Fellow Escapists, let me tell you something about myself.
I am a lifelong nice guy. I'm the guy who's dependable and kind and selfless and constantly trying his best to please everybody. To anyone I consider a friend, or a comrade, I'd pretty much break my back just to do things for them.
And as a result, I am a spineless fuckwit. All my life, people walk all over me: my parents, my younger brothers, even the people I consider friends. All of them see me as one big welcome mat, and proceed to treat me accordingly.
But by far, my parents are the worst of the lot. They have it in their heads that I am a worthless, no-good excuse of a human being, who will never, EVER match up to their expectations of what a person should be. No matter what I do, whether it was being promoted at my job, or getting into a prestigious university, it will never appease them.
And we all know how much that hurts. One of the most basic emotional needs for a human is validation. People WANT people to recognize them for what they do, and the want that from people they genuinely care about. It's the lack of validation, or the kind of shallow validation that comes with fame and fortune, that makes people feel "empty" inside.
And yes, I know its not very macho for a dude to be sensitive to his feelings, but I've been keeping it all in for 21 years, and I need some kind of outlet.
The thing is, my parents have this psychotic hold on my life: everything I do is measured up to their standards, and they do their best to make sure that I'm under their thumb, and completely miserable.
Now here's the deal: I spend a load of time on my PC. Growing up in the middle of bloody nowhere, a place with horrible TV, expensive books, expensive EVERYTHING, and no library, having a PC and an internet connection is a godsend: I can honestly say, I would be a lesser man if not for the internet. And it would be true: through my travails around the web, I have come into contact with people of varied cultures, societies and sensitivities. I've met and sparred mentally with the best and the worst. I have experienced a wider variety of culture in 6 years than most people would in their entire lifetimes (well, most people in the pre-internet era).
Hell, at a specific point in my life, I was a Computer Science major. I got accepted into the best technical school in the country, but I wanted to take a Journalism course at a different school, and my parents would have none of it: "You are going to take ComSci, and you are going to like it!"
In the 1 year I spent there, it was miserable: the math was way beyond my ability to handle, the school was run by idiots who insisted on bombarding us with useless subjects (not "useless" like Geography or History, but "useless" like 2 GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct)-esque classes a trimester.) to supposedly create a "holistic" learning environment. And top it off with my father insisting I spend "too much time in front of that stupid computer". Let me repeat that: my father, who forced me to take up Computer Science, says that I, a Computer Science major, is spending too much time in front of the PC.
Anyway, I eventually quit and started working for a bit (I hated the job, so I won't talk about it too much). I stayed at the job for a year, and thoroughly miserable, I decided to get my life back together. I went and applied for a course in Sociology at another prestigious university, and I got in. I not only got in, I aced the test (99.3% on the exam, with a 122 IQ recorded by same). The story is not in the getting in, but in the night before. My father, bastard that he is, called me to the living room, and told me "I fully expect you to fail this, and I'm only letting you embarrass yourself so you can't whine about how I never supported you." That my friends, is possibly the WORST thing a father can say to his eldest son right before an entrance exam, bar none.
After getting in, he then calls me again, and this time says "I don't want you screwing this up, so from now on, your PC stays in the office."
This, to me, is symbolic of their efforts to undermine my ability: they don't think that, despite being able to get into a prestigious university after one year of basically rotting my brain, in a course that I chose for myself, that I will be able to survive. It basically meant that whenever they wanted, they could look over and tell me how much of a failure I am, and how I will never amount to anything unless they say I will.
So, after a year of this, I've finally had enough. I waited until this weekend, when they would be gone Saturday and Sunday, to move the PC back up into my room. Its my way of telling them "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR SH*T, AND I WON'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" It was the moment where I would finally grow a spine, instead of quietly hoping they would relent, I would go and seize my opportunity to improve my life. Carpe diem folks, seize the day.
So what was the whole point of this exercise? Nothing. I just wanted to finally get this off my chest. As another user (The Thinker) once said, and I paraphrase as such, "Whining is cathartic". Catharsis, good people, is a term originating from the Greek "katharien", which means "to cleanse". It's supposedly why people enjoy watching drama: by imposing our troubles and issues on the characters, we sort of "wish" them away, cleansing our "souls" and allowing us to continue, despite whatever soul-sucking monstrosities we encounter in our day-to-day life.
