human limits

march 18, 2022

there are things i cannot do. things i do not have the power or control to manipulate according to my perspective of how it should be. of what is equitable. i would like to think my ability to reason is perfect, but there are always plenty of places where absolutes do not apply, where binary thinking is not compatible. where there is more than one truth. and more than a hundred deviations from it, that still carry faint traces of it. but i have no power over the perspective people adopt.

i think a lot about the way people sound. 

outside, sometimes i can hear voices. certain voices automatically make me feel uneasy. certain tones i find grating. disruptive. i tend to react more warily toward lower, conventionally masculine voices, but intonation matters too. there is a heaviness versus a lightness that comes with that "everything is good" vibe. i also regularly hear the neighbors seeming to gripe about something, to one another. i hear people going up and down the stairs. i hear the bathroom light/fan come on. i prefer to have my own fan running to help camouflage the noises anywhere outside of my room. i have a hard time sleeping with disruptions to the quiet. 

sometimes the neighbors' voices make me so anxious. i feel my body become more tense. more stressed. it always makes me crave the type of home i used to live in, with more distance between some of my neighbors. 2 times i had a best friend move in next door to my side of a duplex, and then for several years another good friend moved in on the other side of me as well. how many people can say they're sandwiched between 2 besties, near a creek, surrounded by trees and a less interrupted landscape? i know that experience is less common. and i imagine neighbor noises to be more common. 

i would like to be the type of neighbor who, upon moving in, introduces herself to everyone. but it didn't take long to feel like i would rather keep to myself here. because it didn't seem out the gate that i shared the same values as some of the neighbors. there are others who do seem to share a similar level of wanting to have this place be pleasant for all of us. but there is no effort by anyone it seems to go about getting to know each other. 

and then people do shit like litter and fail to clean up after their dogs, and i feel like it's all amateurs around me. i can't.

and i want to fix things up. i wish i could call myself and line up the work that needs to be done. paint parking spots in, assign different drivers a number, check the status of every unit's windows, locks, screens, doors, and so on. 

but i can't do that. i just have to make the best of my own space, do my best to be respectful while also allowing all of us room to live. make a little noise. take up a little more space. i do want to allow that. for myself included. 

it is a bit easier to dissipate my anxiety when i know i am doing my best, and that this is always enough. the part of me that strives to do better is alive and well. it's hard for me to settle for less than what i know we all deserve.

my mom said she didn't know if she agreed that she deserved a healthy, happy relationship. i thought that was so interesting. not in the sense that i question how any of us deserve any of the finer things. but in the sense that she didn't feel worthy of that. of that simple thing--a happy, non-toxic, honest relationship with someone she liked being with. 

if that is what a person desires, it should bot be so difficult to experience it. but even i know we are not all blessed with all the fullness we deserve in life. 

i also know how much a role we play in creating our own fullness. in defining it based upon, there it is again, our  perspective.

since i was a teenager i was enamored with the idea of a universal truth. something applicable everywhere, for everyone, in any context. but the second part of knowledge is application, and there is plenty of that missing from the plethora of concepts and philosophies and ideologies and religions out there. plenty of miscooperation. plenty of archaic beliefs slowing down the overall movement toward a healthier planet. 

but i can't control it all. i can't force my complex to have proper recycling. i can't force the distribution of electric cars. or non-plastic bags. i don't even get chances to vote on those things. someone else decides for me, supposedly on my behalf. decisions about what roads get fixed is outside my realm. and i can't crumble the systems in place already. 

i can just express my discontent. observe the injustices. the abuses towars human rights. the blatant perpetual oppression all around us. the failures of capitalism. 

i don't need to be the voice for people. it isn't my job to amplify someone whose voice is valid on its own. i don't need to be heard. but i need to know i matter. otherwise there is no point. it all falls apart or goes to hedonism. 

but that's my paradox. always. none of it matters but it all does. right?

so i find ways to be more selective about my caring. more protective of what limited energy i have to navigate each day. i apply filters to support my mental health. i make time for my well-being. not perfectly, but that's certainly not the point. or is it? to do it all the right way so that can't count against you? nah, because bad shot happens to good people all the time. so no matter how you approach things it doesn't eliminate the fact that terrible shit will still happen to you. hard shit. unfair shit. violating shit. oppressive, colonizer mindset bullshit. 

and i can't tell people how to respond. how to feel. just that their feelings are valid, and that their actions matter. 

there is no right way to feel, but there are healthier ways to act. and how i wish we could all agree on what serves us all and what does not.