Stones and Wolves

I'm sittin here in bed just thinkin. I can't sleep and it's late, but part of that is because I just finished the third season of Lost, and I'm too excited to sleep. But there's a lot of heavy anticipation in my heart right now for things to come. Everything will change, but I'm not sure exactly how. I guess everyone could say that about their own lives. Is there really anything about life that stays the same. Not even God. I know that theologically, God never changes, but his vastness is so broad, sometimes it appears as change to us. I'm just too anxious right now. I need to calm down.

I've been hurting people a lot lately too. It feels like I slowly destroy myself every time I do it, but I do it anyways. I talked about that last night when I wrote in a sense. I do it because I am afraid. It's why I rarely get face-to-face mad at anyone. I don't because I hate acting out of fear. I will hurt someone in my protective evasion rather than attack them head on because I am afraid and my fear makes me afraid. It's cyclical and counterintuitive, and pretty silly when you stop to think about it. But I feel that most people have a higher expectation of me than I can reach. Perhaps it is normal to get angry face-to-face with people, even if you are wrong. Perhaps people expect that every now and then. But I don't feel that way. I feel like I have to maintain, and that there is no room for error.

Last night I wrote in anger. I wrote because I was made to feel inferior and stupid, and it drove me crazy. I attacked a character that, in my mind, has a face, but in most of your minds, probably doesn't. I prefer to keep it that way. In this journal there is no real need to put a figure in the cutout of my anxieties. Stating my anxieties is enough. But then I think, well what if that person read my journal, just on the off chance? I mean it's not completely impossible that they might. And what if they pieced things together and figured it out? I did, of course, credit them with being of a higher intelligence. I mean there is the adage, and one of my favorites I might mention, that "When a stone is thrown into a pack of wolves, the one that yelps is the one that is hit." It means that I am throwing a stone, or a seemingly general statement, into a pack of wolves, or my potential readers. Perhaps it might hit the one that I'm secretly aiming at, perhaps it might hit someone who I didn't intend. But it will probably hit someone.

So why don't I take it down then? I suppose it's because I cannot deny that this is how I feel, even if it is wrong. It didn't come from nothing. There are instances that can back up my case for feeling that way, but I can't exactly speak of it as if it were Truth. To say that such a thing is the Truth about someone limits them to a character in a play. It simplifies them to a script, no more complex than words on a page. When we do that to each other, we might stay comfortable in our own ideal for a time, but we limit the love we can give and the love we can receive. In sort of an obscure way, we numb our own souls to the vulnerability of relationships.

I cannot keep labeling people, because to do that would be hypocritical. It angers me when others label who I am without realizing my complexities, so why would I do that to someone else? Is it wrong to talk about things that upset you or annoy you? I guess it depends on motives, but I would say, in a journal, no. In a public journal, limitations should be taken. That is why I mention no names.

I guess I wrote this down because I was talking with someone today who wanted to know what I thought about several things. As I told them what I thought, it seemed like they were holding back tears of frustration not of what we were talking about, but of me. And perhaps it's the "tell-tale heart" beating under my floorboards, but it convicted me and made me realize how destructive such a simple rant could be. I have a private hand-written journal. That is the place for strong words concerning a man's character that may or may not be accurate.