what-soul

[what-soul]

Rest for the Overwhelmed

I did a bit of subconscious question-reply probing and found that the random bits of anxiety I’ve been having with no clear stressors are actually the result of feeling overwhelmed with everything I’m expected to do. By this point, I’ve been through a full year of chaos, with little control, structure, or love to rest on. All the better too, because through this adversity I’ve learned more than I ever could. But I’m exhausted. I need time to just relax, a skill that’s still woefully underdeveloped. Without rest, I develop panicky reflexes and lack the capacity to effectively take care of myself. Just enough to maintain existence maybe, but not much else.

So I’m going to ask my parents the selfish request for taking the next month off as far as expectations go. Time to relax so I can recharge and take life on starting with the new year. Which isn’t to say I do nothing all day, I’m fine with dish duty or other such chores. Just not feeling pressured to do something I feel unprepared for, like job searching.

[what-soul]

Cute girls

I’ve found myself recognizing girls as being “cute”, which is actually a new thing. I’m bi, but until now I’ve been primarily homo-oriented, which I’ve chalked up to a feeling of lacking stability in life, ergo men served the role of anchor for an otherwise unanchored ego. Settle into their embrace, let them take care of all the scary things in the world.

So if I’m finding attraction in women now, that’d suggest I now feel more self-assured, though I don’t feel especially different. I suppose this would be a consequence of Tuesday’s breakdown, or perhaps I feel better now knowing I’ll be able to see people who care about me on a regular basis.

[what-soul]

Triggers

So thinking about it, last night’s... breakdown had a very peculiar trigger: my dad saying he was “frustrated”. This was actually far more forgiving than I’d get from anyone else given the circumstances, but that somehow started a chain reaction of feeling overwhelmed, powerless, and incapable. A very violent reaction actually, bringing me to tears. Why? Exciting though, as that seems to be a deeply rooted core belief that I’ve either totally missed or failed to get rid of.

[what-soul]

I’m having

a something. Psychotic break is too extreme. But an extreme confusion. I’m overwhelmed. I have no idea what’s going on because too much is pressing me for attention

My skin is getting worse, then better, at random. Nothing I do affects it meaningfully, I’ve started resorting to magical thinking out of desperation

I spent money I got for clothing on food. I don’t remember why? Did I realize what it was for? There was a point where I kept back from buying for that reason. Maybe I thought more money coming would replace it. I needed food desperately because I thought my skin was responding to malnutrition

$40+ of debit fraud, I have to cancel fraudulent subscription

SSDI? What happened?

CalFresh

Housing bill, my last? When will I be homeless?

I don’t deserve to eat well but I must

Skin is a cycle, motivation and initiative are sapped. Jobs feel impossible in part because I look like a burn victim and there’s nothing I can do about it. Food industry is out of the question, retail gives them a bad image, moving boxes I look sickly, office work there’s too much competition, psychic work I can’t maintain the energy and drive to sell myself, blog, youtube, IT startup??? no one will hire me no matter what I do

The more pressure I feel the worse it gets, the less I can search for a job because the more I need to escape. I need a job or I’ll starve but that framing alone makes it impossible to search. I have to genuinely want something I need to do but do it only because I want to

What is this mood? This state of consciousness? Is it from missed meds? I missed just a day.

I don’t do anything for myself, for enjoyment. Computer is work, job search is work, therapy is work, it’s all because I need to. nothing is because I want it or purely for its enjoyment, only because I have no choice and in that I can’t do it

That coffee shop mom found probably a good shot? But what CV do I even write my personality isn’t one that’s readily marketable and probably wouldn’t fit well there anyway not to mention it’s food handling

Food food food need protein or my skin starts to rot need food or I become unhinged the noose grows tighter as roommates take away pots and pans

My roommates are assholes, I have no friends, no emotional support, no social motivation. Every day I’m yelled at for having eczema and I feel ashamed that I’ve failed so thoroughly to be a real person

Send Mark and Don the resume, send it to dad, to resume coach, the resume’s to blame there’s something missing

Did I catch up with them? Call Alice, contact Bob, cancel Jerry, revoke Steve, phone calls and application submissions in a number game that doubles as a bureaucratic maze

It swirls. There’s no escape, no solution, I’m left with a vague desire to not exist but that isn’t an option. Instead I stop. Stare blankly at my knee for an hour, talk strangely in circles because it’s all I can do

Am I useless or just incompetent? Irresponsible? Unfit for adulthood? For being human? Am I human? Humans care about eating. I do? But I can’t support it. It works out in the end because of coincidence

I vomited the black blood from the depths of my heart but it’s all coming out with it. I got rid of codependency, shame, pride, anger, developed emotional intelligence that has done nothing now but collapse. What use is it now to know why I freeze when people yell? I dig deeper and deeper and deeper because there’s no treasure on the surface but it seems almost like there’s none below either. I keep finding fools gold that promises to be a part of a larger whole but never leads to the end.

