MoTH: Love, Hate, and Separation.

(FYI: MoTH stands for Matters of The Heart, pretty cool acronym in my opinion..?)

Many people express their regret or sorrow when it comes to the breakdown of a relationship between two people. It doesn't necessarily need to be between a couple, it happens to generally almost every kind of relationship and definitely happens to everyone as well. Remember your "best friend" that you've declared many years ago, or that "close friend" that you used to have heart to heart conversations in the past but no longer do so? Whoever it is, or whatever the reason why, the fact is that it's already past tense, and typically there's not much to be done about it. 

People change, shit happens, and people drift apart. That's perfectly normal. It's part and parcel of life, and change is constant. I don't know if the people reading this (yes, that means all of you) will still be keeping in touch with me in the future, because we all know that we will certainly move on to other things in our lives. We'll meet new people, we'll feel slightly more disconnected from the past, that is for sure. But what keeps some old relationships strong, while others crumble under the test of time? 

When two people lose interest in each other, it's pretty hard to pick up the pieces. Naturally, a loss of interest means that one isn't probably going to try as hard to mend the relationship as he/she used to, simply because it doesn't matter as much anymore. It's the cold hard truth: everyone is inherently selfish, and we pick our friends who are willing to stay by us and commit as much as we do (at the very least, if not more). There's just going to be a point where someone feels that it's not worth the time or effort to catch up, and the whole relationship just gets let go. Things become awkward, nothing pretty much further can be said besides briefly talking about how great the past used to be, and maybe some superficial changes that honestly, can be just found out through stalking the other person's social media. 

It gets a lot worse if something unexpectedly happens between two people with good relations to turn on its head. Sometimes, we might do things that may offend the other party greatly, and it sets the relationship into compromise. Whether unintentional or not, the other party is hurt for sure, and this is when both parties have to assess many things through their own judgement, for example: 

What have I done wrong? 

Should I forgive this other person? 

Is there a way to make up? 

Should I just leave this matter to rest and let the other party take his/her time to get over it? 

More often than not, we tend to make judgements on our own by trying to be smart: We think we have enough apathy or emotional capacity to know how the other party feels and deal appropriately, but most of the time both parties tend to overthink and it just leads to problems being either unresolved, complicated or things just become plain awkward after the resolution of the problem.

When I look back at certain events that happened, or misunderstandings that occur between other people, the question that I ask myself the most frequently is: 

Had things been done differently, had the two parties tried to communicate openly about the problem at hand, would things have not turned out so bad? 

This is a very essential timing for communication to step in and work wonders, but yet rarely do we see such an occurrence. The answer to the question above is pretty simple and often lamented about:

It's easy to be the bystander and give advice, but it becomes a near impossible task when you're the one involved. It's not that open communication hasn't been considered, but rather one can't find himself/herself to make the approach. 

One might think that communication is simply trying to get ideas and points to each other, but it's way more than just that. Effective communication comes with the risk of putting one's trust on the line, and many people just cannot afford or don't know how far they should go. Even the simplest act of saying "hello" can be difficult when it comes to approaching strangers, and it's through our communication that we tell how close we are to the other party. One has to put down his/her pride to be able to overlook many concerns, just to establish a proper connection with the other person, because there are just so many small things put on the line: The trust that people won't judge you when you reveal something a bit more personal about yourself, the potential "humiliation" that comes along from failure when you try to do something funny to amuse others, the awkwardness and the possible negative judgement from a stranger when you introduce yourself. Whatever it is, there's bound to be a risk of getting "hurt" (to give something without getting anything positive back in return), and it's up to one to decide whether it's worth getting "hurt", whether it's worth it to be vulnerable to all of these negative receptions that can possibly damage one's own self-esteem.

With that, perhaps it's for the better that two people who didn't manage to work out remain as such, and maybe it's not such a pity after all that separation happens: It takes a lot of effort and bravery to continuously place yourself in a situation where two people require tremendous amounts of effort to sustain the relationship between them, and most people end up in an increasingly common conclusion: too tired to try, too tired to "be bothered with this shit", "sick and tired" of having to deal with all of this.

Everyone has varying thresholds, but it doesn't change the fact that there is bound to be a limit to how much we want to give ourselves up for this particular relationship, and when the limit is crossed the need and want to commit any further is all lost: There's no point trying to continuously place yourself in a "struggle" where you don't think that anything positive will come out of it even if you tried your best. 

Perhaps, it's just easier to hate than to love.