So, my fellow Escapists, this is my catharsis.
I am a lifelong nice guy. I'm the guy who's dependable and kind and selfless and constantly trying his best to please everybody. To anyone I consider a friend, or a comrade, I'd pretty much break my back just to do things for them.
And as a result, I am a spineless fuckwit. All my life, people walk all over me: my parents, my younger brothers, even the people I consider friends. All of them see me as one big welcome mat, and proceed to treat me accordingly.
But by far, my parents are the worst of the lot. They have it in their heads that I am a worthless, no-good excuse of a human being, who will never, EVER match up to their expectations of what a person should be. No matter what I do, whether it was being promoted at my job, or getting into a prestigious university, it will never appease them.
And we all know how much that hurts. One of the most basic emotional needs for a human is validation. People WANT people to recognize them for what they do, and the want that from people they genuinely care about. It's the lack of validation, or the kind of shallow validation that comes with fame and fortune, that makes people feel "empty" inside.
And yes, I know its not very macho for a dude to be sensitive to his feelings, but I've been keeping it all in for 21 years, and I need some kind of outlet.
The thing is, my parents have this psychotic hold on my life: everything I do is measured up to their standards, and they do their best to make sure that I'm under their thumb, and completely miserable.
Now here's the deal: I spend a load of time on my PC. Growing up in the middle of bloody nowhere, a place with horrible TV, expensive books, expensive EVERYTHING, and no library, having a PC and an internet connection is a godsend: I can honestly say, I would be a lesser man if not for the internet. And it would be true: through my travails around the web, I have come into contact with people of varied cultures, societies and sensitivities. I've met and sparred mentally with the best and the worst. I have experienced a wider variety of culture in 6 years than most people would in their entire lifetimes (well, most people in the pre-internet era).
Hell, at a specific point in my life, I was a Computer Science major. I got accepted into the best technical school in the country, but I wanted to take a Journalism course at a different school, and my parents would have none of it: "You are going to take ComSci, and you are going to like it!"
In the 1 year I spent there, it was miserable: the math was way beyond my ability to handle, the school was run by idiots who insisted on bombarding us with useless subjects (not "useless" like Geography or History, but "useless" like 2 GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct)-esque classes a trimester.) to supposedly create a "holistic" learning environment. And top it off with my father insisting I spend "too much time in front of that stupid computer". Let me repeat that: my father, who forced me to take up Computer Science, says that I, a Computer Science major, is spending too much time in front of the PC.
Anyway, I eventually quit and started working for a bit (I hated the job, so I won't talk about it too much). I stayed at the job for a year, and thoroughly miserable, I decided to get my life back together. I went and applied for a course in Sociology at another prestigious university, and I got in. I not only got in, I aced the test (99.3% on the exam, with a 122 IQ recorded by same). The story is not in the getting in, but in the night before. My father, bastard that he is, called me to the living room, and told me "I fully expect you to fail this, and I'm only letting you embarrass yourself so you can't whine about how I never supported you." That my friends, is possibly the WORST thing a father can say to his eldest son right before an entrance exam, bar none.
After getting in, he then calls me again, and this time says "I don't want you screwing this up, so from now on, your PC stays in the office."
This, to me, is symbolic of their efforts to undermine my ability: they don't think that, despite being able to get into a prestigious university after one year of basically rotting my brain, in a course that I chose for myself, that I will be able to survive. It basically meant that whenever they wanted, they could look over and tell me how much of a failure I am, and how I will never amount to anything unless they say I will.
So, after a year of this, I've finally had enough. I waited until this weekend, when they would be gone Saturday and Sunday, to move the PC back up into my room. Its my way of telling them "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR SH*T, AND I WON'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" It was the moment where I would finally grow a spine, instead of quietly hoping they would relent, I would go and seize my opportunity to improve my life. Carpe diem folks, seize the day.
So what was the whole point of this exercise? Nothing. I just wanted to finally get this off my chest. As another user (The Thinker) once said, and I paraphrase as such, "Whining is cathartic". Catharsis, good people, is a term originating from the Greek "katharien", which means "to cleanse". It's supposedly why people enjoy watching drama: by imposing our troubles and issues on the characters, we sort of "wish" them away, cleansing our "souls" and allowing us to continue, despite whatever soul-sucking monstrosities we encounter in our day-to-day life.
So, my fellow Escapists, this is my catharsis.
