Valentine's Bloodbath

Dear Professor,

Since I have given you a forum and the requisite respect for you to do so, allow me to explain my own “situation”.

The point of engaging with another person, in the vein of improving one another's existences, is to spur growth. So far as I can tell, these are the only reasons that we are here, to fully realize ourselves and to help each other in that endeavor.

It seems to me that you have become so complacent in your own stagnation and unhappiness, that you resist any challenge to it. You are so afraid of facing yourself and your own mind, that you want to push away someone who sees you and aims to truly not only hear and understand you, but also to connect with you in a meaningful way. This would, after all, force you to confront the possibility that you have had the power all along-as you still do-to control your own fate and to experience what it means to really live.

You say that your moral and ethical convictions are not fully formed, lack stability, and are unclear to you. While I do believe this is true, I also think you know exactly what you want. You have elucidated it for me rotely.

What you are seeking is not a companion, it is not even a friend or purely sexual lover, it is a pet, a plaything, a doll. You want someone who will concede to all your whims, on your terms, who will not challenge you, or cause you to feel “uncomfortable”. You want a person with whom you can play at your leisure, who will be loyal and devoted to you, but who will not be so bold as to demand anything of you, aside from a very basic sort of sustenance. That...is a pet.

You have tried very hard to convince me of the fact that you are a “loser”. I am both: unconvinced of that and unconvinced that you actually believe you are.

I think there is a part of you that is so black and horrifying that, not only do you want to shield it from others, you will do whatever it takes to stay away from it yourself. I know this because I, too, have that same pit of ugliness and shame that lies deep within me. For many years, I was very successful at pushing it down, along with all of my other feelings, only ever showing others my superficial pleasantries. If my Self of five years ago read the things I am thinking and writing to you now, she would be aghast. Finally, though, after someone like my Self of now forced me to confront this, I was made to look into it, acknowledge it in all its abhorrent beauty, and start...living.

I cannot yet rightly say whether this was the best decision; I do not have enough perspective to do so. I have been so much less comfortable. I have cried more than I ever thought possible, I have misjudged others, I have misconstrued words and circumstances, I have hurt other people, I have failed to live up to promises I made. I have also felt more intensely than I ever have before. I have experienced passion and pleasure, sometimes fleeting and misguided, sometimes lasting and informed by an attempt at selflessness. I have felt my heart truly swell inside my chest at the pure wonder and awe of another person. I have also felt that same heart beat hollowly as it aches with loss and confusion. I have questioned my own mind, mistrusted every emotion I have felt, and re-examined every choice I have made through a destabilizing series of paradigm shifts.

I am without direction, I am alone, I am overwhelmed by my Self, and I fear I may be losing my own mind. I am, maybe for the first time ever, so very happy.

These are the things we do as human beings, the questions with which we must grapple. If we cannot, if we remain stoic and comfortable, protected by the safe walls of our self-controlled prisons, what are we doing here? At best, we are living to a life in which the most grand outcome is to die. Though it is entirely possible that I am very wrong about all of this, that at is not an answer that I am prepared to accept, at least not yet.