The Painful Truth of Success & Happiness

I feel most authentic, most true to who I am, & most fulfilled when I am sharing a unique part of myself, something at least unique enough for the intended audience for them to gain something from the sharing.

Teaching & giving others what they need has been easier at times & in some circumstances & harder in others. Sorting out what is most beneficial for both myself & the others involved at any given time is the secret to success & happiness; it means finding out what I do best for whom & in what circumstances.

What makes achieving this ideal pairing process an especially challenging affair to pull off successfully is that both the targets & the one doing the sharing are always in motion & forever changing. It’s an endless task of observing, gauging, trying, reevaluating, & trying again & again & again. Persistence & resilience are the qualities most vital to negotiating this game of life along its often meandering, misguided, sidetracked, & stumbling ways.

What has made my life especially difficult is that I got off on the wrong foot, being initially corralled in an ultraconservative refugee community which saw its narrow unique way as the best, & often the only, way. Many Lithuanian refugees of World War 2, having relocated to Cleveland, Ohio in the late 1940’s & early ‘50s, saw the world as “us” & “them”, not at all unlike other ethnic communities who were doing likewise in ghettos of Poles, Italians, & many others. Nevertheless, there were always a few “strays” in our midst, some of whom were accepted while some remained outsiders despite having been there longer than us newcomer war refugee immigrants.

For me to be myself in such a setting was especially difficult because I had no assistance or guidance in learning to be comfortable with being myself. Peer, family, school, & community pressure was in the other direction—to be like the rest, unquestioning, unthinking, & accepting of traditions, arcane standards, & the hypocritical & abusively brainwashing of Catholicism & xenophobia.

My sister, being 16 years older & out of the home & the country by the time I was only 8, meant I spent much time alone. My parents, concerned about making a living, keeping up the household, & finding their way to a more prosperous future, had no time for me. Being generally ignored was subconsciously absorbed as not having much worth, though it also had the distinct advantage of providing me with immense freedom. This I relished & used to my advantage throughout those most formative elementary school years.

Before I started school, however, I do recall my dad having spent time reading to me & teaching me how to read. Hell, he even gave me a puff of his cigarette a couple of times when I asked for it, so I know he was interested in having me experience things that other adults might frown upon. This spurred on my initiative, while schooling was busily trying to quash it along with my spontaneity, creativity, & freedom to be my curious & exploring self. Also, at the table, whether in our home or while visiting other Lithuanians on Sunday afternoons, we kids were always encouraged to try a swig or 2 of hard liquor with our meals.

Those early puffs & swigs were strong enough toxic experiences to convince me of the stupidity of doing that on a regular basis, &, as a result, I never had the slightest difficulty resisting peer pressure to conform to their smoking & drinking standards. That, probably more than anything, set me off on my unique, & usually solitary, paths in different directions from those which most of my peers were taking with their lives.

Unlike most people with their uniqueness having been painfully scraped off by the dumbing down & brainwashing of schooljails, religious indoctrination, & cultural values & propaganda, I have laughed in the face of those who insist on uniformity, unquestioning standards, & regimentation. It’s made life a lot lonelier & more painful than I would have liked it to be, but there are no regrets of having taken more difficult roundabout ways to arrive at satisfaction, success, & accomplishment. It’s been like the enormous difference of taking a trip down the bland monotonous expressways rather than the long, meandering, side roads through small towns & past other fascinating sights along the way. Remember, the most beautiful panoramic lookout points on most journeys are on the side trails.

Doing so has gained me many lessons in how to avoid the daily degradation of just being more wallpaper on another useless wall of a building designed for nothing worthy, or one left to rot from disuse. I feel a sense of self-respect in knowing that my goals & methods have been basically ones of uplifting myself & others into better choices & circumstances & improved possibilities.

Raising the self-esteem & self-efficacy of others constantly puts me at odds with the powers that wish to keep the masses in their humble inconsequential place & at the beck-&-call of the powerful. My greatest foes have been those pushing for patriotic & nationalistic fervor & those propagating the dogmatic ignorance of medieval & superstitious religious beliefs. I do all I can to rebuff these most parasitic of human control methods that have pushed humanity down to where I doubt that it will find itself in time to undo its most serious social, economic, & environmental mistakes.

© Vytas Stoskus, 2022 www.stoskus.net/en/

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