Recently, I get really frustrated whenever I perceive people behaving in ways that I deem unbecoming. Why is this? One possible explanation that comes to mind which conveniently allows me to shirk responsibility for my experience is that my friends are changing. While it is true that everybody changes, however, is it not highly unlikely that everybody simultaneously descends into immaturity, hypocrisy and moral depravity?

As such, it becomes clear to me that I am to blame for my own frustration. I clearly must have changed, considering that I’ve somehow developed the arrogance to describe behavior as “unbecoming” (borrowing from the phrasebook of authoritative secondary school discipline masters), and as such it is not surprising that the nature of my perceptions have changed as well. I’ve grown more sensitive and have become consciously more aware of people and circumstances. It’s entirely possible and even rather likely that the tolerant, ambivalent and happy-go-lucky attitude that I used to pride myself for having was largely influenced by the comfortable bubble of ignorance I subconsciously built and inhabited.

An analogy- do you know that feeling when you think everything’s nice and calm, and then somehow you detect a strange noise or smell in the background that disturbs you? It was almost imperceptible before, but now that you are aware of it, you can’t take your mind off it. You focus your attention uncontrollably on the seemingly foreign and undesirable element the same way you can’t help but notice the albino child in the dark-skinned family. At the same time, I also want to sternly remind myself that just because I feel irritated and annoyed on the inside does not give me the right to display it on the outside. (A little demon in my head just told me that I’m becoming generally more irritable because of nicotine withdrawal symptoms. That may be true, you hellspawn, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do what you want me to do. And I refuse to digress, either.) Sec0ndly, I do not HAVE to be constantly irritated and annoyed. My attention can be directed and focused as and when I please, wherever I please. I am the captain of the vessel that is my mind.

I’ve also begun to shift my views on what is acceptable and what is not. I used to think it was completely acceptable for a person to live life passively and at the mercy of forces beyond their control. I also thought that hypocrisy and double-standards, while regrettable, should be tolerated because we all indulge in them and we’re all only human. In short, I used to think it was okay to be just okay, and now I think it isn’t. I can already tell you that this current state of mind will not last forever- the time will come where I get troubled by my high horse, and trampled when I fall off. It is strikingly clear that my views are self-serving: I make it okay to be okay when that is all I strive to be, but abandon ship the moment I decide that I want to be something more. Is that a bad thing? I refuse to be placated with the “It’s only human” answer. I need to pursue a more refined answer, while at the same time learning to appreciate what I have.

It troubles me when I am made aware of ignorance, hypocrisy and ineffectualness in others, but it troubles me even more when I realise that it is entirely possible that I might be directing my attention outwards to distract it from being directed inwards. I will confront my cognitive dissonance with all my being, and I will resolve it to the best of my ability.

In the name of honesty, I know that there are elements of this entry that have not been tied up neatly. I have not shed any light on certain areas in the cave, and I have not elaborated on some ideas that I have initiated. That, to me, is evidence that I am neither thinking nor writing with the clarity that I desire, and often claim to possess. Give me time, I beg you. The beginner artist shouldn’t spend all his time erasing and re-drawing the his sketch- he will only see improvement as he makes more sketches and corrects each one as he goes along. Am I indulging in self-serving thinking again? Most obviously so. Is it necessarily a bad thing? Not always.

I don’t have all the answers. We’ll work this out as we go along. Stay with me, please.