My apologies for the long wait again. It's just that the longer a thought stays in your head, the greater the chance that it gets modified before you actually say (or type) it loud.
Apparently this particular topic has been in my head for quite some time now. Here's something from a notebook I had during those thesis days, which seem so carefree compared to the job I have now. Another time capsule.
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1
For 20 years of my life, there was a part of me that I realized was nurtured - and neglected - the most. This, my friends, is my mind. For since as far as I can remember, I have stuffed what I can into it, through books and experience
Unfortunately, I did not monitor how it grew, or rather to what it would grow to. I complained a lot about the effects of spoiling a kid or a pup, but I never realized that I was spoiling my mind as well, making it do what it wanted, feeding it what it was hungry for, no matter how dangerous it would be for me.
...My mind is a fat, proud, small kid.
Proud to the point that it became my weapon of choice...
...and Proud to the point that it apparently became the slow poison in my daily coffee.
2
I began to doubt the virtue in people, and I influenced others to sway to my opinions through a system of sarcasm, cynicism, & reasoning. I frowned at anyone I thought craved attention. I felt hate for people who thought they were better than me in a craft I knew I could do well. I literally observed and analyzed people and thought that they were totally predictable, something I still believe...
...Yet instead of appreciating their mannerisms, my pride and my morals... or my reasoning...
...or maybe just circumstance...
Showed me that there was NOTHING to be appreciated. Everyone I saw, in my opinion, ultimately did what they did for what they wanted, and what what they wanted was more for themselves, without regard for others.
3
Ergo, I started lashing back. I started doubting and putting people down when they bothered me. I became the poison in the ears of those who listened. To this regard, I've only had a few friends who really listened, who never really bothered me. The rest of them were still walking the line between bothering and appeasing me.
And for quite a while, this has been my mentality. I was the king of my own empire of cynicism, sarcasm, and obnoxious behaviour.
...Yet sometimes, even kings fall into their own traps...
In the latter stages of this monster, it became less and less domesticated, and it started lashing back at its master.
4
I started doubting myself and my motives, that it began to cripple me. The desire to please slowly consumed my identity;
"That's what everyone wants",
"Typical",
"You got that idea somewhere else",
and many other cynical thought blocked me from starting the things I wanted to say or do.
Slowly, the venom, the poison that I gave others leaked into me, and I became more selfish, and the more virtuous and useful emotions I had became more and more suppressed.
Until I realized that I was insensitive and selfish. I realized that the poison has harmed me more than helped me. I stutter more while thinking of the most politically correct reaction. The more spontaneous the reaction, the more shameful it was on my part. I believed that the good in me was no longer alive and exisitng... and when I'd resuscitate it, I'd reject the revivial with doubt.
5
I realized that I had become a slave to my own brutal state of mind. In an effort to compensate for the nagging regrets resulting from my past decisions, I have added more to despise in my self by my self.
And I find myself in a chamber with no doors or windows, with the necessities to survive, but without the material to express.
I became conscious and worried to take on an endeavor that my mind told me might get me harmed or humiliated. I stuttered and most probably gave a wrong reaction to people (especially acquaintances) during conversations. I looked at rejection as a curse and not a lesson, and everytime it happened I just beat myself up too much.
Praises and consoling were met with cynicism and doubt, and nicotine and alcohol were among the few true but temporary sanctuaries that I had.
And I just liked what I became - A cold hearted calculating machine...
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More on this later. I have to squander my limited freedom elsewhere.