miso
self isolation, a conflict of ideals or break in communication, but a reminder to remain patient. i do this, i think. idk.
I'm scared. Am I allowed to say that? People don't like it when I vocalize that, but I'm scared. I feel alone. I feel like a lot of the people who claim to support me truly don't care. And it stings. And it's okay. I can deal with it; I always have dealt with it. I have coping mechanisms, probably. Or something like that. I don't know, right? If it's any consolation, I don't feel like hurting myself right now, at all. Or drinking. I just don't think there's much of a point to it, it's just going to make me feel good for a bit and then itch. That's the only problem with it, it's the itch. Nicely healing scars that itch and itch and itch and you just have to sit there and deal with it. It's not infected, it's completely fine, everything will be okay. But it itches. It makes you want to rip away at it to sate some deep part of to that hurts, and it'll work, but you'll stain yourself with blood again.
I don't think I care too much how others feel about me right now. I've done my part, and I realize now that nobody actually cares. I think that's sad, but it's something I'll learn to live with. I just think being on my own is the right solution, for now on. Everyone would be much happier with me removed. I know it to be true, even if nobody could bring themselves to admit it to me. If I disappeared today, and well and truly disappeared-- new name, all new account, posting as if nothing happened but never reaching out to anyone I know or who loves me. I think not much would change for them. And that makes me happy. I don't want to ruin things for anyone. I just want to not be here anymore. And that's okay. I'm not wrong for that. Maybe I deserve to be alone for a long time.
Every time I discuss how I feel, I just get some response of "that's not healthy" or "oh that's not right" and when I ask what I should be doing or how to change it I get nothing, or. "you need professional help". Cool. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way I think. I've learned to cope with it over the years and I've accepted what is and isn't true about my feelings and what I should do to ensure that I don't make myself spiral or feel worse. Removing myself from spaces I feel I don't belong is one of them. I trust myself more than I trust your opinion on that. I know where I should be. I know where I shouldn't.
I read In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami the other day. Finished it. I really enjoyed it. It's about consumerism in Japan and America and how they intersect between different cultures, how someone who works in the Japanese sex tourism industry would view other people, explicitly wanting to hurt people for their own pleasure or gain. How someone can come from the US, think it's rotten and that even despite his dream to see Japan, finds out that it's just as rotten as where he comes from, interacts with someone who views America as the ideal. An everyman talking to someone who's a psychopath and can't bring himself to disagree with what he's saying, because deep down he knows he agrees. or even that he's right. It's so fascinating. Nobody wants to talk about this book for what it is. They want to talk about "its scene" and quite frankly as much as I adore Ryu Murakami's writing when it comes to gore, such as describing blood as "slimy red stuff" or likening the viscera from a throat slit with a sashimi knife to soy sauce, writing everything from the perspective as an everyman who can't help himself, he doesn't understand the gravity of the slaughter in front of him, or maybe he doesn't care. He begins to treat the foreigner as a friend, he has so many opportunities to do something about things. And he won't.
I really love it. I love books that talk about how rotten society can be. I don't want to sit here like the Trans Joker being all, "yeah, society is the issue!" because it isn't, fully. A big problem too are the people in it. But, "society is rotten!" is just too generic and agreeable of a sentence. It is. But books that can put it into words, that can explain WHY it is, or make it something succinct and memorable are the kind of things that always attract me.
You can’t change the grownup world to suit your idea of how things should be, so you have to learn to press the right buttons, and kids growing up find themselves constantly in situations just like that cat’s. (In referral to the experiment where an animal is given a button that dispenses food. Randomly, it will shock them. They learn to avoid the button entirely for fear of being shocked, starve, and die.) There’s no consistency to the way your parents and other adults respond to you when you’re a kid. It’s especially inconsistent in this country, because there aren’t any solid, standard criteria for judging what’s important. The grownups live only for money and things with established monetary value, like designer goods. The media — TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, whatever — are full of pronouncements by adults that all they really want or care about is money or material goods. From politicians and bureaucrats to the lowliest office drudge drinking cheap saké at some outdoor stall, they all show by the way they live that money is the only thing they aspire to. They’ll puff themselves up and say ‘Money isn’t everything,’ but all you have to do is watch their behavior to see where their real priorities lie.