[Received by mail 8-20-21, 01:30]
8-20-21 08:00
WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT MYSELF?
I’m a highly capable wrecking ball. I’m an extremely empathic chemical flux. I feel best about myself when I’m trying to raise up others. I feel worst about myself when my actions hurt people that weren’t the people I was trying to hurt. I work best under stress, but require emotional support. I believe that to live in a constant state of flux is to minimize entropy and escape definition. I self-medicate when I can. I have experienced freedom. I have experienced confinement. I am deeply disgruntled with the current state of affairs.
WHO AM I?
I am a product of my environment. I am Patrick Irving.
WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR OR, AM I?
I am looking to die with the simple satisfaction of knowing that I lived and left my mark behind.
WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME TO WHERE I AM?
A billion broken pieces moving a million miles an hour on a system snorting jet fuel, trying to find a home.
AM I A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCE OR MY CHOICES?
I am a dynamically coupled system that has been gifted a simple existence, and I prefer to be the aggressor any time there must a victim.
WHERE CAN I CHANGE THESE OR CAN I?
While I believe the answers I’ve given here will all remain constant, I have no problem acknowledging adaptation is essential, and I believe I’m constantly changing as a feedback response to my environment.
WHAT IS LIFE?
Relativity. Simplification. A way for the universe to interact with itself while making the most use of all its littlest bits and pieces.
WHAT DOES LIFE MEAN TO ME?
A structured metabolic system capable of molecular reproduction; a state of being, constantly struggling to achieve homeostasis, simplified and repurposed by versions of existence relative to that which its definition is derived from. A conscious state of flux. Struggle, entropy, decay, confinement, blessings, curses, wins, losses, feelings, death.
AM I LIVING OR SURVIVING?
Currently surviving, though, grateful for the opportunity.
CAN I CREATE THE LIFE I SEEK OR WANT? IF SO, WHERE DO I BEGIN?
Yes. If I eliminate all (or as many as possible) expectations, wants and basic human needs, then I will be able to exist in a state that I can tolerate daily. Which is what I want: to be able to tolerate the limits and definitions imposed upon my existence without having to accept them or impose them in any way on others.
HAVE I LEARNED ANYTHING FROM ANYONE, AND IF SO, WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
Everything I’ve learned has rubbed off on me from somewhere, and there is too much left to learn to not try and learn from everyone.
LIFE IS UP TO ME AND HOW I CHOOSE TO LIVE IT…
Disagree, but only halfway. One must acknowledge their choices are limited to arbitrary parameters, established long before their state of consciousness materialized. A person that chooses to push past those parameters and abandon basic constructs faces certain consequence–which acts as an inhibitor. Others might say that person has chosen the consequence, but how can one choose that which they’re not aware of? And the cases where they are aware–they’ve very limited influence over what shape the consequence takes, which also suggests there’s not much choice at all. On the other hand, a person can choose, to some extent, their internal state of existence–depending upon how tumultuously their brain chemistry has decided to party–and ascribe from there positive values to all relative interactions. This allows one to choose the lens through which they view the world, thereby allowing them to choose how they view their place in it.
Thank you for the thoughtful assignment, Mr. Frank. And for the literature you sent on addiction, trauma, and healthy, emotion-focused coping skills. I hope you’ll find time to send me some more.
With reverence,
Patrick