I CAN WORK. I DESERVE THE CAPACITY TO CONVERT EFFORT TO CASH BECAUSE I’M HUMAN YES??? Living isn’t a right. Working isn’t a right. What’s left in the world for the lost souls like me whose fragile minds break at the slightest sense of multitasking in an adult setting?

I don’t know if I can see them at Christmas. I promise them time and time again that I can get better and I have, emotionally, but professionally I’m a wreck. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going or what the fuck is even going on and I just wish it’d stop and I could restart and live a normal life like at Engage. I’d murder a village to have that job back and have some semblance of normalcy and respectability and just worth as a fucking human being. Why can’t I have a normal life?? Why do I have to struggle with this bullshit fog of a shattered psyche that only comes up with more excuses for why I can’t do the most trivial of shit?

I want to go home.. “No one loves me” is untrue but it’s the reaity I facd every day. I’m not unlovable, I’m just unable to find it. Undeserving I guess isince we deserve what we get. I don’t work for it so I don’t get it. I wish I could stop so other people didn’t have to deal with me, the fucking wrecking ball of the family, the fuckup the screw loose crazy brained retarded genius who can come up with a way to save the world but can’t tie his fucking shoelaces. I’m not enough, I can’t be enough, there’s no amount I can be to satisfy it.

Crying doesn’t solve it, fighting doesn’t solve it, hiding doesn’t, searching doesn’t, nothing doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t doesne’t doesen’t doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t doesn’tl....doesn’t.

I can detach myself from expectation to a point. I can joke about how my plans to redo my birthday are met with debit fraud while singing Hallelujah from Shrek. I can’t face reality because thamisert’s where I’m worthless and powerless over my own personal hell

Can you believe this is better than before?? It’s just now it’s all on the surface, my gusts and organs spilling out because there wasn’t enough flesh around the tumor to hold it in. Rotting empthy ydeath guts piling fileld with disgust and worthless protoplasm, a blob. Smart is my only good quality and its worthless because I can’t use it.

My great uncle was said to be really good at jeopardy due to all his PhDs. So good he did nothing but that in a shack on welfare for the rest of his life. I’m doing worse??????

I feel like that moment after I’ve puked. Disgusted, mouth of bile, but cleaner somehow. Maybe I just need a few more decades of dry heaving

[what-soul]

Jekyll and Hyde

Since yesterday I’ve been planning today on the basic observation that my current skin troubles are a direct result of my irresponsible eating habits. Some part of me thought I was doing all I could do, because I lacked food, but in the broader scheme of things my parents would rather I eat even if at the cost of a higher ideal of working for your keep. More to the point though, I’ve noticed that there’s a subtle but noticeable disconnect between two modes of personality which comprise me: when I’m “lucid”, happy, and fully in tune with my ideals, and otherwise, when I’m not necessarily miserable, but rather perpetuate pre-existing issues until they become impossible to manage.

I say these are distinct because this “lucidity” had a very distinct moment while I was walking to the store when it switched on, though it was still there to a lesser extent last night. I immediately realized that everything I’d been doing and thinking for the last week or so have been totally beside everything I’d learned up to this point. Most importantly, the source of my motivation for work. And yet, this kind of sudden realization of my own stupidity isn’t new, though I’d failed to account for it in the past.

Now that I’m fully aware of it, I see how much of an issue this is. It’s very difficult to make meaningful progress if another of my personalities periodically takes over for a week to ruin things. I need to figure out what triggers this 180 of priorities and somehow bring it to an end, or at least reintegrate it so Robert’s best interests aren’t sabotaged so easily.

[what-soul]

Itch

One of my roommates gave me advice I was absolutely sick of hearing regarding my eczema: “just stop scratching”. This time though, he said something no one else by that point had. First, that I was spoiling my body by giving it exactly what it wanted when it wanted it, and second, that by this point the good feelings I get from scratching have turned it into a type of addiction. I realized in that moment that it would be pathetic if I couldn’t work up the self discipline to do something as simple as that, and that isn’t me (now). So I stopped scratching.

