I think I'm saying what I've said before. But maybe this is a bit different now. All I know is that it sucks, though, to be here, now.
I can't say what I'm going to say without sounding a bit proud, a bit big-headed, maybe even a bit shot-through with youthful naivete and simple recalcitrance. But I'm really beginning to think that it just doesn't matter.
At this point, I've spent quite a bit of time being (or at least attempting to be) inciteful, introspective, and reflective, and I've tried to be that way with as much painful honesty and as forthright an attitude as I could manage, under the assumption that that would make me a better person by society's measure. Force me to look at what I want, how I am, and how things are.
I now realise that none of that matters. It doesn't matter if my views, on myself or other things, are as self-consistent and sharp-sighted as I can make them. It doesn't matter if I attempt to think and behave in a rational manner, consistent with what I believe are the principles on which our society functions. And here comes the hubristic argument.
I may attempt to be rational in respect to my end goals, but I am mostly alone in this endeavor. The problem is not that people are so irrational, though they are (and, often, I am no exception). It's that even when they believe they are behaving rationally, the goals of others are not ones that I myself can rationalize. I had hoped to at least be able to help others rationalize their behavior according to their own goals, first by clarifying to them what their goals are, and then by aligning their behaior with those goals. But it should have been so plain to me that people don't take well to that kind of assistance, least of all from someone whom they perceive as so adrift himself and without the credentials which give him the right to offer this aid.
Of course, this realisation comes to me from a simple discovery of what might consistute those credentials. It's not the ability to rationalize and logically explain thought and behavior. It's not even necessarily achievements of whatever sort. It's perceived similarity. If I can relate to your situation, then I must be better at understanding it than someone who can't.
But how does this make any sense whatsoever? If I have been equally unable to change my situation from whichever aspect of it we share and you consider detrimental to yourself, then why on Earth would you want to commiserate with me about it? What's the point?
Unfortunately, I see now that the superabundance of such talk is just the product of the emotional shoulder-needing that all people are subject to; talking about problems without resolving them prevents them from being reduced to trivialities. If I can't figure out a problem that I have, and you have the same problem and are equally stuck, it must be serious, but at least we can persevere together.
Don't worry about fixing the problem, just don't leave me alone with it.
I see the appeal in that, and am certainly going to be found guilty of it by whatever judge and jury, but to have that be all that you talk about? Whether it be on a personal level or some grander social thought? Doesn't that just make you sad? Doesn't that just make you want to give up altogether?
It would me. And it does. And it has.
If I can talk to no one about actual problems, with the hope of resolving them, then perhaps I shall talk to no one at all. And perhaps I'll just stop worrying.
