An unapologetic conversation I had here (with Cilica 🖤)

How the fuck does cracking jokes with my (5 years younger) brother lead to slight jokes on eachother's account, then our humor not aligning and then arguing about it, then me leaving the convo (it is always me), and then me having an existential crisis I thought I have solved 15 weeks ago. However, perhaps I did not solve it, I have just forgot about thinking too much about it, because it is easier to forget.

Whenever I hear that I am an unfunny person, it hurts me and kicks me off the "I have figured it out" phase and I fall into "what is my purpose" phase. But of course, "I have figured it out" phase was just an illusion, a distraction. I would say the problem with me is more about being out of place. I always bump into people who are not on the same wavelength as me.

First, it is the values in friendship and dating, second, it is the humor part, third, it is the lifestyle.

The first part I have dealt with was when I was around 14 or 15 years old. I have stumbled upon people who I have regarded as "stupid" at the time, because they did not regarded friendships and romantic relationships the same as me. I valued friendship love and romantic love so much, to the point it shaped my way of treatment of other people. But what hurt me so much at the time were the people who I was attached to, they have regarded friendship as something fleeting, and valued romantic love more, which would be a mask for rather having a significant other just for fun. That made me realize how lonely I was, and how people do not understand me.

However, as I have met more people on internet and in real life, too, I have filled that hole, and was unaware of what was coming next. It is the humor that was (and is) my coping mechanism. Humor is also a fluid and personal thing, there are so many stuff that are funny, could be funny, are not funny, or just straight up cringe. For it was my coping mechanism and a personal thing, I always tried to defend and even prove how funny my sense of humor was. It is exhausting. First, you meet with a person and crack a few jokes. After a bit more time, you realize some jokes are not that much funny, or that person is not laughing with you, but at you. And when you realize you are being laughed at, you stop and turn into defensive mode, trying to defend yourself, through the mask of humor. The person you are talking with considers you cringe. You cringe at them for hearing such from them. And then everything falls apart. Hoes mad. End of conversation. From such situations I got hurt the most, and even now I am being anxious about whether am I funny or not, but of course much less than when I was like 16 or 17. It again reminded me of how lonely I am, and how some people do not understand my humor. Especially when I had to plaster a big middle finger for those who insulted my humor.

And by lifestyle, I realized that I am not able to mingle with hedonistic friends that thrive on comercial and capitalistic stuff. When I was 16, I wanted to have more friends, but as soon as I did, I had to go everywhere (at the cinema, ice skating, various cafes, malls...) because I did not know better. I thought those were the best hanging out spots. But then I realized, that if I do not spend the same amount as they do, then I cannot hang out with them, because they prefer living that lifestyle. Whereas i'm more of someone sitting in the grass and not caring about the world. My friend told me I am similar to Karl Marx, which at first was like a compliment, but then it felt as if there was a clash between our lifestyles. Thus, think I just wish to isolate from them and I do not wish to go to any of those stupid fucking places I so desired when I was 16. I would rather value us sitting on a window of abandoned house like homeless people and talking about deep stuff like existentialism from the noon to midnight than going around the town and spending money just to talk about mundane things for what... few hours, few hours of standing, walking, few hours of putting pressure on our feet with billion shallow things. It as well made me feel lonely, because it feels as if I am the only one who does not wish to accommodate to capitalistic world.

I would have to put many filters in order to find that one person who would agree with me in this way, I would have to put so many standards and demands in order to find that one person who would get me fully. However, life is not perfect, therefore, I cannot find that one person, therefore, I would be lonely if I would cut contact with everyone I do not agree with in everything.

I am literally waiting, and I am either waiting for something or someone to happen, or wandering to wrong places that feel wrong. Because I am not fitting there because it feels as if I do not belong there. And I am also a very conflicted person, I do not know what I want or who I want to be. I do not know in what direction I am going, but I always go where wind blows, and so I become a wandering soul because of it. Perhaps, I am a leaf that is not green, but is blew away on random places, on a rock, on a river, on a railway, on a table, and is always out of place and unmoving for it waits for someone to return it to where it belongs. I might be choosing the wind's blowing direction unconsciously, but now it must be conscious. And even if it is conscious, where, when and how do I go?

Perhaps that is the uncertainty of life that I must accept. If everything in life works as balanced in giving and recieving, and if life already accepted the complexity of myself by my birth, I must accept the complexity of life. But in order to accept life, I must accept myself first. I accept that I am a complex being that is often conflicted because it is easier to ignore the problems than to face them. And so I present myself unapologetically, and so is my work, this text unapologetic. And to accept life is to say that life is unapologetic as well, if I am unapologetic. If I get upset, so are others. If I do not change something, so is life not going to change something, If I do not clean my room, it is not going to clean by its own. And if I am repetitive, so is life.

Therefore, I must live with the fact that if people are complex and unapologetic, so is life. And because of that, nobody is going to place the leaf where it belongs and nobody perfect exists. And repetitiveness of this realization guides us to a perfect solution, because it is a reminder that helps us.

Uf, this text hits hard. So here's the thing -- I always thought the "existential crisis of the 30s" was a myth, like an urban legend, an exaggeration.. but then one day, as I was approaching 27 and in the middle of splitting up with my long-term partner, I suddenly felt it.

'Am I happy with the choices I have made? Am I at peace with my past? What is ahead of me? What do I want for me? What did my parents achieve at my age, that I haven't, and why is that bothering me? Am I getting too old? I always wanted to be a mum. But now, do I even want children?'

From a very young age I felt like an odd-one-out, me and the other kids didn't get each other well. I didn't understand their games, they didn't find joy in mine. I was shy and scaredy. My family was complicated.

Maybe that's why, from very early on, I dreamt up romantic love as kind of a saving grace that I would find one day.

I thought I knew what that looked like and as it turns out... life is veeery different... it looks very different from what we believed it should look like... what we would want it to look like. And it is highly, highly complex. We as humans are highly complex beings.

I do not understand myself. I do not understand anybody. I do not understand this life. All I can rely on is faith, feeling and intuition. And the few good moments that beauty and love can bring us (by this 'love' I mean any - friendship, family, partners)...

So all of this to say that I am here with you, at this point mentally, where I do not have any answers. And, in a way, I have also stopped looking for them, stopped needing them, and started to also drift and just accept the currents.

I'm in some limbo - but not like when I was younger, when numbness felt wrong and, impossibly, painful. There is a peace that has overcome me.

Peace and laughter, because I also use humour to mask it all. Much like you, my sense of humour has always been underappreciated, or misunderstood. A bad feeling of rejection comes with it every time... No matter if you're a kid or an adult. It's like school never ends.

But I have a great time with my own jokes, I think I am hilarious, and I find life hilarious in the same measure as I find it horrible. So, that's like, really funny.

In the end we have to come to terms with the dichotomy of the imperfection of life, that in itself seems so perfect... (how the laws of physics work and everything)... we are made perfect but, at the same time, we are really, really not.

And, in the midst of this, we must find one another and try to fill in the blanks, experience new things, learn how to survive. I have stopped asking why. I try to just accept that 'life' and 'death' are both sides of the same coin, and convince myself that they are both needed.

At different points, people will find you and it will feel good because they will fit in with you, even if just for a brief period of time. Nothing stays - not even ourselves. We are everchanging and that is scary and unsettling, but also, freeing.

I believe the key to this all lies in trying to strike balance, as the pendulum swings.