OH GOD IT BURNS

MY SKIN IS CRAWLING

After freaking out and slapping myself, I resolved to take a walk as a distraction. Starting off, I was twitching and shuddering like mad while laughing hysterically and clenching my jaw. Anything but scratch. Eventually I was able to put myself in a trance which made it easier to deal with. The deeper I went, the less I had to deal with. I figure I’ll be doing a lot of meditation in the next few days while I wait for the withdrawal to pass. Hopefully this won’t be much worse than a caffeine addiction, but considering how much dopamine scratching probably gave me, it’s probably more akin to heroine.

[what-soul]

Newfound Depression

No ifs ands or buts about it, I’m definitely depressed now. All the signs are there - oversleeping, lethargy, periodic sighing for no reason, feelings of pointlessness or uselessness. I can barely work up the initiative to press my fingers into the keys to type sometimes. I’m even occasionally thinking about suicide, though only in a passive way, as an escape.

Ultimately everything is just fine. This is as much a part of the game of life as any other experience. Now in the game I’m just losing, badly. I feel useless and unwanted, second guessing my earlier thoughts that I can do anything at all for money. Searching for a job seems to be an impossible task that only leads to pain, yet I’m pressured from the other side to get one or else.

I think that pressure is what turns disappointment into depression. I’m facing my old demons of expectation with the same old threat of life upheaval. Then there’s the possibility my parents are bluffing and will continue to support me at the cost of their marriages, meaning I’ll be a wrecking ball for the family because I can’t do something everyone else seems to have no trouble doing. Guilt turns to shame if not held back.

Alternatively, they hold true to their word and I go to live on the streets. The guilt of that would weigh heavily on them and I’d likely have a difficult time getting out because of the existing depression.

I think the ideal situation for my current state of affairs is UBI as that’d eliminate the tension with my parents, but that won’t be coming anytime soon. If I had my basic needs met, rejections like with Target wouldn’t feel... life threatening. There wouldn’t be a fear that it was my last chance, just disappointment that it didn’t work out, if that.

[what-soul]

Bluh bluh bluh bluh

I’m hitting another roadblock again, but this time it’s one that’s popping up rather than preexisting. Target denied my application despite me being completely convinced I’d get it (I was available any hour of any day even over holidays, all of which I was told by the manager were uncommon and extremely desirable to them). I’ll never know why they denied it, but ultimately the reason doesn’t really matter. I know it’s not because I’m human garbage as my habits want me to think, yet still it leaves me in a funk.

I think by now I’ve fully embraced the idea of getting a job and taking pride in my work, no matter what it is. That’s a lesson that took years and years to learn and one I’ve been agonizing over for the whole time. Now that I’ve finally overcome it, here I’m met with yet more trouble. My willingness and capacity to do work are worthless without an employer. Someone must recognize that I’m capable of helping them before I’ll get a dime, which fundamentally goes against my view of money.

Money is the abstraction of human value, so anything a human values can be “converted” into money. By that definition, I should be able to walk to the nearest busy sidewalk letting everyone passing by know I’ll do anything they want for an hour for $10. Yet that’s not socially appropriate, and even if it were I’d be waiting a very long time to get a bite because people don’t understand what money actually is. They think it’s the stuff you get from a job and use to buy things. If someone wants something, and I’m willing to give it to them for something else of value less than their evaluation of my thing, that should immediately and without hesitation be a trade.

But expectation is the root of all suffering. Attachment to the idea that something should be a certain way.

Since then I’ve been doing a lot more escapism and feel the familiar anxiety when thinking about applying. I’m afraid again, so I need to figure out its target. I have a feeling of hopelessness and maybe some fear of rejection.

I need to hurry... I can only ration food so long, and I’ll be homeless before that matters.

[what-soul]

Update

I haven’t had too much contemplation lately that I felt I had to let out, so I’ll just summarize it all here. Firstly, I’ve finally got a couple bites for the job search: a seasonal position at Target that I’m very likely to get and a contracted online psychic reading gig at the suggestion of an old psychic friend of mine. If I get both even better, because Target can provide the bulk while psychic.com provides a fun hobby (helping other people with psychology and philosophy using mystical pretext) that makes a decent amount. There’s a few other things I’ve dealt with behind the scenes but I’m going to keep applying anyway.

