counting at war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerpingtack) wrote2018-07-12 03:40 pm
kerpingtack) wrote2018-07-12 03:40 pm
Entry tags:
did it weigh too much
Very, very tentatively watching videos and listening to jjong again. It's kind of out of pure selfishness. I can't always be flinching away and averting my eyes and rerouting my thoughts when so much reminds me of him. And, in a more prosaic way, my music library is full of SHINee songs and his solo work and radio covers and audio clips; putting it on shuffle is just a minefield, lol. It's hard to describe how very much he was my Number One. Not just the scope and depth of my fannish love, but the consistency and familiarity of his "presence" to me. All these things I associate with him, that I knew because of him.
Now the pain feels like pushing down hard on a bruise. I feel it in my heart and throat, like it's in the back of my teeth. But there's an implication that it will get better one day. It felt like I was being slid out of reality, before. Not even pain. Part of that paradigm shift was an entirely self-serving fear that his suicide meant that life was really, truly That Bad, as OBJECTIVELY unmanageable and senseless as I always wondered it was. So fighting depression = you have to keep clawing upwards out of a hole in defiance of the natural state of the universe. This is over-dramatic bullshit, lol, but what ~~FEELS TRUE~~ is more important than whether it is helpful or healthy to you, sometimes.
I watched a movie called First Reformed a few weeks ago. I really loved the first half (and then the second half was my least favorite thing I watched this entire year, lol). Nevertheless, one of the things it made me think about was the possibility that you will meet someone, or just see/hear something, and it will resonate with your specific depression and just send you tumbling further down faster and deeper than you ever would've gotten on your own. And it's nobody's fault. It's just that the hook in your heart caught someone else's, and it tears both of them apart. It is arbitrary. Maybe I only think like that because I am so passive and disconnected from myself though. Like, idk why I react to things unless I analyze it to death afterward. But overthinking it just cements it further, so really it just feels like my instincts are The Enemy and my brain is also The Enemy and my body is useless baggage. SO WHERE AM I IN THE UNIVERSE????
So I already tweeted/mastodon'd about this earlier this week: I saw this recent pann-choa post and it made me really happy and really sad. But it was kind of the first time that I could see beyond the loss, and just feel what he was to all the people who knew him. Two separate things, not irrevocably connected as presence/absence in a binary and thus loaded with sadness ("he was so wonderful, but now he's gone"). I still don't know how to understand his death. I wish I could let go of the idea that it can be understood at all. But it helped for me to recognize that I really and truly believe that he made people's lives better. Like, not even in a lofty way but just that everyone's lives were better and more full for having known him. Even people who didn't "know" him irl, like me. More copy+paste: he was a net positive force in the world. The love and empathy and warmth and vitality he poured out was enough for multiple lifetimes. And I still feel lucky to have known that he exists. "A single gem has throbbed in my chest my whole life" - jjong can be part of that gem for me.
This was not even what I opened dreamwidth for, haha. I just started thinking that because of my jjong icons.
INTENDED POST: I almost never ever leave comments on fics, even though I am constantly - and I mean, CONSTANTLY - reading. My biggest anxiety is sounding stupid and annoying the author - I know most authors will not get annoyed, but I HAVE seen some authors publicly snark about specific comments they get, and not about ones that seem rude to me? (Like, the comments they complain about are not demanding updates or being negative about the premise of the fic or otherwise being entitled. they seemed silly or banal at worst, but overall harmless.)
The interrelated anxiety is not just that I will sound stupid, but that I will not be BRILLIANT. LOL. I realized this after seeing a beautifully written comment on a beautifully written fic (at 6 a.m. this morning because my sleep patterns are fuuuuckkkt). Like, if I am going to expend the ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF EMOTIONAL ENERGY required to write a comment, I want it to be extremely fucking good and make the author feel amazing. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS SELFISH!! I still feel it!!! I am a selfish person!!!111
I mean, it's all part of the same ball of tangled twine - the hyperfocus on results and effects on ME, instead of on support and action and building things by Doing the Work. I want to contribute and foster a supportive community, but I want to do it without actually having to do anything. Can't put anything I believe into practice because of all the fucking risk involved. And that's because I prioritize feeling safe above everything else, until I hit a critical mass of stress and guilt and I am FORCED to do something. I just have to cattle prod myself constantly with messages of Rogue One + Wonder Woman together, lol. The choice to do something should not depend on the projected result, whether you have any certainty of success or lasting change; you still need to act on what is important to you. You can't be the person you want to be without taking steps to become that person, every day. blarrrghaskdfw;erl;sdfj
Stupid convoluted analogy about the pool: We have this gigantic pool that's a fucking pain in the ass, like all swimming pools. For the past month, it's been covered with little tiny yellow leaves or pollen or petals?? idk what they are or where they're coming from. I have spent 20 - 40 minutes almost every day for two weeks cleaning it with a net. It literally DOES NOT LOOK ANY FUCKING DIFFERENT because more leaves fall into the pool every day, outpacing the rate I'm able to remove any leaves, and since I don't know where the hell they're coming from, I can't do anything about the source. I still spend time crouched at the edges with the handheld net though, because I figure that taking out my functionally negligent handfuls is better than leaving them in, if you add them up over the days. Also sometimes I'm able to rescue bees that fell into the water. And some of the bigger leaves sink to the bottom of the pool if they're left in the water long enough.
