered a major episode in his life which I obviously feel bad for him.
So it's been a bad year all around and i was thinking about whether it gave me a reason to brood and act all emo-y about it. Here' a thing about me that you may not know, I like to complain a lot on this blog and facebook and other medium but one thing i hate doing is being sad to attract attention. I would very much rather act stupid to do so. But still, acting normal or even somewhat happy when you don't feel that way takes a toll on you, and just externalizing some of the sorrow or fear or disappointment feels great.
I think about that magic point where you can in fact brood around in life where no one will give you shit. Because brooding is the emotional equivalent of letting your shoulders down after you've tensed them up. But even after going through all that, it still feels like i somehow not "qualified" to do any brooding because as far as anybody's concerned, nothing has happened to you. And just to be clear, most of the things that happened, happened to someone else, and i only feel sad because i am capable of empathy, more so than other, it would suggest.
So i never really feel comfortable telling others about something that happened to someone else, even when that someone else is related to me, because my relation with that guy, the "victim" not my friend, has never really been that close in the first place. As opposed to someone who, say his father died. That, everyone can empathize with. So it's extremely understandable that he can choose to avoid people and keep quiet.
I find it so remarkably strange that while other people in SAF and thinking about how to get more days of compassionate leave while i'm here thinking about how to be emo without people complaining.
MESSED UP PRIORTIES.
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