Most people think that likability comes in a spectrum; it ranges from the most hated person in the world to the most loved person in the world. To me, love and hate is merely separated by a fine line. No one is safe; anyone can cross the borders of love and hate within a flash. When one is tired of loving and caring, the easiest way out is to detach and disconnect, to run away. Hating does this best: we no longer need to place our concern into the people we hate, we don't have to subject ourselves to mental torture or make "sacrifices" for them. Hate allows us to protect us from being vulnerable, it allows us to be aggressive without having internal conflicts within ourselves to be "rational" and "objective". With hate, all of our discontent can finally be released without a hinge of doubt, and it's the medium for us to experience freedom to flush out everything negative built up within ourselves when we're not hating. 

I haven't actually thought out very far about this, but I can understand where emotionally troubled people are coming from: Usually disliked or hated, it's not entirely because they want to be like that, nor is it because they don't know how to be likable, but it's because it's simply easier to not give a damn. Fewer chances to screw things up, less probability to get hurt by others. Trust is extremely hard to earn, but can be lost easily in a flash, and from there it is impossibly hard to rebuild to the same level before it was lost. People who have lost their trust simply can not afford another repeat or relapse of the breakdown of their trust, and hence they stay away.

Maybe, when two people who like each other turn into hating each other, it's not because they truly dislike each other, but because they know that it's not practical to allow the both of them to struggle. If liking or loving somebody results in both parties to be hurt as a result, then maybe escape will truly make both parties feel better. Hating or disliking each other achieves that: it offers the chance to move on, it stops us from lamenting the past and wondering about what could have been. It doesn't give the best closure, but it is the easiest way to obtain a closure without having to make any more compromise. Perhaps, that's the most positive thought to believe when two people aren't able to patch up and separate. 

Maybe, just maybe,

To dislike or to hate someone else, is the purest form of love. 

56: Can You Hear My Heart?

Kinda finding this really weird cause this next segment of "Matters of the Heart" thing is really about the heart itself so idk this is pretty going to be about me rambling about crap :P But yeah, I thought I'd just make a really quick post about it since I felt like it and after getting back my GP paper today I'd thought why not continue this series to continue developing my own personal voice and practice how to construct arguments at the same time?

Pardon me if this post is going to be really terrible, because I'm really not good in expressing myself and this is also all going to come off from my head instantaneously (there's no planning time unlike a GP paper), so yeah. Try not to cringe at my bad writing HAHAHAHA.





The heart is such a funny thing, really.

The heart is indecisive, irrational, and always changes its decisions as and when it likes, since it's extremely dependent on emotions. It's pretty scary, to be honest, how sometimes people can be at peace and be friendly to each other one day, and then be instant enemies or complete strangers the very next because of certain events, or maybe even just over the most trivial of matters. Think about it: maybe by this time next year (or maybe even in a few months, days), we (yes, I mean me and you, the reader) might not ever be interacting with each other anymore, neither will you probably be interested in my affairs to be reading this blog anymore. We might not forget about each other so soon, but it could very well be only a matter of time before all of us moves on into the next phase of our lives. It's a very pessimistic view, I admit, but that's most likely going to be what's left of us as we leave school. 

This time last year, I'd never have expected myself to be single when I was still enjoying my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. Funnily enough, this day would have marked the 3rd anniversary with her had it not happened, and I can still remember the moment I confessed to her at approximately 8-9 after staying back for concert preparation for SE. Now, we don't even talk anymore, and neither do we have the guts to see eye to eye with each other when we have to meet up with the rest of our friends. 

Scary, isn't it? The ones that you'd think would be the most important to you suddenly becoming total strangers that you can't recognise, or those who you'd thought you were important to suddenly treating you like nonsense all of a sudden. You get so emotionally attached and then get cut off in an instant. It's like being a piece of paper, with scotchtape all over it. Remove the tape too quickly, and a part of you gets torn off together with it. You then become broken, wondering why'd things suddenly come to this stage, wondering where the hell you've went wrong, or what'd you've done to deserve such a state. You lose part of your trust that you put in, and sadly it's going to be really tough to patch that torn spot no matter how hard you try; that paper won't come back in one piece. Maybe that's why some people don't bother trying to be nice, or would rather continue to be the antisocialistic, unfriendly person: "what's the use of being close when we're most likely going to end up as strangers eventually?"

But the heart can be wonderful as well. The heart, through emotional attachment, teaches us to be appreciative and not to take the things that matter to us for granted; it also reminds us that there are people who sincerely and truly care for us, as well as motivates us to fight for them, to try to do our best because we know that there's someone out there who's going to be appreciative of all of this. I, for one, am pretty dependent on others to be a driving force for myself to succeed, and am unwilling to fight for just myself. I prefer it when I get to help someone out and make their lives happier, even if it's just by a little bit. I'd like to be a major driving force for someone else to be better for themselves, and I want to help because I know I'm not alone in my struggle. 

