Inspiration Begins in Curiousity

I posted a facebook status the other day that sparked quite the controversy. I hadn’t realized until then that I seem to be the only one who believes that hope and willpower are not codependent.

My status read: “Contrary to common belief, hope can actually die. Willpower can pull you through without hope. Determination can keep you going without the outlook of success.”

Regardless of the fine opinions of my mother, my best friend, and other close friends, I maintain my opinion. Hope, determination, willpower, and stubbornness are things that drive us. They are characteristics that keep us going, but they are not the same thing, and they are not codependent.

My mother made a great argument for the dependency of both, saying: “Willpower can pull you through without hope isn’t it contradictory? Willpower for what? usually willpower is there because you have hope for sucess. Willpower to lose weight, because you have hope to be skinny, willpower to quit smoking, hope to live healthy, willpower to exercise, hope for staying in shape… list goes on!”

I am not saying that hope and willpower never work together, because they often do. What I am saying is that you can give up all hope, and still not give in. You can give up all hope for a solution, and refuse to give in, because you are stubborn, or sheer willpower. Oftentimes all of our negative circumstances are what drive us to not give in, even if we think it is futile.

A girl who grew up in an abusive home, whose aspirations to become a lawyer are repeatedly shot down; whose hope of finding love is continually and consistently mocked and shattered. She may give up all hope of reaching her goals, but her hatred for her family, and the refusal to give in to them can fuel her determination, even if she thinks it won’t work out anyway.

A child brought up in sex slavery may abandon all hope of ever getting out, but still have the stubborn determination to survive.

I’m not saying everyone will give up hope, and I’m not saying hope always dies, but I am saying that it is possible to have one without the other. I was talking about this extensively with Matthew, and his response was “well that’s pretty empty, if you ask me.”

And that is my whole point and purpose of the status and my personal conviction. Yes, it’s pretty empty. It’s pretty sad. To live a life without hope, driven by sheer willpower and determination, is sad.

But it happens.

Usually when people get around to emailing or messaging me about my stories, the question they ask is “Why are your stories so morbid?”

There are a few answers I suppose I could offer. I use it as my outlet, to reflect how I feel, or maybe I have a twisted sense of humour, or like provoking people. 

A lot of times it’s just because I want to provoke people. There is a lot of gore to be found in my stories. Very few happy endings. Life is full of unhappy endings. Life is full of sad situations. I could fill books with the morbid things I have experienced and witnessed other people experience. Out of all my stories, I’d say about 80 percent of them were inspired by something that really happened, if not to me, then to someone else. Within those 80 percent, I’d say about 40 percent weren’t even embellished. 

Truth be told, it bothers me when people can’t take the time of the day to look at the smaller picture. It bothers me when people go through their selfish every day life, and the only time they stop to think about the pain of others is when a tsunami blows people away. Give it a few weeks and they’ll stop praying for Japan. They’ll stop sending money. They’ll go on with their lives. 

They look at me and tell me I’m a bad person for not dedicating my status to them; for not stalking CNN headlines for updates. 

I’m dead serious when I say that I feel horrible about what is going on in Japan, when I think about it. But when I think about it, I’m not looking at the thousands struck by catastrophe. I’m looking at that one little girl huddled on the side of what used to be a road. 

And it makes me sad. It tears me up inside. But what tears me up even more is seeing that same girl right under the bridge in New York City. It tears me up to see that same girl hiding under her bed, covering her ears so she doesn’t have to hear mommy screaming for daddy to please stop. It tears me up to see that same little girl begging for daddy to please stop while the blood pours from between her legs. 

We can’t fix the problems in our own backyard, and the only time we care to help is when some catastrophic event wipes out a hundred homes thousands of miles away. 

That, is why I write morbid stories. I want people to remember that it’s real. It happens. People suffer and die every day. And they don’t need an earthquake or a hurricane or a tsunami for it either.

A lot of times when peoples’ life falls into a swirling vortex of terror, they feel like they’ve lost all control of their lives. They don’t know how to regain that control. Things around them are crashing down, they themselves are falling apart, and all they want are the reigns. 

Whatever makes us think it’s all in our control in the first place? Whatever makes us think it was our control to lose? We spend so much time beating ourselves up and looking for ways to regain control when sometimes it’s just not our fault. 

Amy’s parents hated each other. She cried all the time, waiting for the day they finally decided to get a divorce. Offering to make breakfast, doing the laundry when her mom was too tired to try, she did what she could, until she was too tired to keep trying. 

Two nights later, her dad took a knife to his wife. Don’t anyone dare tell me any of this was within that poor girl’s control. Her life fell apart around her and she was too consumed telling herself if only she had done the laundry and if only she had washed the dishes. If only she had kept control. If only she had done more.

People claim that nothing is ever out of your control. Point blank, I would like to say that that is utter and complete bullshit. A lot of things are out of your control. In fact, most things in life are out of your control. At best you can control how you feel and behave while your life falls apart. 

You can control how you feel. You can not give up. You can decide that no matter how bad it is, you won’t let it destroy you. You can choose to smile in the face of uncertainty and chaos. But smiling does not make it go away.

There isn’t much you can do when people around you forsake you and let you down. There isn’t much control to be had when you are dying slowly and everything shatters. The most you can hope for is the ability to take control of your own heart and try to survive in spite of it all. 

The other day on the subway, I saw a row of images with various quotes for River Church. They were from different people. What exactly they had to do with Christianity, I do not know, but then again from what I see from the church, I don’t think they quite know what they have to do with the bible either. 

