The crossroads of bliss and rationality

There’s something addictive about conversations with certain people. The energies just flow from each other and we seem to understand exactly how to roast, tease, and listen to each other. Addictive there lies in a good sense but there are times when the other party crosses the line, overrunning the most fundamental premise of a relationship of which is respect. It is in those circumstances when we must recognize the necessity of renouncing whatever fun had existed prior and remove the weight of another burden. 

Lately, there’s been a friend to whom I’ve been getting close. We share a mutual history teacher so I began getting to know him through a paper and some homework. We get along very well. We feel comfortable roasting and teasing each other while creating something productive with our time. He’s also a savvy investor in stocks, so there exists a common platform of conversation, debates, and interest in that regard. I truly thought he would be a keeper since every time I walked away from a conversation, I felt like I had something to think about and I felt happier. 

But he crossed the line of respect this past week by throwing a laptop at me after getting angry at my response to a political question regarding the 2020 presidential election. I was shocked when he threw the device at me. It wasn’t even his laptop. It was then that I began to question his inner conscience. Perhaps his sanity and energy on the exterior only masked an internal wreck. I dislike speculation but in all honesty, who throws their friend’s laptop at another friend? It was at that moment that I decided I had to hang around this person with caution. If he dared throw a heavy object at me, who knows the extent of the damage he could further inflict. 

I was drawn to his personality like a drug; it was something I wanted to keep coming back to. He brought out a side in me that few people do. We’re the same level of “delicacy” in the sense that it’s hard to offend each other and we share similar interests. For that reason, it made it especially difficult to cut out this relationship, particularly when I genuinely felt content in his presence. But for reasons beyond happiness that I felt took priority, I had to distance myself. 

It’s surprisingly difficult. It was when I realized the potency of happiness and bliss. Bliss is one of those feelings that has the ability to shroud one’s rationality against all principal values I’ve worked hard to ingrain within myself. What further makes bliss so difficult to neglect is the fact that it’s a natural, addictive high. The days I tried to cut him out, a part of me always wanted to see where he was on Snapchat or see what he was up to and the rational side constantly had to remind me of what he did. So here we are again at the crossroads of bliss and rationality. Perhaps a crossroad I will come across repeatedly indefinitely.

Anxieties into anger

The weather has been tough on my mood. I don’t want to say I get seasonal depression but during the winter months, I struggle to rekindle happiness and positivity when the nights are long and the days short. Walking back and forth from classes becomes tedious and even waking up to do something I’ve loved since middle school – running – has taken on an element of duty.

It’s the little things that bother me the most. Things that may not have irritated me in the past find their way into my cycle of grievances and I’ve been struggling to overlook them. When I forgot my umbrella in Commons, that annoyed me tremendously. When I did poorly on a history pop quiz, I became really upset. When I failed to make proper sense of redox reactions in chemistry, I also reacted poorly.  

These minor grievances have taken a toll on my mental state. I’ve rarely felt so pessimistic and morose for such this long a period of time. I feel sad constantly and waking up has never felt more difficult, particularly when I look out my window and see nothing but pitch blackness. When I ask myself what is causing my sadness, I can’t muster a single, coherent answer. Maybe this goes to suggest that there isn’t one single area of my life causing sadness, but rather the eclectic composition of all the elements formulating a type of pressure I have yet to learn how to handle maturely.

Talking my through my feelings has historically proven successful in helping me cope with problems. I was talking with my longtime friend at school who shares similar responses to the dark New England winters, and she helped me realize my tendency to turn my anxieties into waves of anger.  I seem to get angry at things that I feel vulnerable about or things I’m unconfident about. I think I need to adopt a mechanism for recognizing things that make me uncomfortable and/or vulnerable so that I don’t confuse it for anger. 

For example, when a sale with my business club took some unexpected avenues, it induced great amounts of stress when the faculty member I was working with began texting me to express the exigency of the situation. Or when chemistry an entire chapter of chemistry failed to make sense in my mind. I was also putting together a last-minute English project with another classmate for extra credit, which we both finished last night believing had done a horrendous job.  These are the instances my friend helped me identify that have caused me stress that has transformed into self-anger. I have to avoid expecting perfection in everything I do. 

I’m striving to move past my sadness. I read like a book, so others have noticed my drop in vivacity this past term. A part of me selfishly wants to grip onto the sadness as an excuse, but it’s driving me in a direction in which I’m not exactly proud. But sometimes there are instances where one cannot get out of the circle of despair. But I’m trying. I really am. 

Coronavirus, memes, and repetition

If nothing else major happened this week, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus an international emergency on Thursday. News of the virus began to appear earlier this week, having originated in Wuhan, China. Since then over 300 people have died in China and the disease has managed to make its way into other countries. Nearly 12,000 infections have been reported since then. Coronavirus is particularly dangerous because of its air-borne nature, which leaves victims unaware that they’ve been infected until days later when they’ve already interacted with so many more people to whom they could have spread the disease. I believe the aspect of how quickly and unknowingly it spreads scares people the most, as a person will appear healthy until several days later. Coronavirus has not only brought about the deaths of hundreds of people but it has resummoned prejudice and xenophobia.

Just by scrolling through my social media feed, I have seen several coronavirus memes, often referring to the beer brand Corona or holding Chinese people responsible for this world epidemic. This is an international emergency where hundreds of people have already died. These memes about coronavirus screamed insensitivity to the people suffering from the disease or of whom have lost family members. Furthermore, some of these memes accomplish nothing other than placing blame upon the Chinese when mankind should be focusing on finding cures and keeping noninfected people safe. 

I was particularly shaken by a conversation I overheard at the downtown Andover Starbucks on Wednesday between two men sitting by the window. At that hour on Wednesday afternoon, I was the only Asian in Starbucks but not the only student from Andover. While I was waiting for my drink, I overheard one of the men spontaneously begin talking to the other about the diversity of Andover’s student body. May I gently remind you that I was not the first Andover student at Starbucks. He said something to the effect of how diverse Andover is and how we have a lot of people coming from all over the world, in particular, China. I saw the two men avert their eyes when they caught me glance at them. Shortly after, they left. 

While they never explicitly directed any commentary towards me, at the moment it was quite obvious that the way I looked had sparked this random discussion topic about Andover’s diversity. This moment has stuck with me because until now, I’ve never actually ever felt my physical presence alienate the security of someone else. I’ve also never walked into a room where people indirectly called me out because of preconceived notions on the basis of how I look. 

Looking back at the situation serves as a reminder of our society’s continued prejudices and biases towards immigrants on the basis of physical appearance. The fact remains that preconceived notions will always prevail to exist and implicit bias isn’t easily dismantled. I cannot seem to locate the quote in my history book of which this scenario reminded me, so I will share a newer quote whose message echoes something to a similar effect:

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” -Paulo Coelho