So in the end, the heart can be a real pain in the ass (and for most of the time too), but it serves as my driving force to continue living, in both literal and emotional sense. The joy of giving and receiving love and kindness is one of the most rewarding things that I think I will ever have, and despite all of the troubles and (sometimes) poor decision making, I definitely will stick by and continue to trust my heart. I hope that you all will continue to believe in your hearts while being mindful of its irrationality, because the heart is inherently good and ultimately, the greatest likely source of your happiness. (:



(Okay I just re-read this and it's pretty bad but whatever LOLOLOL I'm too tired to edit this today bye)

50: Matters of the Heart - Emotional Attachment

So I was brainstorming for more ideas to post on my blog and I suddenly came up with this idea of posting a series, called "Matters of the Heart". Basically I'll be blogging on a certain topic or issue and giving my personal opinions and experiences about it. Kinda like a h2h thing but I'm actually revealing myself to you all without getting anything in return LOL okay maybe this is a stupid decision cause I'm just exposing myself ._. But nvm I shall just save this idea first just in case I forget about it (this could be a one-time thing for all I know anyway LOL).

Anyway, today's topic, as you can already see from the header, is about emotional attachment. Quite a confusing thing really but something we all definitely have in us. Of course, from the words itself, emotional attachment is literally the situation when you feel yourself being bonded to a certain person, thing or event after a period of time.

Of course, being emotionally attached to something means that that something is important to you, which is a good thing since you'll be putting in more effort to make sure that there is continuity. A bonded class will try to make more efforts to have class outings, and cliques/groups will try to meet up as often as possible, even if they haved moved on to other things. Whatever it is, when one has an emotional attachment to something, he/she will try to maintain the status quo, if not improve his/her relationship with it. And it's especially great when you know that the other party is also emotionally attached to you as well, because they'll be putting in their effort to make sure that they do not lose whatever they have with you. It's this that forges the best and strongest forms of friendships/relationships within people, one that will last long, even through times of difficulty, because everyone is trying to make things work.

But we all know too that this isn't always the case. Sometimes the other party just doesn't feel emotionally attached to you (most probably because there is something else). You may not be bonded to your new class because you miss the old times with your previous class and the friends in it, or you may want to stick to a particular group of people/person because you think they're more fun to hang around (we all have our preferences, lets face it). Whatever it is, that's when you know having an emotional attachment sucks because you know simply that you're probably not as important to them as they are to you. It never feels good when others don't reciprocate (as much as what you think you gave).

That's when all of the questions start to come in.
What now?
Should I stop trying?
What's the point of doing this when they're probably not going to appreciate what I've put in?

The problem when this happens is that you'll start to be in doubt. You'll be doubtful of the other party, doubtful of your efforts as well as yourself. And the more you continue to ask such questions, the more you are actually convincing yourself that it's not worth holding on to this. Slowly but surely, you'll be pulling out and losing your own emotional attachment, because you'll be searching for something that you think is worth your effort. You stop trying, and slowly what used to be so dear to you may possibly mean nothing much but a mere memory. That's pretty scary, to be honest.

But that's not the biggest issue of all. The problem comes in (for some individuals only) when through your moments of self-doubt, you start looking for other's contributions towards yourself. So instead of "what should I be doing for others", it becomes "what can others be doing for me". Because you thought you gave a lot in the past, so now you want to take more. You will start to view everything in the view of "what can I benefit out from this", mainly because you don't want to feel hurt twice. So what happens after that is you wait for someone to make an effort before you actually decide to put in yours. "Fairness" is what these people will justify it as, but in reality it's nothing more than being plain selfish in my opinion.

There is also another case of severe emotional attachment, where one may possibly become too clingy or too overreliant till the extent where it becomes annoying for the other party. But I shall not elaborate on this because I'm getting lazy & I don't have much to talk about this (i rarely come across this anyway bc most of the people fall in the first category anyway rather than in this...)

Anyway, whatever it is, I believe that it all comes down to managing our expectations of others well. Being emotionally attached to something is a great feeling, especially when others are able to reciprocate the same towards us. Although this doesn't happen all the time, it doesn't necessarily mean you should stop trying! It takes effort from both sides to make a relationship work so it's up to you whether you feel that it's worth your effort to try. But I believe good things will come if you try hard enough so it's okay to be the one to put in more sometimes! Actually I don't really know what I'm saying/what I should say about this anymore so I shall end this post abruptly here LOL.

Btw, yall can suggest me topics to talk about if you guys really want to hear my opinion on anything I guess? But as you can see here I pretty much dont make much sense LOLOLOL.

Okay bye!