Amongst The Functioning

foul - negative

I honestly hate myself.

I hate how I tell myself I won't do shameful things again but I always end up in the same situation again and again. Guilt and regret overcomes me every single time. I don't know why I can't just be passive and go with the flow; I just can't seem to accept the fact that us mortals are not clean, that our nature inclines us to do wrong or do things recklessly on a whim.

Humans aren't perfect. Humans are born with sin and is affected by it the moment they develop their own minds. They—no, we— can't help it because it isn't our fault. It's the natural order of the bed that we made and we sleep in. Of the world that we live in.

That's why we were given other things such as compassion, morality, endurance, repentance, awareness, communication and understanding. Why the Ten Commandments were carved on stone tablets and made constant in the Earth. Why we sinful, ungratefully ignorant humans were given free will.

And yet we still fall into the same pattern once again. It's true what they say about man being a "creature of habit". We like routine, even if we think we don't. We like routine because we like comfort. And we find comfort in a myriad of places, in the most peculiar of methods an often in the most complex combinations we can find.

Which is why it puzzles me how I could possess all this knowledge and be this discerning of the worldly paths we all take and yet fail to stop myself from falling victim to temptation.

I know I am just a normal, everyday human being. Regular. Average. Completely like everyone else. I don't delude myself into thinking that I am more special than I already am or that different that the next guy—or at least, I try my very best not to. But the thing is—I've always been this hyper aware and over-analyzing of my surroundings that I had once thought that I could be better than others. More philosophical, more out looking, more open-minded, more cautious than most.  I had such a strong conviction that I was going to be more than what I was, that I was going to be more progressive and more efficient. That I, as an individual, wouldn't be just another face in the crowd that's being swept up by society's rigorously continuous tides.

But I guess I spoke too soon.

I guess I was too hopeful. I think I was too young and optimistic. I was too unprepared to lose. I always knew that life was gonna be hard and that it was gonna suck bad and that I would not be able to stand up against my shadows in every battle. I already knew I was trying to grasp an almost impossible thread. But I still did my very best to do so. And in that I now find myself all out of fight and out of willingness or energy or any sort of gusto to even envision myself victorious in the long run, or even in a miniscule scale, reaping the rewards of my small efforts. I had fallen hard and let myself get dragged deeper and deeper until I could no longer see the light that I cast for myself in the beginning. And even though I now more sure that it wasn't truly, entirely my fault that I'm defective or that I'm a liar and so stupid. I am not too hypocritical not to notice that I regress back into the vile, uncouth darkness that always lingers around me.

No matter how I scold myself that I should know better and act better and restrain myself and have some tact like I was raised to have and be mindful of the bigger picture that's being painted each and every time a second tics by—I turn negligent and uncaring and unfair. I turn into the same person who I am too frightened and too ashamed of. The same alter ego I so loathe to my very core. The side of me I'd rather not have uncovered an let lose.

It's terrifying and immensely rueful and self-abusive and inconsiderate. And let's not forget disappointing. Absolutely disappointing.

It's times like these I wish I had stronger faith. Times like these are ones I internally want to manifest my longing to be subservient to right belief and right formation. I usually have some slivers of doubt and unjustified notions even during these periods of time....and I don't always feel as much spirituality as I should. As I ought to.

Though you may ask, "Why yearn for such a thing?". To which I'll answer thusly, " I have nothing going on my life that I have had the patience to work hard for or sacrifice enough of myself for. It is the only way I can see myself properly walking out and about as one of mankind's own; owning my mistakes and recognizing how and why I've truly learned and moved on from every single one of them.

It's unnervingly a bit harder for me than it is for others given the fact that I was made to believe all my life that you should never cater to your darkest wishes. But in actuality, it's equally condemned as it is welcomed. As if that wasn't confusing enough, I had to have a sloth-like and degenerative attitude towards all sorts of things; most of which are important and essential to being a useful contributor who can be counted worthy in the midst of chaos and destruction.