There’s a popular phrase used by parents and mentors alike, which states,
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
In a much more specific way, Chief Justice John Roberts explains: “I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope you will suffer betrayal, because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope that you will be lonely from time to time, so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time, so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand your success is not completely deserved, and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope, every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure, it is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored. So you’ll know the importance of listening to others. And I hope there will be just enough pain to learn compassion.”
My first thought when hearing this was: “What a strange thing for a politician of all people to say!”
And being the cynic I was, I instantly started judging Mr Roberts as another politician who thinks he knows so much but could never really truly understand the pain of loneliness, the pain of failure and the pain when someone gloats over your problems and all your insecurities.
Because in the past 4 years of High School I’ve learned and gained a lot, but I’ve lost a lot too. I’ve felt the pain of failure more than once, the neverending feeling of a void opening up in your chest as you realize your failures. I’ve felt the anxiety and the insecurities leaking in as the people you call your friends tell you how dumb that decision was, or how bad I was at Counter-Strike. I’ve felt the rage when I heard my friends tell their friends that he was glad I didn’t make choir this year. I did so much to get my classmate’s attention, to be accepted as a friend, to be seen as a good counter-strike player, to be seen as a smart guy with good grades, yet it felt like all they paid attention to was my failures.
Through this feeling of loneliness, hatred, the feelings of sadness with no one to share it with, I started to think out of spite. I acted so that when someone screws up, and when they think that no one was there for me, I would make sure that they had a friend there for them, so when someone feels like the world is crashing down on them and they can’t get out, they have someone there for them. I would try and do the things that I felt my schooling and my family had failed to do for me.
It’s required me to be more of a sensitive person. Instead of judging someone based on first appearances, I’ll try to put myself in the same scenario and situation as somebody instead of being quick to judge and say how entitled somebody is.
And you know, maybe it’s made me a better person. Maybe my failures and anger and rage has turned something bad into something good for me. Maybe through the pain I have discovered a lot more about myself and life or some bullshit like that.
But when you’re alone, you don’t have anyone to share your ideas with. All your ideas, your thoughts, your opinions, your political standings, and you have no one to impress, no one to tell you have smart you are, and no one to theorycraft more ideas.
Do I wish anyone to experience what I’ve ever experienced? Do I think it’s necessary to reach a higher plane of existence or some shit like that?
No. I think it’s absolute bullshit for someone to hurt themselves like that. I think that in the era where suicide and self harm is almost viewed as cool, that it’s not cool. It’s not fucking worth it, that it will tear your life apart.
And in the end, the reality is that I’m not some sort of fucking genius. I don’t think that I’m better than people and that only people with high intellect can reach the level that I am. I realize that most of twitter still see tenki with a sour view, but he put it the best:
“I’m not better than other people, I’m not smarter than other people, I’d say that I’m just more aware than others.”
It’s taken me years of pain and suffering to get through this, and I wouldn’t trade it for anyone.
I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t want your apologies. The only thing I ask for is to be more aware. To see the insecurities and the fear within us, and to be more sensitive, so it’s not scary for people like me to speak.
Thank you for reading.