old english assignment 15/10/07

Memoir by Ashton matilla

I remember a series of experiences I had with a friend that I met in social studies class in December of last year. A series of experiences that will have a lasting impression on my life for the next few years, plaguing and gnawing away at my thoughts but also filling me with inspiration and a sense of an enlightened self. At the time she wasn’t my friend of course because we haven’t yet introduced our selves during the past duration of our class. During the beginning of one of my classes I found a small piece of paper with an email address scribbled over it, I thought nothing of it and tossed it away not realizing it was the email address of a potential friend who sat behind me. It was her, the most beautiful and intelligent woman I’ve ever laid my eyes upon, not ever having the guts to talk to her I kept centered and didn’t make any calculated moves to get to know her. Throughout my history with women I never had the egotistical drive to seek one out and woo her with the half honest and half pathetic drives for landing a spot on the pedestal; I just never deemed it to be worth the importance or effort. If though a sense of importance and intrigue ever did arise it would have had to come from the girl directed towards me, and not only this but my mere presence and entity would have to be enough to make them make the first move. This is the way.

To my mere astonishment, at the most unexpected time during a class, the goddess of my subconscious approached me from my peripherals and made her the center of my attention. She spoke to me in a tone that resonated like Tchaikovsky, bombarding my eardrums like the London blitz. I was compelled to listen and give one hundred percent of my attention towards her entity. I was captivated a slave. The introduction was simple, I loved this girl and I wanted her to be mine, and only mine. She walked like that of sophisticated stature, she spoke worthy, surpassing the transcendence that of any priest , rabbi or imam, she understood on par of any libertarian and she obtained the enlightenment sought by any Buddhist. She purely was.

Our relationship together tumbled headfirst into the world, exponentially gaining more weight as every accumulated layer of complexity added itself to the confusion and chaos. Who was this woman I asked myself amongst the lust and passion, and why did she choose me? This left me with a sense of insecurity, was I enough to handle the perfection, could I make myself understand her ways? The political spectrum said we were compatible, but how foolish am I to hold such permanence in a corruptible measuring tool. My god my skepticalism and my delusional dreams kept me from seeing the truth. Once submerged in my insecurities I proved to her that I was unworthy, afraid that I wasn’t able to keep up with her demands. With such perfection demands constant maintenance.

The factor of love cannot defend itself with the demands of modern society. I blame the delusional idea of what a woman should act and look like on the self ambitious desires of society. It ruined her, and it ruined me. The hopeless romantic that I am is the very thing that caused my demise. I cannot express my true feelings of pure and unconditional love to someone who is constantly being shot down. There is no hope, I can only sit back and mull over how it could have been and question why it turned out to be so. The pain was endless at the end; I could only see black skies and withered flowers. The mass confusion of all the conspiracies of how my relationship was with her was enough to make me insane. I could not understand her critical point of view and she could not understand my compassionate reasoning. Two ends of the spectrum we were, but yet so close. With a little bit of tolerance and understanding I knew for fact that we could have turned out happy, but so is the way of learning lessons on life.

Today we have resolved our differences on the surface, but somehow I believe that the scars of our indifference run deep and will never mend themselves. I have come to the ultimate realization that in order to be at peace with oneself, one should not expect anything therefore nothing expected will turn into something unexpected. One can get on with his life without dealing with trivial nonsense such as failed relationships. And coming said to this, I would like to address a growing epidemic that has spread increasingly over the past several years.

This disease has affected the sum of all the youth either directly or indirectly. It has to do with communication skills diminishing. More and more young adults are feeling the pressures by the mass media; they conform like putty in the hands of a sculptor, freely giving away their intuitions to a set of guidelines that fashion magazines and media moguls such as MTV have to offer. Though we can discard these intrusions on our psyche by being intellectually aware of ourselves and of the world around us, I find that it is not as easy as we try to make it. It is much a much deeper problem, while our attention is being tuned into consuming as a society we as humans have forgotten how to be humans. This is why there is increasing violence, divorces, destruction of the environment and unstable youth. Humans need to find an artistic output or else you get to assimilated and confined, and a cornered beast will explode in a fit of irrational fury because he knows no reason. And so was the fate of my relationship.

All hope is not lost though, in the case to my relationship and to any other issue that anyone faces we have choices we can make to claw ourselves out of our holes that we indeed dig for ourselves. Instead of comforting ourselves with self pity we must realize that self pity is not comfort but the illusion of, causing us to heedlessly give way to all the alternatives that a consuming society can offer. One must pursue to understand himself before he can understand others, so self reflection and reconciliation is needed. Once finding yourself is well established then you can go out and seek what is best to fulfill yourself. I need to make one thing clear though, your ‘self’ is not to be mistaken with your ego. Although your ego is what makes ones personality and there is no escape from it, I believe it is necessary to keep your ego in check so you do not confuse yourself of what is necessary. Western culture has a psychopathic need to fulfill your ego, making it ok to indulge in materialistic possessions, they fill a void in your personality making it theirs instead of yours. Liberation is needed, if our culture continues down the road of debaucheries misgivings and self consummation of materialistic possessions, our fate will be that of Sodom. The very infrastructures that keep us afloat will collapse in a heap or life as we know it will become so selfish and obscure, humans will be forced into war with himself resulting in war with the world.