Fear and anxiety are some of the weirdest feelings ever. Never mind that I can’t really differentiate and understand my feeling anyway, but these two drive me nuts… almost literally… and its because I can neither understand them nor can I even anticipate or pinpoint their origins. Perhaps that’s why they call it anxiety disorder… being anxious when there really isn’t any obvious reason to be anxious or nervous or scared or afraid or whatever. Oh, add on being afraid of being afraid.
.
Bahh.. sometimes I’m grateful for all the shit I’ve been through, because its made me who I am today. But sometimes when the going gets tough, mannn… its sucks like hell man.
.
Oh well, if it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger right? Yeah… only, sometimes the problem is that it isn’t going to kill you…. suffering sucks. Maybe I should meditate more man. Or maybe I should just take a lot better care of myself!!
So my ultrasound came out well, the lady said everything looks quite fine [I'm not pregnant, I'm a guy]. Perhaps I should give some background. About 2 weeks ago, on Sunday I fell quite ill. Had pain in by stomach and what not. After I saw the doc on Thursday (because I thought it would just go away) he said he wasn’t happy about some liver palpitations that he could feel and sent me to have an ultrasound. It takes about a week to get an appointment with the ultrasound place. So yeah, on Thursday I went to have my ultrasound and everything looks fine! Great! So it was just gastritis afterall. I really should take better care of myself.
.
Anyway, yesterday I went to sign my lease for the new rental place that my brother and I got. I haven’t seen the place yet (its an apartment) but it should be really good.
.
Something I was wondering about on Thursday before I went to the ultrasound was how that there have been quite a number of people with anxiety disorder or agoraphobia (quite a lot of brilliant people have these things) and the likes of it and they seem to be.. quite all right with it. They go into institutions or just stay at home and don’t seem to really give a crap about what others think of it. They seem to be unashamed of it. I on the other hand, seem to be ashamed of my anxiety disorder. Not that I don’t want people to know or whatever, in fact I prefer it if they knew about it, but rather I think I feel a bit ashamed that I’m not as “brave” or “courageous” as other people and that I have so many fears. Perhaps I haven’t accepted it after so long?
I’ve been wondering about this question quite a bit recently: What’s so enticing about sadness?
I was listening to a song from Assassin’s Creed 2, Ezio’s Family I believe it is called [its bloody good stuff seriously], and it kind of brings out a bit of my sadness in me. I like that. There are quite a few songs that do this and I really really like all of them simply for the way they make me feel. Its like they draw out the sadness and hurt from deep within me and bring it out into the open. Fantastic stuff! But that made me wonder… why do I like feeling like that? Its probably a release.
Then I thought, most the time, whenever I’m feeling happy or anything, I tend to have this… apprehension of sorts, that its all going to end soon, and so I don’t enjoy that happiness and instead, look for sadness again.
.
So here’s my theory on sadness. Imagine a circle. At the very centre of that circle, there is a dot, a point. That point is sadness. Its the lowest place that you can go to. Most people see sadness and happiness in terms of a line, where the highest point is happiness and the lowest point is sadness. I don’t agree, because with a line, either end can extend to infinity (to infinity… and beyond! — Buzz Lightyear). With a circle, the lowest point is the absolute centre of it; any lower and its actually going upwards again; for example, if you start digging a hole downwards into the earth from the north pole, eventually you’ll reach the very centre of the earth, and if you continue digging, you’re actually going upwards towards the south pole.
Ok, back to sadness being the lowest point of a circle. I think that’s significant because its safe. Since I can’t go any lower, I can’t feel any worse, its the safest place to be in. And, of course, sadness doesn’t reside alone. It has loneliness, fear, anxiety, etc. etc. to keep it company.
.
However, I think in the end, everyone wants to get out of there. Everyone wants to go upwards and outwards towards happiness, where eventually you’ll break through the line of the circle, the barrier that holds you in, and continue upwards to, literally, infinite bliss [if you draw a line from the centre of a circle outwards, you can draw that line to infinity].
The most fundamental and important question though remains, how do we do that?
If you were expecting that I was going to explain some secret to happiness, then……. sorry mate, I haven’t got a bloody clue. BUT, I truly believe that its not something material things can get you [though money can help a bit I guess $.$]. I believe we can all be happy just the way we are now, its just… really hard to accept ourselves isn’t it? Obviously we won’t feel happy for every single moment for the rest of our lives once we break that circle barrier, but, at least it’ll be easier to go upwards and outward again I guess. Its like, if you use a hot air balloon to fly up into the sky, when you fall downwards towards the centre, you fall fast, and hard. But if you use a space shuttle and fly pass the atmosphere and out of earth and into space, its a lot harder to fall back down to the centre of the earth isn’t it? You actually need to thrust yourself back into the earth’s atmosphere to fall back down to earth.
.
So what’s so enticing about sadness to me? I think its the safety that it brings to me. That since I’m at the bottom, I can’t go down anymore. That there’s no chance of me falling fast and hard back down (I obviously haven’t flown past my barrier yet). That at the bottom, the companions of sadness are always ready and willing to welcome me into their very small and narrow abode at the centre.
.
How would you answer the question? If you would ever answer the question that is….
Is it really that hard to understand that a person doesn’t really like going out? Or eating out? And likes to stay at home?
I’ve been questioned every time someone new tries to get to know me. The thing is, they keeping asking and asking, like its so unbelievable that someone like me actually exists. And the responses to me saying that “I don’t like really going out… or eating out actually” is one of bewilderment, almost like they are flabbergasted by this amazing discovery.
But seriously, is it really that unbelievable?? Maybe this is one of the reasons I don’t like meeting new people, having to re-explain why I am the way I am and having them find out all the “bad points” about me.
.
In any case, HAPPY 2010!! Its a new year! Hooray!
2009 has been… err.. to be honest.. I don’t really know that it has been. I did my honours degree, but I still don’t know my grade; and, oh yes!, I got an offer for the PhD scholarship that I applied to! That’s the really good part.
Another really good thing is that I got a new best friend! Who would have thought it possible!
Other than theseee…. well I’ve changed quite a bit this year, as with every year, and almost always for the better. Change is good people.
Guess I’ll wait and see what changes will happen in 2010. I think people kinda expect quite a bit from me… and they usually try to encourage me to be more “outgoing” and all…. maybe they’ll get their wish in 2010… or maybe not.. who knows?
