Cav's Place

Some time ago, a newspaper from here published a list of questions that, they said, everyone should ask themselves. They probably just needed to fill an empty spot on the page with something, picked this list up from somewhere and published it, but I thought the questions were interesting enough, though nothing new, so I split them, since the article often used a single phrase to ask more than one question, translated them and saved them. And now I’ll get to actually answer them here…

Am I a nice person?
Not really. I believe I’m a very just and honest person, who also cares a lot about certain issues. That means that the vast majority of people tend to put me in positions that leave little room for niceness, especially since my proposed solutions, or even the issues themselves, are often very unpopular.

What do I have to be grateful for?
Being in reasonably good health and having access to medical services if needed. A mind that works well enough, though certainly not as well as I’d like. Being provided with a roof over my head and something to eat and drink, even if it’s perhaps not what I’d want. Having a decent computer and Internet connection. Enjoying a reasonable degree of safety, both at home and when I decide to go out. Not being required to get in contact with people I wouldn’t feel comfortable around, excepting my parents, but I can usually avoid bumping into them around the house too, though I don’t like what I need to do in order for that to happen. Not being required to directly fight someone in a position of authority in order to be allowed to live in my own world, such as it is. And, obviously, that I was in that relationship with Andra, even if simply because it proves that something like that is not impossible for me.
Basically, I have to be grateful for having the first two levels of Maslow’s pyramid reasonably covered. It’s hardly enough by any standards, but you realize things could be much worse when you think of how many people don’t have any of this…

What’s missing in my life?
Pretty much everything placed on the other three levels of that pyramid, as well as an even better coverage of the first two? That’d probably be the general idea…
But if you want to be specific, what I’m sorely missing right now is a relationship. Not just any relationship, of course; I think anyone reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about. Being with her again, living together and everything working out so we’d both be reasonably happy and even closer than we were back then. Otherwise, a best friend that I’d be insanely close to and could also actually spend time with often enough. I could also say I’m missing a chance to create that major positive change in the world that I keep hoping for, but if I had her and a true best friend in my life and things would be working out extremely well with them, I think I’d manage something, somehow, someday…

What should I change in myself?
As long as I don’t hurt others who don’t deserve it, it seems wrong to say that I should change anything. I am who I am and that’s who I’ll keep on being. Society should find a way to allow me to make use of my skills just as I am.
I could say that I’d like to be able to express myself much better and perhaps to be more driven, so I’ll need less time to actually start doing what I plan to do, but again, if these traits just don’t come naturally to me and their absence doesn’t exactly hurt anyone but myself, I’m just the way I should be. It could also be nice to stop being so afraid of people, so I could actually do certain things that require contact with others in the rare moments when I want to do such things, but the truth is that this fear also provides me with a good excuse not to do things that the vast majority consider “normal” but that I wouldn’t want to do anyway, so it’s a price I’m willing to pay for at least as long as society will continue to have such expectations of me.

What should I change in my life?
See what I said is missing in my life, but I don’t see how I could make those things happen. I tried all I could think of and I’m still here, after all.
Something that could change even without Andra or a true best friend would be my living arrangements, because I certainly don’t want to live with my parents. But I obviously could never even last a month by myself, so that’d require moving in with someone who’s at least a friend and I certainly don’t have any that I could live with.

Am I honest?
Absolutely. Usually too honest for my own good, but I’m glad of it.

Do I know how to listen to others?
Unfortunately, not really. There are so few people I’m talking to that I’m often just waiting to say something during a conversation, especially since none of them understand what truly matters to me, which makes me feel the need to let even more things out as I try to lighten the burden.
That changes if I can truly relate to what they’re saying, but that’s not too likely since, if they can’t really understand me, chances are that their problems are very different from mine and therefore I can’t exactly relate to them either. On the other hand, people often say things that I’m very much against, in which case I’ll react accordingly. If neither applies, then I’ll listen to the problem and try to come up with a solution, but that doesn’t usually work well because people rarely like my proposed solutions, not to mention that sometimes they’re simply not looking for solutions at all.

Do I know how to help those in need?
See what I said above. If I’m not against their desired outcome, I do my best to offer a solution, but often they either don’t like it or say it’s impossible.

Do I judge those around me?
Absolutely, but I really do my best to judge fairly. We all judge, so the criteria we base our judgments on make all the difference.

What will I do in my life?
That’s a really good question. The only thing I know is that at some point I will die. Besides that, I seem to be quite stuck in my current situation and see no way out unless what I said is missing in my life will no longer be missing. So, as things stand, it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing much besides suffering.

I think I’ll stop here, for now. These questions probably deserve better answers than I’ll be able to provide if I just force myself to answer all of them in a single sitting, so I’d better continue at some other time.