15.10.2000

"I am what you say I am,
If I wasn't, why would you say I am?"
(Eminem)

Well, go on, what are you like? What are you? Do you know?

Define yourself. Limit yourself. Draw lines and flowcharts about yourself. And what are you?

An biological organism, whatever. Things creep up inside you, whether you want them or not. People tell you to change, whether or not you want to. Social pressure. Peer pressure. If there is no peer pressure, there's something else. There is something worse.

"There's always something worse."
But is there, actually?
Can you pile things up, one after another, and say that some things are worse than the others, higher up in that hierarchy?
Well, can you?

If I think through my life, if I rate all my memories, I'm quite sure they're (somewhat) worse than many other people's. More painful, more violent, simply more destructive. (That's why I don't remember.) But the point is, I can't say which of them are worse than the others. There's a lot of pain, but I can't say which memory contributes which amount of pain. I can't say that if this thing was erased, my life would be easier in a certain way.

Perhaps there's no need to be able to say that.
I have difficulties defining 'good' and 'bad' memories. There is a memory, and I have absolutely no emotion about it. I have no opinion on it. It's neutral. There are a few memories that make me cry, and those are the only ones that I can label. I label them 'memories that make me cry'. Crying doesn't always equal bad in my mind. Crying can be an act of surviving.

Can I label those things bad? Should I?
According to some eastern philosophy, pain can be a good, desirable thing. (I can't remember which, so don't ask.) I spent a lot of time in my youth thinking that I simply didn't hurt enough. That I should be hurting more, that my life had been way too easy. Nowadays I seem to totter on the edge of fear and pain. I'd like to make myself hurt even more, but I'm too afraid to do it, and in a way I don't even want to. Yet there's the persistent feeling that I've had it too easy, that I deserve to hurt more.

Someone said once that I should stop. I should stop wanting to hurt myself. (Why would I want to do that?) I don't think it's possible anymore. I want to rip myself to pieces. Literally and figuratively.
I think it made me cry. When he said I should stop. I didn't tell him that, of course. There's nothing to say about it. It's just... sometimes the fact that someone cares hurts more than the fact that no one cares. Anyone who isn't required to care.