On Feelings

There is now a generalized consciousness among most people, I think, that life is short and so it is better to live it up as high as you can, to regret nothing as much as you can help it and, most importantly, as far as this blog post goes, to rid yourself of the things or people around you that do not bring you happiness in consistency and quality.

I hate to lose friends. The thought of losing friends scares me. It is hard to imagine how one could have had so much memory with someone and then, for reasons that are flimsy on most occasions but sometimes cogent, you and that someone just stop correspondence. It often does not matter, or matters very little how profound or beautiful the time you have spent together is, ego just takes over and the relationship ends abruptly.

But the thing I have not failed to notice is that it is absolutely necessary sometimes, for no other reason but for your continued peace of mind. I agree that I could be egocentric on occasions: not in terms of loving myself too much, but in my opinion of myself, quite simply, I think too highly of myself sometimes. It is a problem I know I have, therefore it is something I am actively trying to find a solution to. I think that a lot of us have this problem as well.  We want to feel that we do not need to be a certain way or do a certain thing because it seems too low. But perceiving a certain thing as ‘too low’ is strongly dependent on the person perceiving. Low is different for different people. What is low to you may not be low to me, vice versa. The point is I understand how our ego can take the place of common sense. How we could feel that there is no reason to be the person who fights for the survival of a relationship. It is easy to feel that way. It is also easy to feel that you have gained nothing but heartbreak and chaos from continuous friendship with certain people, a good example is friendship with someone you have feelings for. You could try but if the feeling is truly there, it is nothing but punishment to yourself, the way I see it.

It is not as easy, however, to cut off from someone, but sometimes it is the most rational thing to do. It becomes more important if your peace of mind and heart is at stake. Life is too short to hang on to shards of broken glass and hope that they would be kind enough not to tear your hands. Feelings are not as openly discussed as I think they ought to be. Feelings are essential and they are not just composed of love but of friendship, almost as equally. In the same way, heartbreak is dependent on so many factors and not just on the love of your life breaking up with you. There are so many components to heartbreak that breaking up with someone seems one of the most flimsy of all. Unrequited love, just like unrequited friendship, is such a sad and painful thing. And as such, I can only conclude that it is a sin against oneself to remain in harm’s way. 

I wanted to make this post as simple as possible but it is hard to not include a philosophical angle to it. Angles such as Eric Berne’s, a psychiatrist, who states “Some say that one-sided love is better than none, but like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow hard and moldy sooner.” It is a mirror of the classic example with which we like to describe anger, a hot coal, the longer you hold on to it, the more it burns deeper and deeper into your palm.