"Five years on
what false alarm can be trusted again?
What case or bag can be left unclaimed?
What flight can be sure to steer its course?
What building can claim to own its form?
What column can vow to stand up straight?
What floor can agree to bear its weight?
What tower can vouch to retain its height?
What peace can be said to be water-tight?
What truth can be said to be bullet-proof?
Can anything swear to be built to last?
Can anything pledge to be hard and fast?
What system can promise to stay in place?
What structure can promise to hold its shape?
What future can promise to keep the faith?
Everything changed. Nothing is safe."
- An extract from 'Out of the Blue' by Simon Armitage, written to commemorate the September 11th attacks five years on.
Showing posts with label sad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sad. Show all posts
11 Sept 2010
2 May 2010
Why I Hate Being an Only Child.
Let's get this out of the way straight away: If you are not an only child then you will not understand.
End of. It's like, if you're a man you can't experiance anti-female sexism. If you're old you cannot experience anti-youth ageism. It's just not possible. And therefore, I can try as hard as I like to explain it to you, but you will never understand quite how it feels.
It feels really crap. Quite often it feels lonely. It leaves you as an insular child who is sometimes precocious (often described as being 'comfortable in the company of adults' by those parents who have only one child), difficult to form lasting relationships with and is hideously self-absorbed. I am 16 years old and I still feel entitled to everything because I always had everything. I had all my parents time and all my parents love and all my parents attention and I have had to learn the (very) hard way that I cannot have that from everybody else. In all fairness to me, I never had horriffic tantrums - that wasn't my style - but I was bloody used to getting my own way and if I didn't get it I would sulk. I still sulk today, any of my friends will tell you. And before someone points it out, I know not every only child is like this - but a fair few are.
Secondly, it can be really fucking lonely. Sometimes it hits me even today. Yesterday, my friend was telling a story about being introduced as their 'little sister' and yet again I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never have a sister, and nor will I ever be one. I will never know what it is like to grow up with someone and to share your nightmares and your holidays and your illnesses and your arguments with them. When my parents die they will not live on in anyone but me, and I will not be comforted at the graveside by anyone who knows exactly how I feel. I will never have any relationship more than a friend or a lover. I will never be bonded to anyone by blood and DNA. I am cursed to have an absense, eternally.
I struggle with forming deep friendships. I struggled with other children. I still do feel more comfortable with adults, which makes me uncomfortable among large groups of my peers.
Again, I am an extreme case. I feel that I have actually greived the loss of flesh and blood in my time. I have cried myself to sleep over it and it will be a wedge between my parents and I - because yet again they are more people who don't understand. Although, the benifits include the fact that we have a very close relationship.
And, if I hadn't been born an only, I may not have been a writer at all. My 'let's pretend' games where I created alternate families where I had older brothers and younger sisters and pets grew into stories, laboriously recorded in little notebooks that I still have somewhere. I got used to my own company - a benifit and a drawback - and I have grown to be able to detatch myself from emotions when necessary. Clearly there are the benifits, including my parents complete and total love, which I will be ever-grateful for. But, I still wouldn't choose it.
[This is poorly written, but I am sad and I am not at my best.]
End of. It's like, if you're a man you can't experiance anti-female sexism. If you're old you cannot experience anti-youth ageism. It's just not possible. And therefore, I can try as hard as I like to explain it to you, but you will never understand quite how it feels.
It feels really crap. Quite often it feels lonely. It leaves you as an insular child who is sometimes precocious (often described as being 'comfortable in the company of adults' by those parents who have only one child), difficult to form lasting relationships with and is hideously self-absorbed. I am 16 years old and I still feel entitled to everything because I always had everything. I had all my parents time and all my parents love and all my parents attention and I have had to learn the (very) hard way that I cannot have that from everybody else. In all fairness to me, I never had horriffic tantrums - that wasn't my style - but I was bloody used to getting my own way and if I didn't get it I would sulk. I still sulk today, any of my friends will tell you. And before someone points it out, I know not every only child is like this - but a fair few are.
Secondly, it can be really fucking lonely. Sometimes it hits me even today. Yesterday, my friend was telling a story about being introduced as their 'little sister' and yet again I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never have a sister, and nor will I ever be one. I will never know what it is like to grow up with someone and to share your nightmares and your holidays and your illnesses and your arguments with them. When my parents die they will not live on in anyone but me, and I will not be comforted at the graveside by anyone who knows exactly how I feel. I will never have any relationship more than a friend or a lover. I will never be bonded to anyone by blood and DNA. I am cursed to have an absense, eternally.
