NockerGeek (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nockergeek) wrote2001-11-07 03:32 pm
nockergeek) wrote2001-11-07 03:32 pm
Wakarimasen.
I don't understand bitterness. I understand the anger that flares up in me sometimes, and I understand the resentment that accompanies injury, both real and imagined. I'm familiar with both of these emotions, although I'd much rather not be. Resentment's easily the worse of the two, because while anger can often be brief and justified, resentment just lingers and festers and leaves the bile of bitterness in one's mouth.
But I don't understand bitterness. I can't understand wanting to be bitter, almost getting a perverse enjoyment out of carrying around that anger and spite. Or maybe it's because it's easier to be angry and spiteful than it is to try to let those feelings go and try to get past them. The right path is seldom easy.
Just the same, I don't really look down on people who are bitter. I do feel sorry for them, because I wish they could unburden themselves of the emotional baggage and pain they carry around. But I don't think they're weaker, or inferior, or anything like that. I've carried enough bitterness around on my own time and known what it's like to look down on them. I think they just need time, introspection, conversation, and a bit of catharsis.
The sad thing is, it almost seems like it's natural for some people to nurse their wounds and hold onto that pain, like that pain justifies their existence somehow. I don't know. I can't wrap my mind around that way of thinking. Or maybe I used to understand it when I was younger, but I've forgotten. Sometimes it is hard to get over the past, to come to grips with what is now instead of re-examining what could have been.
God knows I've been there and done that.
It's hard to let go, it really is. In the short term, at least. It's hard to forget those injuries, to drop the baggage, to get on with living to the fullest. It's easy to hold in the pain, to keep that burden, to keep replaying everything in your head and overanalyzing it. It's the easy path, the safe path, even if it is the more painful path in the long run. It doesn't ask much. It just asks that you live in the past, that you keep looking for that one next thing tht will get you through tomorrow, that will fill that aching need inside you for more.
And it's not that those on the easy path are lazy. Far from it. It's a lot of work carrying around that pain. It's a heavy burden, and they often don't like redistributing the load, unless it can give them a temporary joy by making others unhappy. But it's not laziness. It's fear. That baggage gives them meaning. It defines who they are, where they've been. Every mental scar is like a stamp on their soul's passport. Giving that up is huge.
It takes nothing less than a leap of faith.
And faith is something that people tend to be short on. Faith in God (or gods), faith in their love, faith in their friends, faith in themselves. They lack the trust that things will be okay. And maybe it's because they never had anything to put trust in to, or any trust they had was broken from bad experiences. I see so much pessimism passed off as realism. The difference? Realism is knowing things don't always turn out for the best. Pessimism is expecting them not to.
Anyway, I'm just blabbing. I'll leave you to ponder these words, Faithful Reader.
But I don't understand bitterness. I can't understand wanting to be bitter, almost getting a perverse enjoyment out of carrying around that anger and spite. Or maybe it's because it's easier to be angry and spiteful than it is to try to let those feelings go and try to get past them. The right path is seldom easy.
Just the same, I don't really look down on people who are bitter. I do feel sorry for them, because I wish they could unburden themselves of the emotional baggage and pain they carry around. But I don't think they're weaker, or inferior, or anything like that. I've carried enough bitterness around on my own time and known what it's like to look down on them. I think they just need time, introspection, conversation, and a bit of catharsis.
The sad thing is, it almost seems like it's natural for some people to nurse their wounds and hold onto that pain, like that pain justifies their existence somehow. I don't know. I can't wrap my mind around that way of thinking. Or maybe I used to understand it when I was younger, but I've forgotten. Sometimes it is hard to get over the past, to come to grips with what is now instead of re-examining what could have been.
God knows I've been there and done that.
It's hard to let go, it really is. In the short term, at least. It's hard to forget those injuries, to drop the baggage, to get on with living to the fullest. It's easy to hold in the pain, to keep that burden, to keep replaying everything in your head and overanalyzing it. It's the easy path, the safe path, even if it is the more painful path in the long run. It doesn't ask much. It just asks that you live in the past, that you keep looking for that one next thing tht will get you through tomorrow, that will fill that aching need inside you for more.
And it's not that those on the easy path are lazy. Far from it. It's a lot of work carrying around that pain. It's a heavy burden, and they often don't like redistributing the load, unless it can give them a temporary joy by making others unhappy. But it's not laziness. It's fear. That baggage gives them meaning. It defines who they are, where they've been. Every mental scar is like a stamp on their soul's passport. Giving that up is huge.
It takes nothing less than a leap of faith.
And faith is something that people tend to be short on. Faith in God (or gods), faith in their love, faith in their friends, faith in themselves. They lack the trust that things will be okay. And maybe it's because they never had anything to put trust in to, or any trust they had was broken from bad experiences. I see so much pessimism passed off as realism. The difference? Realism is knowing things don't always turn out for the best. Pessimism is expecting them not to.
Anyway, I'm just blabbing. I'll leave you to ponder these words, Faithful Reader.