And it's kind of a meditative experience, where at least I feel like I'm doing my due diligence. "A little is better than nothing", "this matters to the bees I save!", etc. I never said it was a subtle or good analogy okay.
Now the pain feels like pushing down hard on a bruise. I feel it in my heart and throat, like it's in the back of my teeth. But there's an implication that it will get better one day. It felt like I was being slid out of reality, before. Not even pain. Part of that paradigm shift was an entirely self-serving fear that his suicide meant that life was really, truly That Bad, as OBJECTIVELY unmanageable and senseless as I always wondered it was. So fighting depression = you have to keep clawing upwards out of a hole in defiance of the natural state of the universe. This is over-dramatic bullshit, lol, but what ~~FEELS TRUE~~ is more important than whether it is helpful or healthy to you, sometimes.
I watched a movie called First Reformed a few weeks ago. I really loved the first half (and then the second half was my least favorite thing I watched this entire year, lol). Nevertheless, one of the things it made me think about was the possibility that you will meet someone, or just see/hear something, and it will resonate with your specific depression and just send you tumbling further down faster and deeper than you ever would've gotten on your own. And it's nobody's fault. It's just that the hook in your heart caught someone else's, and it tears both of them apart. It is arbitrary. Maybe I only think like that because I am so passive and disconnected from myself though. Like, idk why I react to things unless I analyze it to death afterward. But overthinking it just cements it further, so really it just feels like my instincts are The Enemy and my brain is also The Enemy and my body is useless baggage. SO WHERE AM I IN THE UNIVERSE????
So I already tweeted/mastodon'd about this earlier this week: I saw this recent pann-choa post and it made me really happy and really sad. But it was kind of the first time that I could see beyond the loss, and just feel what he was to all the people who knew him. Two separate things, not irrevocably connected as presence/absence in a binary and thus loaded with sadness ("he was so wonderful, but now he's gone"). I still don't know how to understand his death. I wish I could let go of the idea that it can be understood at all. But it helped for me to recognize that I really and truly believe that he made people's lives better. Like, not even in a lofty way but just that everyone's lives were better and more full for having known him. Even people who didn't "know" him irl, like me. More copy+paste: he was a net positive force in the world. The love and empathy and warmth and vitality he poured out was enough for multiple lifetimes. And I still feel lucky to have known that he exists. "A single gem has throbbed in my chest my whole life" - jjong can be part of that gem for me.
This was not even what I opened dreamwidth for, haha. I just started thinking that because of my jjong icons.
INTENDED POST: I almost never ever leave comments on fics, even though I am constantly - and I mean, CONSTANTLY - reading. My biggest anxiety is sounding stupid and annoying the author - I know most authors will not get annoyed, but I HAVE seen some authors publicly snark about specific comments they get, and not about ones that seem rude to me? (Like, the comments they complain about are not demanding updates or being negative about the premise of the fic or otherwise being entitled. they seemed silly or banal at worst, but overall harmless.)
The interrelated anxiety is not just that I will sound stupid, but that I will not be BRILLIANT. LOL. I realized this after seeing a beautifully written comment on a beautifully written fic (at 6 a.m. this morning because my sleep patterns are fuuuuckkkt). Like, if I am going to expend the ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF EMOTIONAL ENERGY required to write a comment, I want it to be extremely fucking good and make the author feel amazing. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS SELFISH!! I still feel it!!! I am a selfish person!!!111
I mean, it's all part of the same ball of tangled twine - the hyperfocus on results and effects on ME, instead of on support and action and building things by Doing the Work. I want to contribute and foster a supportive community, but I want to do it without actually having to do anything. Can't put anything I believe into practice because of all the fucking risk involved. And that's because I prioritize feeling safe above everything else, until I hit a critical mass of stress and guilt and I am FORCED to do something. I just have to cattle prod myself constantly with messages of Rogue One + Wonder Woman together, lol. The choice to do something should not depend on the projected result, whether you have any certainty of success or lasting change; you still need to act on what is important to you. You can't be the person you want to be without taking steps to become that person, every day. blarrrghaskdfw;erl;sdfj
Stupid convoluted analogy about the pool: We have this gigantic pool that's a fucking pain in the ass, like all swimming pools. For the past month, it's been covered with little tiny yellow leaves or pollen or petals?? idk what they are or where they're coming from. I have spent 20 - 40 minutes almost every day for two weeks cleaning it with a net. It literally DOES NOT LOOK ANY FUCKING DIFFERENT because more leaves fall into the pool every day, outpacing the rate I'm able to remove any leaves, and since I don't know where the hell they're coming from, I can't do anything about the source. I still spend time crouched at the edges with the handheld net though, because I figure that taking out my functionally negligent handfuls is better than leaving them in, if you add them up over the days. Also sometimes I'm able to rescue bees that fell into the water. And some of the bigger leaves sink to the bottom of the pool if they're left in the water long enough.
And it's kind of a meditative experience, where at least I feel like I'm doing my due diligence. "A little is better than nothing", "this matters to the bees I save!", etc. I never said it was a subtle or good analogy okay.