I struggle with forming deep friendships. I struggled with other children. I still do feel more comfortable with adults, which makes me uncomfortable among large groups of my peers.
Again, I am an extreme case. I feel that I have actually greived the loss of flesh and blood in my time. I have cried myself to sleep over it and it will be a wedge between my parents and I - because yet again they are more people who don't understand. Although, the benifits include the fact that we have a very close relationship.
And, if I hadn't been born an only, I may not have been a writer at all. My 'let's pretend' games where I created alternate families where I had older brothers and younger sisters and pets grew into stories, laboriously recorded in little notebooks that I still have somewhere. I got used to my own company - a benifit and a drawback - and I have grown to be able to detatch myself from emotions when necessary. Clearly there are the benifits, including my parents complete and total love, which I will be ever-grateful for. But, I still wouldn't choose it.
[This is poorly written, but I am sad and I am not at my best.]
17 Apr 2010
This Is What We Are.
I am an A-Level Religious Studies student. I have been studying the Problem of Evil and Suffering as part of the course, and did my mock exam on Friday. A day after the funeral of my Uncle, who died from a very rare form of terminal cancer.
I wrote partly about Irenaeus' Theodicy. He says that suffering is a vital part of God's plan for us. We are born in the image of God (Imago Dei) but have to grow into the likeness of God. Part of the way we do this is through experiencing evil and suffering. The philosopher Swinburne said that this is not a 'toy world' where everyone can always make perfect choices, but a real world where people are faced with real challenges in order to grow and develop as people.
I agree with this. I think grief and pain and agony are the essence of what it means to be human. I have just experienced my first taste of this, and it is horrible. It is hard and it is painful and I have only just begun a life where people I love will die and get ill and I will have to cope with it. But isn't that the point of life?
If I never experience the grief of losing a loved one, then I will never have experienced them in the first place. In the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry rages against Dumbledore after Sirius' death. Dumbledore replies that in feeling something that much, Harry is growing into a man. He says that this pain is being human.
This thought does not really help when you are watching someone you have known all your life disappear behind a velvet curtain. At that moment of course it doesn't help. Of course I thought that God was cruel and hateful and that he didn't care. But the next day I sat in my exam and I wrote about how I agreed with Irenaeus, how I thought that in order to become human we needed to feel the sting of evil and suffering. That's the point, I said. And really, I suppose that it is.
I wrote partly about Irenaeus' Theodicy. He says that suffering is a vital part of God's plan for us. We are born in the image of God (Imago Dei) but have to grow into the likeness of God. Part of the way we do this is through experiencing evil and suffering. The philosopher Swinburne said that this is not a 'toy world' where everyone can always make perfect choices, but a real world where people are faced with real challenges in order to grow and develop as people.
I agree with this. I think grief and pain and agony are the essence of what it means to be human. I have just experienced my first taste of this, and it is horrible. It is hard and it is painful and I have only just begun a life where people I love will die and get ill and I will have to cope with it. But isn't that the point of life?
If I never experience the grief of losing a loved one, then I will never have experienced them in the first place. In the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry rages against Dumbledore after Sirius' death. Dumbledore replies that in feeling something that much, Harry is growing into a man. He says that this pain is being human.
This thought does not really help when you are watching someone you have known all your life disappear behind a velvet curtain. At that moment of course it doesn't help. Of course I thought that God was cruel and hateful and that he didn't care. But the next day I sat in my exam and I wrote about how I agreed with Irenaeus, how I thought that in order to become human we needed to feel the sting of evil and suffering. That's the point, I said. And really, I suppose that it is.
9 Dec 2009
Oh dear.
Got home.
Checked facebook.
Update from DavidTennant.com about pictures from the QI special.
Click the link.
Open them up.
Shout to mum in other room: "He's wearing his velvet jacket!"
Mum: "The kind of reddy, burgandy one?"
Me: "Yes."
Mum: "I like that one..."
Me: "Mmm, Me too..."
*small moment of realisation*
Me: "We know his wardrobe. We might be too obsessed."
Mum: "*thinks* Mmm."
Checked facebook.
Update from DavidTennant.com about pictures from the QI special.
Click the link.
Open them up.
Shout to mum in other room: "He's wearing his velvet jacket!"
Mum: "The kind of reddy, burgandy one?"
Me: "Yes."
Mum: "I like that one..."
Me: "Mmm, Me too..."
*small moment of realisation*
Me: "We know his wardrobe. We might be too obsessed."
Mum: "*thinks* Mmm."
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