Being You, sucks.

- The Unrevised Collection -

“Who said I have to start a diary from the first page in the book. Who said it would have to be called a diary and that even all pages had to be in a chronological order?

Who said a diary must be boring and report all little and common facts of life.

I’m sorry I trashed all my old diaries from when I was a youngster and probably now don’t remember, really, what a diary is. I don’t think they exist for adults who consider themselves adults, unless the ones that come in human form, and we can talk to because they have a piece of paper that says they are kind of doctors of the mind… and they’ve been other people’s diaries for so long that they know exactly how your story ends even before you do.

I did it – trashed my old diaries  a long time ago – because after the first years of any diary’s life you look back and always see how foolish it was to write it. But then, after more and more years of unreported foolishness, holding back to never leave another written evidence of anything private, you kinda forget how stupid you are and are always ready to forgive your younger self, as if ‘it’ was a completely different person.

Do you believe people change? I’m not wondering if people are able to change – put them on a starving mode long enough and they’ll probably kill you for meat – I am asking you if you believe people are really willing to change – be a better person and all of that.

I believe, no matter what they tell me, the older you get the more you learn to convince yourself you’re such an incredible nice person and that in fact others are lucky to have you nearby. Bullshit? This is so true, and natural, that’s even unavoidable, since there’s no way to not live with yourself, as you, so you learn to love it.

Change? If you tell me you’ve changed for someone, you were probably not changing at all but merely repositioning one part of you in another part of your life. Acting it up with another person, or in your dreams, or on those work trips when no one else really knows who you are or has a problem with it. You’ve changed to reach a goal, or to make work bearable, or because you thought you needed to change something and no else is able to – but you, you, the nicest person around – when in fact you were merely acting on what were already your beliefs.

When you looked closely it’s all still there, all your thoughts still there, and you not only did not change but you believe in the same ideas even more but now developed ways to defend them wisely.

Is this uncomfortable? You’ll never confess it to anyone.

Your most precious relationship is the one you have with yourself. As any relationship, the one you have with yourself took its ups and downs. But with adulthood you learned that relationships don’t last long  if you try to change and shape the person you’re with (or dealing with); people who do that, who at least try to play the game of ‘let me change you’, are unhappy until the day we leave them or they leave us.

So, that is why, being an adult means you’ve stopped trying to change who you are. You make it better, sometimes, but you don’t change it, because although you know it’s possible to change behaviors, you don’t believe in actual change. Change is trouble. Change is manipulative. Change is stuffing up bullshit you don’t want to carry inside for the rest of your life. Change is putting up with people you don’t believe you’ll ever really like or fully understand. Change is impossible, useless and tiresome. Changing who you are, in essence, would go against nature and drive you insane.

The weirdest thing is, every other day you think about how being you sucks, and the things you could change but never do… yet it’s not this part you’re ashamed to confess to others – what you’re embarrassed about is admitting you love being, exactly, the way you are.”

Do you believe in aliens?

- The unrevised collection.

I don’t know how it is in your country, but before I jumped to my last 3 years in secondary school, we had a kind of a phsycologist about once a week, that would ask us questions, deliver tests on professional aptitude and personality and eventually, have a nice, long talk with us on the last month, to help us figure out what professional path to take next.

You see, on the last 3 years of secondary school you were suppose to have specific subjects that connected you with the course you were planning to have on university or tech. degree.

However, as you can imagine, at 14 we were too young to know exactly what we want to become, and everyone’s opinion – including parents – gets in the way, mixed with whatever you saw yesterday on TV that looked the coolest thing to do in the world! – and my BFF totally agrees with me!

Around this time, I was divided between doing something in Arts & Design, and what my father wanted me to do – something in Engineering or Architecture, but for the love of God not that bloody Design thing because you can’t make any living out of it!!  (ha-ha-ha!)

Anyways, the ‘kind-of-a-phsycologist’ lady was getting very frustrated with me, because I could never answer her very direct question of: but what do YOU want to do? – I know, it’s a simple question, but did you think I only became complicated after 30?

My tests turned out good in more than one thing (I know, I’m that good!) but mostly pointed towards areas where I would have to use my creativity. (Another bell?)

Wait! say you, Is this post really about aliens? – Yes. Turns out she was one.

Yes, really? – No, really.

So at one point she had enough of me and maybe had to get her fingernails done, so it went like this:

Vanessa, I have two hands here – see, this would be a good start if this was a post about aliens - this hand here symbolizes Engineering and the other one means Design. Now, when I lift my hands up in front of you, you have to speak immediately and say out loud which one of them you choose. It’s just a game, something we are trying here, you don’t have to take any degree on any of them after you finish secondary school, so don’t worry. Just say what comes to mind now, choose a hand – Engineering – and she lifted her right hand – or Design - and she raised her left hand – now!

Well you already know what I said, but the point I am trying to make is that is the same with some questions you ask people, and the funny thing is it gets even harder to get an answer if they are not 14 anymore, but full-grown adults.

‘Do you believe in aliens?’ is one of those questions. I can never get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and even when that is the first thing someone answers me, I know that ‘I mean…’ will follow, or a long explanation that concludes they aren’t sure of their answer.

But no-one is asking you to prove aliens are real, so why this fear of looking like a fool? What I notice is that people see it as only too ways: whether their answer will make them look like a fool or they will look cold and old. There are some variations of the feelings people are trying to avoid, but basically it circles around that: the concern is never in the honesty of the answer in itself, but the answer that will make sure to represent them correctly converging all their beliefs together in that one answer.

So, I have two hands, and I am going to raise them quickly…