Another big change as of late is a new... hobby I’ve picked up, which I’ll refrain from detailing to prevent it from becoming less interesting. I think it’s safe to say that it challenges me intellectually, giving me success and failure both so my successes feel all the more satisfying. As a result, I think my mood and outlook have stabilized. Soon after I started, both of the job offers I listed above came to me, as if it let the djinn out of the bottle and freed me of its possession. More particularly, I’ve found myself less interested in the kind of extreme escapist multitasking I did before (often doing up to 5 things at once) and even less interested in the activities I previously used to kill time with minimal enjoyment, as I can now dedicate any extra attention to my new hobby. In effect, it’s letting me focus on things without feeling the need to do everything else.

On top of that, I reconnected with that psychic friend I mentioned, who prompted me to do a kind of subconscious spot search using meditative daydreaming. I found that I have something like 4 different identities which have been splintered off by the major events of my life (early childhood, divorce, teenage/college, post-failure college). I took the opportunity to try to recombine the first two, which was easy enough (they were, respectively, an emotional mental-object and a flashbulb memory). After that though all I could do for the others were let them play out.

My teenage self was bursting with rage, fear, expectation, and pressure, which was too strong a “gust” for me to approach for reintegration. Post-failure was empty and dead, unnerving to “look” at (like the Purified Zones from OFF) and punctuated by periodic “glitches” which hinted at something wrong underneath. I created a pipe to “underneath” the image and opened the lid - what came out was an unearthly screeching, like a thousand banshees at once or someone having their body torn to shreds slowly bit by bit. It caused my body to curl up almost as if in pain, scratching at my skin like a foreign entity that I wanted to get off. It filled my mind to the brim with static, unable to think of anything else until it finally died down some.

The effect of these was subtle, to the point where I’m having a hard time recalling it. Maybe that I feel more “stable” or “whole”? Like if I was a broken vase before, some of the cracks were glued shut. In any case, it felt like an important step, one I should probably retry sometime.

I also came to realize what magic is and how it works. Put one way, magic is applied psychology on the cosmic consciousness. You trick god (you) into giving you what you want using every technique you can: cognitive dissonance, biases, props, etc. These may seem “delusional” rather than “magical”, but the important thing to consider is that they 1.) work and 2.) can have more profound “magical” effects when combined with the law of attraction. For instance, by convincing yourself that you have more luck, you naturally attract luck to you in daily life. I also realized what I could use as a daily ritual: “praying” (in the shinto sense) to a shrine created in the image of my perfected self, an ideal I can never achieve but use as inspiration to guide me.

I think I may take these ideas I’ve developed to create a “grimoire”, a standardized system of magic to go with Qualism which provides structure to otherwise blind writhing. I wish to see spirituality given serious consideration and study as a “science”.

[what-soul]

Everyone gets ice. The rich get it in Summer, the poor get it in Winter.

???

[what-soul]

Overwhelming

I tried in earnest to get a tech job. I don’t think “no one wanted me”, but I certainly didn’t get any results. Now I’m searching for any job I can find, an unimaginably low bar, yet I still feel like I’m trying to fell a giant. Applying for large businesses like Walmart, I’m reminded that I’m competing against dozens or perhaps hundreds of other applicants, none of whom are distinguishable to the hiring manager.

I keep remembering the situation I’m in. On the brink of homelessness, my parents at their wits’ end trying to figure out how to motivate me to live, the failure of the family. What kind of a loser do I have to be that I can’t get even Walmart to hire me? By now, I’ve long since passed the point where “I’ve accomplished nothing” can be hand waved away with “you’re too young to have accomplishments”.

Mostly I’m overwhelmed by what seems to be an insurmountable issue. Yet again I find myself wondering if other people know something I don’t, because this “job search” feels like screaming into the wind, only for it to rage past and swallow your words. I get no feedback. There’s nothing to tell me what I’ve done right or wrong besides speculation from articles on google. For all the feedback I get, it seems like those lengthy forms I fill out over and over again are fed straight into the trash.

I thought reaching a point of humility would show me the solution. Recognize that I’m a failure and accept that, get on my knees and beg for air to breathe. The opportunity to convert my capacity to do work into its abstraction, money. But I get no such opportunity, nor the opportunity to get that opportunity.

