Welcome back to the continuation of my ramblings. After some pondering on what my flaw could possibly be, I believe that I have finally figured it out. For me, a flaw is something that I genuinely wish to tear out of my soul or at least have an off and on switch for me to control. But, I can’t control it so it becomes a flaw for me since I’m already paradoxical enough— I don’t need to contradict myself any further. 

One of those flaws is a flaw that’s relatively common in our generation— being loved. It’s a common desire that can still hold an adverse effect on us. There’s a reason that the proverb, “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” I’ve always lived by the thought that everything in excess is no different than a poison— be it feelings, emotions, thoughts, material objects. 

Sigh, once again I just realized that I contradict myself due to overthinking, which is an excess of thinking.  If these contradictions could physically manifest themselves, I would’ve been skewered by arrows by now.

When we usually think of “being loved”, we automatically disqualify our family since the love that we refer to is not familial love but romantic love. It’s so simple in theory that it’s funny, but in practice we’re just watching the success of others on reels, holding ourselves back from having a passionate night with a 12-gauge shotgun. 

Social media acts as a multiplier for this desire, essentially stroking the flames by showing us a possibility and then letting us handle the rest of the delusion. Some people envy those who won in life, some people bless them and then go to the comment section— brainstorming the most creative way for you to insinuate your self-inflicted death.

For me, this is most likely one of the worst things that I have to deal with since I’m the type of person who would hopefully fall for someone for years on end. Thankfully I’m making progress on that front but I have no intention of going back to those pitiful days. The time that I have spent in my own jail has sated my appetite for emotional self-sabotage. Love is like a very strong drug for me with how intense it burns— which is why my new objective is to avoid it entirely and quit it.

I have to learn from my mistakes and don’t romanticize anyone in the slightest. If I don’t think, it’s out of my mental vision, therefore getting rid of the problem temporarily. Since I overthink, I have an abundance of resources to conjure up delusions. One thing that I have been doing for a while is reading romance manhwas and other such comics. If I can’t love or be loved— I’ll just become an emotional vampire and satisfy whatever the fuck this is. 

I should adopt this approach to life more often, that’ll probably improve my quality of life by gaining a share of the positive feelings that someone gets and not being involved at the same time. Then again, I can’t just do that since it’d be weird for me to piggyback on others’ personal experiences because I’m greedy. Just because my life is a little shit doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s my little shit after all.

I wish to purge my emotions— to rip them out of my still-beating heart and to install a switch on them, consequences be damned. Let my ego usurp these interlopers for the high crime of impairing my judgement. It would solve most of these perplexing inconsistencies within me— for the two main driving forces of my conflict are these emotions whose rain quenches the flames of my ego and intelligence.

But then again, my life would shift from being fun to being boring. As much as I want to become a machine, I acknowledge the fact that it wouldn’t be worth it. If I lack emotion, then I am no longer human. Without emotion, how can I harbor empathy in my heart? One thing that I actually like about myself is that it’s easy for me to empathize with others since I’m open-minded and can think in the perspectives of others. Alright that’s probably another reason why I overthink.

When I think of empathy, a quote that originated from the famous Nuremberg trials comes to mind;

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

This quote was from Captain G. M. Gilbert, an Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials and I believe that it showcases the importance of empathy and other emotions and gives me a better metric to watch and form opinions of others.

I’ll retract my words about removing my emotions but I’m going to keep them in here to show the process of my thoughts.

Alright, I think I found another flaw. Another flaw is me always wanting to have control— usually over every aspect of myself in a way akin to micromanaging. This could explain a lot and nothing at all at the same time since I haven’t thought deeply enough about this to be confident to write it out, but I can already tell that it’s like a weight for me.

I’ll save this for the next session of my writing since this one has concluded itself for the most part. I’m posting this one late after deliberating between the style of writing for my reflection and my current style. I wasn’t sure if I wanted my words to be more lofty or to be grounded. It doesn’t help that I can’t really get feedback from others, so in the end I’ve decided to hold some polls and to continue to write in this style since my intent of writing should match my style of writing.

As always, congratulations to those who have made it this far and to anyone who actually read one of my posts since those numbers have increased. What I can’t tell is how many people actually read them or they saw the first slide and then moved on.

23-Trifecta 28-Companies 14-Lament 18-Churchwill

**