[Elysium & Eosi's Scrap] Pithy Insights

[Yisanareysin]

Yoo I'm also in Portland. Lovely city, very rainy XD

[Eosi]

Oh, absolutely. I thought I'd be bothered by the rain when I got out here, but as it turns out I actually quite like it. What I don't like is that everyone forgets how to drive the moment it starts happening.

You'd think they'd have it down by now.

[Yisanareysin]

Haha, I feel you there.

I'm from Hong Kong so rain doesn't really bother me, but the thing I find weirdest is how people here, especially college students, are so aggressively against umbrellas.

It's so weird.

[Elysium]

“What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Elysium]

GET RID OF WHATEVER DOESN'T SERVE YOU
Trust me. You'll be glad you did.

You know, I'm not really sure where I first heard that quote. I'm just going to source it back to the Internet, since that is more than likely the answer. Regardless, this maxim has stayed with me throughout the years, rolling around in my head like a loose marble. What I've found though, is that beautiful sayings like these roll easily off the tongue but are much harder to actually put into practice. The past is a infuriatingly convenient thing to revisit, because it brings comfort, regardless of the septic thoughts and behaviors that come along for the ride. Living in the digital age only makes it worse, even. Now more than ever, it is altogether too easy to find out where someone is and what they're doing. With a few clicks, we may ask: have they gotten married? Do they still have that dog?

Are they back to role playing on their old website?

Which can tempt us into engaging with people in an unhealthy way. Our recollections tend to be pretty cut and dry. For the sake of simplicity, most of the way we recall conflict draws clear lines based upon our own subjective experience. When something is in the past and we try to break it open, it is called rehashing, meaning: to bring forth again in another form without significant alteration. So suddenly we are revisiting a topic in the present tense that still remains unchanged from the past. We are in essence, going in circles because there is no new information to be had. We begin a conflict with this person or this past event and lo and behold, we are again drawn into that same pain and helplessness, over and over again.

We drink our own poison, in the hope of mending a static event that will never change. Where is the merit in that?

See, we're yielding comfort from it is the thing. Remember my mentioning that before? We all have this fatal attraction to what destroys us inside. To continuously revisit the same websites, same people and same tired old problems that we have means we aren't challenged in any way. It implies that we may not comfortable stepping outside of those things. Growth is uncomfortable, painful and it often dredges up all the bullshit we've got hidden inside. To grow is one of the most fearless choices a person can ever make in their life.

To qualify, I'm here now. I first played on Mizahar when I was a wasteful, self-indulgent, profligate child. That may seem a bit harsh, but I for one am a fan of being fearless in my accountability. To some people it may seem that I am blatantly in violation of my own advice, so it is here that I'd like to offer an equally valuable word of the purposes of this discussion: reappropriation.

When we engage with our past in a healthy way by the introduction of new context and a positive connotation, we can efface the negative. We are in essence, reappropriating the past. First, I was accountable to my actions and acknowledged where I'd gone wrong. Then I left it behind me. I worked to create new experiences here on Mizahar and so far, it has done nothing but enrich my life. But that is the key difference. Rehashing is the attempt to alter a static event that cannot be changed, where reappropriation is acting within context of what can be changed in order to create a positive association. The very, very important distinction to made is to know the difference.

If you're looking to rebuild a relationship with an unhealthy person over and over again, guess what? That's rehashing. You're tied to the past. You're attempting to reappropriate something that lacks the fundamental ability to change. You're just hurting yourself at the end of the day. If it is their nature that refuses to change and it is their very nature that causes you sorrow, you have to find the strength to move past them. If it is simply a matter of the hurts you hold on to, you must find a way to heal and move on. Rehashing old, painful memories does not serve you. It is now up to you to find the courage to let go.

Sometimes, when some time has passed and wounds have healed, with wisdom you take a detour into an old, weather worn road. There you see the flowers blooming. If you want, you can take the past and make it right. But even if it is just as dusty and barren as it was before, you smile because anyway, knowing you never have it walk it again.

That's what we call closure. Use your powers of your discernment and do what you will with the past. But please, get rid of what doesn't serve you. Delete it, block it out, redirect thoughts of it and keep moving on. You deserve a better tomorrow.

[Elysium]

“What I cannot love, I overlook.”

― Anaïs Nin

[Elysium]

[Elysium]

I'M SICK AGAIN.

Damn it.

[Hwyn]

[Estrellir Konrath]

What Hwyn said.

Hope you feel better soon! Sending positive healthy thoughts your way (now they don't have to travel that far anymore).