POV: war is over

It felt like eternity since I last wrote. But hey, here I am today.

So much has happened in the last few months. I don’t know if I’m going insane or if I’m going the other way, but something definitely changed. And for the better, I think. Call me crazy but I’ve been conversing with ChatGPT a lot, reviewing and analyzing my life for the years that have passed. Throughout the process, I realized something—that makes everything fall into place, and that makes me… disrupt my negative thinking patterns, kind of. I was flabbergasted at some point, but it all made sense. As silly as it sounds, right now I chronically feel like a molting snake—deeply uncomfortable, but boy, so mandatory at its finest.

Truthfully, I have experienced this kind of epiphany several times before, but only circling to the outer parts and never truly reaching the core level—the root of the tree.

This time, I could see myself. All of me. The dark, the light, the rage, the serene, the dramatic, the catastrophizer, the ruminator, the planner, the nonchalant, the hesitation, the impulsive, the giving so much fucks, the sobbing, the existential questioning, the absurdism mindset, the yapping, the silence, the silly, the stupid, the smart, the analyst, the strategist, the analysis paralysis, the nightmares, the beautiful dreams, the sleep paralysis, the lucid dreaming, the big goals, the brain rot, the TikTok memes, the stupid laughs, the daydreaming, the imaginations, the vivid visions, the abrupt, the random, the procrastinator, the binge eating, the staying up all night, the hopeless romantic, the stoic, the lonely, the overstimulated, the foolish dancing, the talker, the hermit, the book reading, the loading, the stuttering, the talking too loud, the urges.

Different parts of me. Different versions of me. The many faces of me.

You. The one’s reading this right now. If you have ever met me or known me—which versions did you see?

I bet it couldn't be that much of me. But... never mind.

Now, what was the epiphany I was talking about?

Well, simply talking, it was an addiction to implicit pain. Whether it was a stupid sariawan, unintentional playful cat scratches that made me bleed, suddenly getting spilled with a whole lot of cold sweet drinks on my back in a friend’s wedding, burned tongue after sipping a hot matcha, burning sensation inside my throat and stomach after consuming spicy food, a migraine after not eating on time or missing a night’s sleep. Everything was unintentional but there was a degree of pain somewhere. Other people might get annoyed at these things. On a surface level, I might be too. But if you look at me more carefully, you might notice that I’m lowkey enjoying it or even craving it (as psychopathic as it sounds). I self-sabotage and I intentionally do some things to unintentionally hurt myself. And that is insane.

Remember when I wrote about how I was naturally drawn to dark, twisted, and devastating stories in books and movies in my previous post? Yes, I like the implicit psychological pain it gave me every time. It’s like… I don’t have to actively hurt myself, I can just be normal about these ‘daily things’, and yet the subconscious part of me could still obtain it seamlessly without being questioned by the people watching around.

Stupidly hilarious, I might say. I can’t help but giggle at this absurdity.

I never went all in, yet I was always in pain to some degree. I’m both a coward and a life saver at the same time. I hate myself just as much as I love myself. This is taking the balance game to a whole new level, and sometimes I get jealous of people who can really be all in to either side (good or bad) without thinking too much. I'm an All-Or-Nothing type of person, but somehow I can't see myself as good or bad. Because when I think I am good, there is always a whisper of the bad. And vice versa—When I think I am bad, there is always a whisper of the good. Well, I am neither, always stuck in the middle, feeling frustrated. 

But then, I realized...

Isn't that just how the world works?

Human nature is too complex, it can't be simply categorized as good or bad; black or white. Everything is correlated to each other. We are a constant dance of black in white and white in black. And that goes on forever.

Sure yeah... but whatever. Let me tell you about something else.

I discovered Formula One and Tennis months ago. And honestly? So far, they have grounded me in unexpected ways. When I feel overwhelmed, I watch Tennis to calm my nervous system. On the contrary, when I feel underwhelmed, I watch F1 to charge myself with excitement. Moreover, it also feels amazing to have a sense of community in both worlds, through TikTok. It is nice to have someone to root for and to look forward to watching. It makes life just a tad bit bearable and to a certain point, even electrifying.

So... is the war over now?

Perhaps, yes.

I’m laying down my weights. I’m gradually letting go of the hurt. I’m exploring alternatives to feel alive. I think I found it back—my sparks.