In realizing that life is to be enjoyed for its own sake, I’ve circled back around to enjoying a few pleasures. Good food, entertainment, the movie theater, quiet moments, walking, and above all a feeling of having some measurable value. Most of these require money, which is earned by what’s essentially just being alive - helping an employer rather than cohabitants.  In theory you can get money for doing anything, since it’s the abstraction of human value. If it were socially appropriate, I could ask my roommates for $5 a day to cook meals. So when no one wants me to do anything, it makes one wonder if there’s something wrong with them that no one will accept their labor.

My motivation to continue searching seems to be strongly correlated to my intake of gabapentin, which is supposed to be a relaxant. Thus it seems the demotivation I go through when it leaves my system is a form of anxiety which it relieves - I’m able to keep plodding along because I’m made to forget why I thought it was hopeless. It doesn’t change the reality though, so I’m left here in somber contemplation about how pathetic I am by any standards. Too sensitive to get a job for the longest time, then when that’s finally over, having no marketable skills because I spent too much time being afraid of the world.

[what-soul]

Tradition

I’m watching the first episode of that one Rakugo anime (I’m not sure I’ll finish it, it’s kinda weird) and felt a very odd feeling from the ancient, traditional stuff that was shown. Stuff their ancestors from hundreds of years ago would recognize. I have none of that, and probably can’t ever have that, because the US has no sense of history or heritage. 200 years is laughably short compared to the traditions of well-established cultures, European, African, Asian, etc. People have a sense of belonging to a particular place and people. Ordinarily an American would feel some belonging to a home town, but I have no such thing.

I don’t know who most of my great grandparents are, let alone anyone else, and none of them were ever in one geographic location. Heritage that would be passed down is instead made ephemeral, breaking like the waves of the tide. What an idea, to belong to a place, a group, which you have a birthright to. Connecting by action to those in the unimaginably distant past, all joined together by a common practice.

Any group I belong to, which isn’t so broad as “male” or “white”, I’m part of because of what I believe or enjoy or have done. They’re all groups I earned the right to be a part of. Ancestry is a group you’re always a part of whether you “deserve” it or not.

I suppose what I’m longing for is a “sense of belonging” (which needs a specific word) to something much larger than myself. A pattern that stretches far back into the annals of history and will continue on in spite of the fog that shrouds the future. Interesting.

EDIT: I think a good word for this feeling would be “insumin”, which I’m making up right now. It’s from Latin “insum” and “in”, which mean “contained” and “within”, respectively. Perhaps “insuminity” instead? What I like about this choice is that its morphology reflects the intended meaning, with “in” surrounding an inner “sum”, which on its own is “to be”. So your being is contained in the root for inclusion.

I think “insuminity” is more regular with English, e.g. “what I long for is an insumin” vs “what I long for is insuminity”. According to Wiktionary, this would make “insumin” an adjective, which makes sense as in “an insumin tradition”.

[what-soul]

The bar

I talked to my dad on the phone, which was wonderful and well past due. During it, he mentioned that the bar is now set really low, and that’s got me thinking metaphorically... In the past, I was afraid of the bar and ran away from it even while it sunk lower and lower. Eventually it hit rock bottom, with people being excited that I had a roof over my head, yet I allowed myself to be crushed underneath it. Now that I’m allowing myself to rise above it, I can only do good from here. Expectations are so low that any level of success is nothing short of amazing. That may seem cynical, but I’m seeing it more as a reset on life; I was given exceedingly high expectations to begin with, now I don’t feel the need to pay those any heed. I can just exist without worrying if I’m successful or not because there’s no way I can go lower than what others expect of me.

[what-soul]

Hit like a truck

My parents have informed me that it’s too early for me to move back, and their reasoning is watertight. I’m currently sitting on a bed of broken promises and excuses, so it’s not exactly reasonable for me to expect them to trust me to get a job when I move back. I say “hit like a truck” because that’s the somatic experience for me, but it isn’t making me depressed. It feels more like reality slapping me in the face, but not knocking me over.

Bizarrely, my immediate thought was where I could work in the area without any of my past inhibitions, including the ones I’ve had recently. The best I can explain it is either/both I’ve had time to fully integrate my new outlook on living life and/or a recent anime I watched (Elegant Yokai Apartment) showed working a menial job in a way which alleviated any residual fears. Now I can only think of wanting to work and how much better it’d make my life. I’ve already started applying in fact: Walmart and Aldi’s aren’t hiring, but I’ve filled out a Target application for 3 different positions. I live near an area with a lot of stores, so there’s plenty of opportunity for something.