One of the quotes said “I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one.” It was by G. K. Chesterton. 

I’ll admit that I had two knee jerk reactions to this quote. The first was “bullshit”. The second was “Yet another irrelevant quote.” 

I spent a lot of time chewing over this quote. It didn’t leave me alone. A friend now has supplied me with the full quote. 

“I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.” 

I like the concept of fighting through and surviving MOMENTS of incompatibility, but I do not believe that men and women, as a whole, are incompatible.

Every relationships is hard work. Every marriage is hard work. People have different ideas about how to raise children, how to budget the income, where to live, what sort of sofa to buy, and what kind of artwork to put above the fireplace. 

Those seem like the small things. But your character, whether you are stubborn, determined, controlling, demanding, determines how you behave in these situations of potential disagreement. 

Some people are adamant about whether to refrigerate the peanut butter, or which way the toilet paper roll should face. People can disagree on directions and method, or even on importance. If I don’t think it’s important which way it faces, then I may not pay attention when I’m changing rolls. 

Some people are more compatible than others. I genuinely believe that you have to be compatible in order for your marriage to be content and happy. I also believe that there are various levels of compatibility, and that some marriages are going to be more difficult to work out than others. 

I still don’t quite understand what Chesterton was saying, but it was food for thought. 

I believe that finding a balance is one of the most important lessons in life. Cliché, cheesy, spiritual nonsense, call it what you like, it’s true. 

The problem most people have with phrases like that, is that it’s too vague. Find a balance, sure, but how? Get over your ex boyfriend, sure, but how? Move on, but how? Life is full of fine lines. It’s easy to see when you’re two miles past the line, but you often don’t even remember crossing it in the first place. 

It seems that finding a balance is the answer to fairly any aspect in life if you want to be successful and happy. You want to make your boyfriend happy. You don’t want to be a jealous, self-centered person, but on the other hand you don’t want to be a doormat. Relationships are give and take. You need to be able to recognize when the balance has shifted. 

In the same way, there is a balance at work. You want to be motivated and show initiative. It’s what will get you far. You want to be friendly toward your co-workers, and on good terms. On the other hand you want to be able to say no every now and then. 

There is a balance in personality. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. With confidence comes a token of humility. With confidence comes a realistic perspective of who you are, what you look like, who others look like, and how much physical appearance plays a realistic role in a successful life. There is an equally fine line between discretion and secrecy. You should not parade your intimate life, your successful career, nor your qualms with others around to rub into people’s faces. 

People say they don’t want to hide who they are or what they do, so they take their illegal weed to a public party and start smoking it. That’s not being who you are, that’s being a jerk. It’s forcing people to witness your illegal activities. You’re not being secretive if you don’t feel the need to break out the weed at every social function, just to make sure everyone knows you smoke weed. 

Being discreet means that if the topic comes up, you can be honest enough about who you are and what you do, whether it involves your sexuality, your unofficial relationship that’s really just friends with benefits, or your alcohol habits, without seeking ways to shout it out to everyone, whether they care or not. 

The list continues. One vague “key to life” can apply to hundreds of life situations without really telling you what to do to make it work. 

Telling someone to find a balance in life is like telling them to walk with their eyes wide shut. What does that even really mean anyway? It means you are aware of what is going on. You are aware of your shortcomings. You are aware of the short comings of others. 

You just learn when to say something and when to ignore it. You learn when you need to address your boyfriend’s inappropriately close friendship with the other female and when you’re just being jealous and insecure. You need to learn when to jump in at work because they really need help and when it’s time to be firm and say you simply cannot make it. You need to learn when to talk about your sexual relationship with your SO in grotesque detail (NEVER) and when a simple “I love my boyfriend” will suffice (ALWAYS). 

I still struggle to find that line. I often don’t realize I’ve crossed it until I’m miles in and mentally retracing my steps asking myself how I managed to screw up so badly. But just because it’s vague and difficult doesn’t mean you just give up and simply “have at it”. 

Learning to go through life with your eyes wide shut is hard, but a task well worth attempting. 

“… hate the game.”

I have a problem with this. I not only have a problem with this, I downright throw down and boycott. There are so many things wrong with that quote, I barely know where to begin. 

For one, while I cannot claim to know whence it originated, it sounds like something the obvious jerk in some late 80s chick flick spouts over his shoulder at the poor ruffled heroine. The heroine will then proceed to twist “the game” to her advantage and make him suffer for his cruel and flippant behavior. 

For another, whatever gave you the thought that this quote gave you the right to take anyone’s heart lightly?

But really, here’s my big problem. 

WHAT GAME?

Who ever said that love is a game? Who ever said relationships are a game? Who ever said that the people involved are just mannequins on a big Jumanji board of cupid hell?

I will not hate the player. 
I will not hate the game. 

I will not hate any aspect of this whole sham. The game is a bigger sham than the Nigerian Prince. Girls, there is no game. Those who would have you believe that you have once again had your little figurine swiped off the board with a big “Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” and must simply “deal with it” because it’s “part of the game”, are the same who would have you believe that Bill Gates wants everyone to pay e-postage for e-stamps to send e-mails. 

I will not hate something that just quite blatantly does not exist. Love is not a game, and I will not have you treat it as thus. Emotions are an intricate and complex thing. People fall in love, people believe they fall in love, and sometimes people maliciously abuse peoples’ emotions for their own selfish purposes. 

But that is not a game, it’s vicious and cruel! 

When it comes to emotions and relationships, there is no such thing as a “game”. 

And by the way, you’re checkmate.