I've discovered lately, that after bottling up emotions like bottling up water during this drought, nothing good is to follow. The more I bottle, the greater the probability of explosion. And explode I tend to do.
My explosions, I'm learning too, are not always the same kind. There are the explosions that detonate—high pressure explosions that cause rapid decomposition, like sticks of dynamite stuck into the angel veins of my heart that explode between beats; and there are the low pressure explosions, with more pillars of black smoke than anything else—the ones that creep through my lungs and spill out my mouth at four in the morning, the ones I feel coming but cannot stop.
This, I'm afraid, is a high pressure explosion. An external explosion. I have let far too many clumsy people wander into my space, my peace, armed with sticks of explosives and with hands covered in traces of gunpowder. They have stuffed their TNT into the spaces where I have cleared room for them and they have stumbled away, left me to sift through the rubble.
People, I've come to realise over and over and over again, are incredibly selfish creatures. Perhaps the only truly reliable thing about people is that, eventually, all of them disappoint you. Not always intentionally, but certainly always always. At the end of the day, people tuck themselves into themselves. They will always prove to do what is ultimately best for themselves.
Now... my generalisation is offensive, I'm aware. But here is my act of selfishness, for I too am human: I do not care. I do not care whose feelings I hurt tonight. My feelings have been trampled, disregarded, just plain blown up. And tonight I look around and I see the fingerprints of selfish, selfish humans. Humans who I have allowed to selfishly destroy me.
I don't consider myself a particularly 'good' person; I am not particularly moral, or just, or decent. I am not particularly kind, or brave, or generous. Interestingly though, more times than I care to consider today, this week, this month and this year, people whose opinions on myself I trust have called me selfless.
This whole selfless thing is something I would typically deny vehemently (and will continue to do so, upon completion of this blog post), but for just a second I'm going to think about this. The word itself is the primary issue I have with being called selfless; how can I (or anyone) possibly have little or no regard for myself? In a dog-eat-dog world where groups of people mass murder other groups of people, even their women and children? That's ridiculous. I have high regard for myself. But then I think; what regard do you really have for yourself if you continue to allow people to take advantage of you? To abuse you? To disregard your feelings? To stuff you full with explosives and then leave you to clean up the mess they have made of you?
I realise that selfless is not a compliment. There is a reason why, in Veronica Roth's Divergent universe, the Abnegation (those who forget self to claim the virtue of 'selflessness') are considered foolish, stupid, laughable and called Stiffs. Reading the books I find myself questioning the Abnegation myself—selflessly catering to the four other factions, who ultimately serve their own agendas. These foolish Stiffs... But then, there are other people—people I know well, trust—who have looked at me and thought 'selfless'. One of these people has gone as far as to tell me how badly she has wanted to choke me, how ridiculous she finds me... And this startles me. Oh, Lord, tell me I am not the Abnegation.
But I am. I am the foolish. For I have put the happiness of others above the happiness of myself. Even if the happiness of others has cost me my own happiness. I continue to do so, and I don't know why. That, it would appear, is pretty darn 'selfless'.
Perhaps there is strength in being selfless, like Veronica Roth's fictional masterpiece might suggest—but here, in the real world that I live in, I am weak. I am drained. Sapped of energy. Empty like the NWC reserves.
Like the watering can; I have made rounds of this beautiful, flourishing garden and watered its beautiful blooms. And like flowers do, they have continued to bloom—photosynthesising to make food, for themselves, sustaining their own lives with the vital ingredient which I have given them. These blooms give me nothing. Eventually the can is emptied.
And then what?
Maybe selflessness is self-destruction. This makes more sense than strength... For yes, I have been stuffed full of explosives, but who has lit the match? Instead of opening my windows and doors, a metaphoric release of the poison spilling from infected wound, which may then be cauterised shut to heal; I have cauterised my wounds from the inside, poison pulsing behind skin, until I breathe the destruction.
I am tired of breaking. I am tired of hurting. I am tired of blowing up.
People, I have a learned, are innately and reliably selfish.
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Written under a heavy dose of cough syrup, and a heavier dose of my own misery—a far more potent drug, I've discovered. The mere act of writing this post has drained me, sapped the reserve strength. I did not find anything left to proofread and check for errors. Corrections to follow, I hope. I selfishly make no promises.
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