[what-soul]

Commitment

I have a serious commitment problem. In the past, I’ve called this my “20% problem” or “Finbarr Syndrome” (after the Jimmy Neutron villain who couldn’t even finish his sentences). Looking at it today I think it’s not too difficult to see what’s wrong; I lack discipline, and get bored or discouraged by whatever I’m working on.

Take today for instance. I randomly got an idea for a simple, fun video game that could have an MVP by the end of the day if I tried. Basically a slime mating sim, Stardew Valley slime hutch + Slime Rancher + Chocobo breeding. You would manage the health of your slimes while selectively breeding them to get the perfect species. Under the hood it’d basically only be a genetic algorithm with minor interactivity. The screen needn’t move, so no fancy camerawork is needed. There’s no need for complex edge cases, and I could implement it so they just look like circles bumping around on the screen. But almost as soon as I started writing out what kind of features I’d like to see in it, I got bored. Or maybe “discouraged” is a better word.

I have so many ideas by now of wildly varying complexity that if I were to actually work on one of the consistently, I’d have a much more impressive portfolio and be able to take some pride in my own abilities as a programmer. Instead, I half-hearted work on whatever I fancy in the moment, never completing anything because nothing gets enough attention.

For now I’m going to ask my friends how they deal with it, and research commitment.

[what-soul]

LLF: Re:Zero

I kept dropping this anime because I found the protagonist grating, but now I realize that was the point. And now I’ve seen too much of him in myself to stop. From episode 13 onwards shows his descent into madness, doubling and tripling down on the mistakes made because of his terrible character. It resonated with me, but I don’t want to say it all applies now. Maybe his realization can help me.

It all started in a scene which is singlehandedly the most cringe I’ve ever had from animated media, topping out Spike singing the Crystal Empire “anthem”. He kept making a fool of himself, over and over again, digging his heels in and making it all worse until any respect I had for him was utterly destroyed, though I still had empathy. Then he doubled down yet again, and again, and again. From there, a series of even more doubling over and over again while various characters gave hints at what was wrong with him.

At first he just seemed to be stupid, but the fight he had afterwards made it clear; he was lying to himself about doing everything for his crush. It was all for him, his pride, his arrogance, looking good in front of others. At the end he was a parasite, screaming that for all he’s done (very little), she should owe him a much larger debt than he owes her. She owed him, the world owed him for the “work” he’d done.

When he was dueling with a butler at the estate he was staying in, he ended it for the day because “I think teaching swordsmanship, which will make a man stronger, to one who has abandoned the option to get stronger is meaningless.” He was practicing swordsmanship, presumably to get better after his humiliating defeat. In actuality, it was a ploy to convince himself and others that he was doing something about it. He never intended, deep down, to actually get better.

From there, he postured to be at Emilia’s side when she was in danger to “protect” her, but he had no combat experience whatsoever and would be of no help, or even make the situation worse. He goes, and gets mentally scarred.

Now, ordinarily that’d be played straight. He was emotionally scarred by seeing hundreds of dead bodies of people he knew. He goes catatonic and responds to nothing. But the anime took a turn I never would’ve expected when he’s kidnapped and interviewed by Betelgeuse:

Let me ask you this... Why do you pretend that your mind has broken? I truly have my doubts. Why and for what reason, for what purpose, do you act crazed? Your insanity is far too sane. To behave so cleverly and quietly, as if seeking sympathy... It is an insult to real madness. You are a poorly acted madman. If you really meant it, you would pay the gazes of others no heed. Ah, how comical! I pity you. I pity your wretched, ugly, lowly, diminutive, sinful being, from the bottom of my heart! Despite all that, you are so loved! You’d rather waste away in stagnation than repay the goodwill shown to you? You are truly slothful.

This feels like a blanket of needles enclosed my heart, because I know this far too well for comfort. This exact thing has happened to me before. Unresponsive because you don’t know what to do. Any action is incorrect, no action is incorrect. But is it real? Or is it an act to lie to yourself that you really are in need of help? Deserving of pity? Others drop what they have and attend to “fix” your “broken” mind. Starved of the perception of love, groveling for a drop of water to preserve your rotted corpse a while longer when by all means others should stay far away.

