1. I don’t understand manipulation; I mean I understand the definition of it; I can render it dormant in myself, stop it before it even surfaces. So I recognize its coming. But I do not understand manipulation in completion. It seems that much of the world functions as a whole by manipulating the environment and events in hopes of gaining a perceived outcome. I don’t like that attribute or any semblance of that attribute in myself. In so being, I constantly am evaluating and reevaluating my motivation in attempt to weed out any sprouts or seedlings of manipulation. Thusly, I am in a nonstop state of deep analysis of self in effort to be that which I wish to represent as truth and goodness, even as I exist in a world full of trickery.
2. I don’t understand pointing the finger at someone outside the self. Yes, I understand cause and effect. I understand it so well, indeed, that I see the flurry of possibilities and renderings in every circumstance I perceive. I see in black and white in a sense, but not in a segregated way. I see nothing as entirely right nor anything as entirely wrong. I see both sides; and I see what is outside those two opposing sides, in the middle, above and below. There isn’t any way of proving anything, as all is scaffolded off of a non-original thought positioned in my brain by some eventual found pattern or discovery. Pointing a finger is declaring I know. When I know I know little to nothing of this world. Pointing the finger is proclaiming I am correct, when no such person exits that is in complete correctness. I become exhausted in thought, as I wish to exist as many: to blame fully, to counter, to get irate, to live in a place in which I am both innocent and justified in action. But I cannot go there. I try. I try to don the same robes as the majority, and I am immediately succumbed by feelings of suffocation, regret, and a sense of ‘wrong.’ If I was to point a finger at all, it would be inwardly at self, in having found myself attached to a societal rule of blame as a result of turning away from self-responsibility and adhering to a false individualized and limited self-perception.
3. I don’t understand friendship. Being with others confuses me. I am often giddy and overcome with joy when I first engage with an old friend or new friend. I laugh a lot. I take on my friends mannerisms and way of being. I become less of a me I know little of, and more of this other I seem to suddenly understand a lot about. I am a sponge of sorts, soaking up what is in my immediate environment. Empathic, perhaps. Psychic? I don’t know. It almost seems biological at times, as if I can feasibly metamorphasize not into butterfly from caterpillar, but from one shape I had adopted to the next before me. I often smother another with my attention, wanting, and what appears to be love. But I know not what I am actually doing. It feels like a reunion of sorts, a coming together after eons apart. Only, when we again separate, I am left bewildered by my actions, and again wondering who am I. Worse, I doubt my genuineness, my authenticity, my essential being. To watch myself as observer morph and remorph is both baffling and disturbing. I long to simply be as stagnant one not taking on the persona or emotions of another. But as hard as I wish, I remain some tangent unborn onto self, and reborn in true form as another.
4. I don’t understand love. I have tried and tried and tried. I feel great bonds. I feel great affection. I feel admiration. I feel a like-vibration of sorts that brings on kindred feelings of sameness, recognition and home. I understand over-thinking about someone. I understand longing and wanting someone. I understand the bodily sensations of erotica. Yet, I do not understand the concept of love. I would declare with accuracy I love my children because yes, I would die for them. But is dying for someone love? If so, whom else would I die for? And I would further claim with accuracy I love my good friend, but why would be the next question. Is love based on standards of behavior, on me feeling good and safe, on me feeling lifted and self-validated in my existence? Most seems evident of selfish ego-needs. And so I become wrapped in confusion again of love. If it’s just a knowing and a feeling, then I have this type of ‘love’ a lot. If it’s a desiring to connect, then I have this too. I believe I could romantically love anyone, given the proper setting and environment, the proper influences through the years. I can be taught to love based on what I have been exposed to. I can be taught to choose another as my lover based on what I have collected as truisms. What if I love everyone, and that is the way it is? What if that is my confusion? In trying to separate and delegate and segregate love, I am left lost to myself. For I love but know not what for.
5. I don’t understand people. People confuse me. They can be so warm and generous at first. So available. So real. So genuine. And then they go into hiding. I overwhelm them, I think. It’s my nature to pounce out, to attach, to bleed out my soul, to engage, and to get so very excited upon connecting. I give and I give fully. This me, this all of me. And then I retreat to a place of deep regret. For again I was taken in by the beginning dance, this place of first greeting and meeting that I took for real and everlasting. You see, I stay the same, very much so, in this manner. I stay the same in my ability to love even though I know not of what love is, and in my ability to be me, even as I know not who I am. It is such a dichotomy of twisted thoughts that I seek harbor and refuge from my very brain. But the truth is I do understand me, in all my predictable unpredictability, I am the same. I am loving. I am real. I am me. And when others go someplace else beyond themselves, I am overwhelmed with confusion and self-blame. What did I do this time? Why can’t I stop myself from being SO me? Why can’t I accept that what is now won’t ever last that eventually the place where we meet as two complete souls joined in gleefulness will wear down. That I will be back to myself, wondering what went wrong.
6. I am naive. I know some people prefer the term innocent or unworldly. Of just plain kind and good. But the truth is I am naive. It doesn’t matter how many times I experience and re-experience a similar event; it still turns out the same. I still am baffled and surprised by the end result. You mean I let that happen again? You mean I was betrayed, tricked or cornered? How? Indeed my eyes are wide open. My brain is on high alert. But somehow my heart is in the lead. We follow my heart. This beautiful child-like love and we just can’t help ourselves. We fall with her, into her way of being, and we think this time we are okay. This time it’s alright. This time trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. I don’t know how to stop trusting. For I cannot see what I am not.