Sentiment

I haven't updated my blog in a while, so here you go! Fantastic new poems and even a bit of a commentary for you! For the twelve of you who follow me, I can barely fathom how excited you are right now. Especially the two of you who actually read what junk I post. 

So! Today's commentary!

My life runs in themes. For a day or a week or a month or even a whole year, one thing will repeat itself or come up over and over and over. 

My last theme was honesty and truth. Before that was beauty. 

Currently it's.... Sentiment! 

In every show I watch, every book I read, every movie I see, it talks about sentiment. 

Here's the thing.

Emotions are a part of us. They come with the package. They are chemical reactions in our bodies that send certain signals to our brain which, in turn, makes us "feel" a certain way. We can't really get rid of them. BUT we can avoid them to an extent and control them. I don't hate feelings. I love being happy. I even love a good cry sometimes. It's when emotion controls you, that scares me. 

Example time. 

A certain person I know who, for my own safety will remain nameless, thinks that they are the very picture of reason and common sense. Yet they are the center of every drama, the victim of every insult, the mastermind of every good idea, the spear head behind every attack. Even so they cannot see it. 

Does that make it their fault? I'm not sure. But I'll tell you what that does mean. 

Emotions are very... forward. It's like standing right in the middle of a football field during a big game. (Yes that was a sports analogy from me. Shocking, I know.) When you're right in the thick of it, you have an idea of what's going on. You feel like you're a part of the action. But in reality you could not possibly comprehend everything that was going on around you. That is what emotions do. They magnify everything and zoom in on YOU. They breed selfishness and deceit. We start forming facts to fit our opinions instead of forming our opinions to fit the facts. (A bit of Sherlock for you.) 

When you take emotion out of the equation, or at least try, you distance yourself. Instead of the middle of the field you find yourself in the stands. Some people manage to climb higher than others. The pros and cons of that distance are pretty clear but I'll get to that later. 

In the stands you can see everything. The entire game becomes clear to you. You can see the complexity of the individual pieces and how they work together towards a common goal. That's what life is. It's an incredibly complex dance. Some people are born to be the dancers, moving and shaping the world. Some people are born to watch them, some to follow. 

Personally, I favor the height of the bleachers. If I could, I would climb all the way to the top. Distance sacrifices activity. The further you retreat to see the entire picture, the less you are a part of it. You become an observer instead of a participator. There is a middle ground. It's tricky to find, but it's there. You just have to want it. 

Personally, I'd rather just watch. Sentiment, feeling like I'm a part of the game, the dance, the show, when I know I'm not, feels like a lie to me. There are things in my life that are mine, and in those things I am the dancer. But with people, with school, with friends, with relationships, with social events and gatherings, I like to observe.

There are many who would say that I am anti-social that way. That to be alone is to be lonely. That if I prefer my own company better than the company of others, I must be depressed and sad and begging for their camaraderie. They are wrong.

So here's my point, I suppose. 

Forgive me if I do not cry when we say goodbye. Forgive me if I do not grow nostalgic at the thought of leaving high school forever, if the approaching graduation date does not make me quake with anticipation and fear of what comes next. 

It is not that I do not understand. In fact, I understand better than most. 

It is just that I am watching, carefully, the dancing of the lives around me. I am watching you. How you react, the things you care about, the dance you are creating for yourself. It's beautiful. 

So forgive me if I do not dance. If I prefer not to play the game. 

I'm the scientist in this equation, carefully recording and analyzing the world and these bizarre humans that surround me. I can't ask you to understand me, why I do what I do. I'm a freak show in my own right. All I can ask is that you let me be me. Let me leave sentimentality to the rest of the human race. I don't need it in my life, any more than I've got it. (And I have plenty of it, just ask my journal box!) 

I will let you be yourself. 

Even those of you who scare the living daylight out of me by being Tasmanian devils of wild emotion and unpredictable mood swings, need not fear that I will ask you to be anything more than who you are. 

So please, allow me the same privilege?

Until my next theme, au revoir!