But then it drops another bomb talking to Crusch:

Is this why you behave as you do? Your hatred for the Witch’s Cult... Is that your real reason for approaching Emilia? What else but murderous intent could one call that glint in your eye? -

I am certain that I have told you, Natsuki Subaru, that if your own lie doesn’t fool you, it will not deceive others. You know why? You haven’t once said that you want to save Emilia.

And then again, with Priscilla:

[I will give you] what you would call a “chance”. Lick it. Crawl on the floor, savoring the shame and humiliation. And like a wretched beast, like a baby suckling on its mother’s teat, lick my foot. If you can do that, I’ll consider your proposal. If you don’t want to, that’s fine... If you’d rather favor your minuscule pride and abandon the mistress you wagged your tail for to the wasteland, fine. Either choice you make will entertain me. (he agrees but takes too long)

I guess you really are just an insignificant man! What you just displayed was neither loyalty nor devotion. It’s something more filthy, like a dog’s dependence or a pig’s greed, you lazy pig who knows only how to want! A pig’s greed is the ugliest thing there is!

And again with Anastasia:

You won’t make anyone happy by prioritizin’ your own goals. Trying to get on the other’s good side is the basic rule of negotiation. That’s where you’re lackin’, Natsuki-kun. -

If ya want to convince someone you’re righteous, you’ve gotta show somethin’ to merit it. And I see no such thing in you. The only way to change your reputation is to replace it with another. The things you’ve done are what determine your reputation. That is, your past. And there’s no way to change your past, so my opinion of ya isn’t gonna change, either. The things you’ve done won’t ever go away.

One last thing. The key to negotiation is how prepared you are before ya come to the table. Know what the other person wants and dangle it in front of ‘em. And since all you do is want, that’s where you’re lacking.

Leading to the final break in his facade:

What do you know?! what do you know about me?! This is the kind of man I am! I have no strength but I want it all. I have no knowledge, but all I do is dream. There's nothing I can do but I struggle in vain! I... I... Hate myself! All I do is talk a big game, and make myself sound like a big shot when I can't do anything! I never do anything, yet I can complain like a pro. Who do I think I am?! It's amazing that I can live like this and not feel ashamed! Right?!

I'm empty... There's nothing inside me at all. I know that... I know it's obvious. Before I came here... Before I got into the situation that led me to all of you, do you have any idea what I did? I did nothing... I've never done a single thing. I had all that time, all that freedom... I could have done anything, but I never did a thing. And this is the result! What I am now is the result! All of my powerlessness, all of my incompetence, is the product of my rotten character.

Wanting to accomplish something when I've never done anything, goes beyond the limits of arrogance! The cost of my laziness and all the wasteful habits in my life just ends up killing both you and me.

That's right. I have no character. Even when I thought I could go on living here, nothing changed... That old man saw that part of me perfectly. Right? I wasn't trying to get stronger or trying to make things better. I was just striking an obvious pose, to justify myself, to say that I was trying, that it wasn't like I wasn't doing anything. I wanted to say I couldn't help it. I wanted to be told it couldn't be helped! I only pretended to push my body to the limit, so that would be possible! Even when I had you help me study, I was just posing to cover up how embarrassed I felt! At heart, I'm just a small, cowardly, filthy piece of trash, who's always worried about how others see me. And nothing... Nothing about me has changed!

I knew it all along. That all of it was my fault... I'm the lowest of the low. I absolutely hate myself...

Of course this was resolved soon, so what I’m left with is a happy ending and deep sense of reflection. Though that time has passed since I started writing this. I thought I may have seen too much of myself, and maybe I did from a bygone era. But now I feel done. I think the gabapentin kicked in.

Did I mention how disturbing it is for my mood to be dictated by something in limited supply?

[what-soul]

Emotional time capsule

I’ve noticed that I have a consistent fixation on characters around the age of 12: Satoru (Erased), Midoriya (Hero Aca), Asriel (Undertale), Gon and Killua (Hunter x Hunter), and the kids of Anohana, plus all the ones I’ve forgotten. That age range is bizarrely compelling to me, and I’ve thought of one reason why that could be; my parents divorced when I was 12. Could this mean that I have some sort of unresolved emotional baggage relating to coming of age or other developmental factors which are meant to occur around the age of 12?

Feelings of abandonment? Or a childhood lost to a broken home? Nothing particularly stands out, so I might want to research the psychological effects of divorce on that age range.