XVIII

I've been trying to write this chapter for a while now. The thing is I have some ideas I've been thinking about but I'm not really sure if they're that really interesting, like, when I write about them I start to feel they're so obvious I don't really need to write about them at all.

One of the ideas was that the concept of a good person solely relies on how he performs in a society, and not on how he actually is.

When I was a kid I was told I was a good boy just bc I obeyed the adults and I didn't get myself in trouble, but that didn't mean I was actually a good boy: I was just too coward to defy them, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to, and I did sometimes when I found something better to do—like play videogames all day long or do whatever my friends were doing bc peer pressure.

Maybe that's what a good person actually is: a coward, someone that does his part and doesn't defy the status quo or something. Even if he doesn't like it, even if fitting means to deal with mental issues. But they don't give a fuck about that.

And that sucks.

That's basically one idea. Nothing too fancy or revolutionary at all. Something that everybody know.

Or maybe something that is just shallow and boring.

Or wrong.

Anyway, the other—and most recent one—is about loneliness, what does it means, and how it is when you're actually alone.

Now, I've been an introvert during all my life—I really enjoy being by myself—and I always thought to be extremely lonely, and thus loneliness wasn't that big of a deal—at least for me. But in these recent years I found out that I was just isolating myself, and that's not the same; there's a big difference between isolation and loneliness: isolation is a choice and loneliness is not. All my life I was just isolating myself—I still had my family and friends by my side. Even when I became a hikikomori I still had my family—or at least my brother and sister. Yes, I was lonelier than before, and that's why I started to need someone to listen to me, that's why I started writing this, that's why I started writing. Just to let it out; just to tell someone, anyone, who I was and how I was feeling.

When I felt truly alone was at the end of my first job: even when I told them to change me to another department bc I couldn't do a good job there, no one gave a fuck about me. For them I was just an asshole who wasn't doing his part and only whined about it; they cared so nothing about me that it didn't matter what I'd told them, they'd never even try to understand and change their mind, and I was only asking if they could give the littlest fuck they could. But it seems that was too much to ask.

Me and my plight meant absolutely nothing. Basically, they were denying my feelings, my opinions, my whole existence, and that made me feel lonely and hopeless as fuck—and I know that this can feel like a stretch bc that's how jobs are, and basically everyone my age or even younger experiences that normally, but it hit me differently bc, ironically, I was lonelier than I was comfortable with, and it was my fault.

Or maybe it's bc I'm just weak and pampered and worthless.

Or maybe it's bc I still think I'm special, so I have to matter at least a little to everyone else, right?

Or maybe it's bc I'm truly lonely. I know it's normal for other people to not give a fuck about anyone alse—specially at work—but at least most people have someone that cares about them; someone who makes them think they are important and actually matter, so the other people just seem like a bunch of assholes for not appreciating them. Most people have friends, family, a partner, maybe kids, a big circle where they matter, they're special.

And I barely have any of that. If someone makes me feel that I don't matter at all, I barely have anyone that will prove them wrong, meaning that feeling isn't going away that easily—and why would it?

Is that the reason we look to bond with other people, to make ourselves feel special, to make ourselves feel we actually matter at all?

Well, no.

Or maybe, actually. I mean, I may be one of the reasons but not THE reason, you know. It depends on each person and an infinite number of other variables.

Luckily, I haven't feel that lonely from quite a while. And maybe that's just bc I've been too busy or distracted to notice how lonely I really am.

Which is kinda sad, and doesn't solve anything tbh.

Maybe I just want to stay like this forever.

Anyway, I'm about to get busier in the close future, so this will have to wait.