Open Hate Letter
Jan 16 '07
The Bottom Line Comment. Discuss. Critique.
When it comes to my feelings I don’t like leaving people in the dark. Not that I think it’s important to clarify myself in every situation, but I see an importance in recollecting my emotions, especially in the last five months, and coming to some closure. This is because within those last five months I have gone from the most exciting and happy time of my life to one of the most confusing and depressing times. It’s a time to reflect because now is the beginning of a new semester and a new year. I’m writing this to let go of past feelings and move on to more significant ones: the present ones. I’m optimistic of the New Year, even if the title doesn’t immediately reflect this. I believe hate is as important to destruction as it is for production. After all every end meets a new beginning. The title could have just as easily been “Open Love Letter.”
Lately I’ve noticed a theme throughout my life: People ignoring, and in return ruining, good things. Why do people deny that they’ve done anything wrong? Or maybe do they think other actions can cancel each other out? Is this why it’s so hard to give a sincere apology? Is it because people aren’t actually sorry? For this very reason I’ve given up with forgiveness. Forgiveness, in many ways, is a compromise of morals in the same way an apology can be, but it’s become evident to me that saying “sorry” is too easy for some people. People think they can do whatever they want, and always have the luxury of saying sorry later. And if they’re cute enough about it, or if they beat themselves up over it, they believe that this warrants forgiveness. They’ve punished themselves, maybe even cried, so they think they’re sorry. A sincere apology exists much longer than just that. It should find a place in your actions, and you change, so that you never do it again, or, since none of us are perfect, you make a sincere effort to better yourself. But how often does this happen? People seem to always think that they are less wrong than the other party.
What I’ve come to find is that very little is sincere in people. Today there is too much lying, self-deceit and manipulation going on to the point where reality is a non-reality. I try to look for the good in people, but there isn’t much to find. People care too much about image and fitting into a scene, whether they realize it or not. Even “eclectic” tastes seem manufactured and, even worse, mediocre. People are boring and personality less. The only thing I find interesting in people is how much they are given the illusion of “individualism,” when really they are only a few steps from the herd. A lot of people don’t make decision for themselves. They think they are, but really they are always trying to make someone else happy or, even worse, acting out to fulfill an image or to bide by a social law. But, Steven, what’s so wrong with making others happy? The fact is if you do either of these things you’re losing your self-identity and compromising your own instinctual values.
Now you might ask, so how do we better ourselves? I think the only right answer to that is to stop asking that stupid question. There is already enough people telling you what they think you should do: TV, Music, Books, Religion, Parents, Friends, etc. None of these things should be telling you who to be. They don’t make you. At best, you can only find pieces of yourself in them, and that’s what taste is. The first step to bettering yourself, as any “self-help” book or Dear Abby response would agree, is to identify the problem. I see a problem in that people don’t know how to spend their free time properly. People complain about work and school but then when they don’t have either they are bored. There’s nothing to do, so we get drunk, we watch the OC, we go on Myspace and say we’re bored. Some would call these people zombies, but in order to be a zombie you have to have had a life at one point. These people never did. They are slaves, and they don’t know it. They follow a path of mediocrity and eternal boredom. Get a decent job, get married and have kids, go home and watch TV after work everyday. This is the life.
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