Tender Kindling, Little Fire
Preface: The next thought is completely unoriginal. Don't be turned off by the cliché.
Life is change.
It's a Buddhist concept, that life is change, growth, death, rebirth, and the whole point of it is that trying to hold onto the past is exactly what causes suffering.
Today I told Jonathan that, so long as he continues to hang around Lauren, he shouldn't bother calling me.
I received a, "Fuck you," in response.
A quick flashback: Jonathan and Lauren dated for eight years and were engaged for nearly two. He proposed to her in the Superdome during Katrina. Last spring, he broke it off with her because her behavior had become completely erratic, she was (likely) cheating on him, and her life was generally a shambles. Last fall, they started seeing each other, occasionally at first, just to have sex and maybe fight a little. Since then, he's begun sleeping at her house regularly and (for all intents and purposes) dating her again. Though they do still fuck other people.
For the most part, I don't care what my friends do with their dicks. I'm usually happy for them if they're having sex.
The problem for me has been that Lauren has not changed her habits a bit since they broke up and, in fact, has only gotten worse. More drugs, more fights, now physical, more lying and underhandedness, more manipulation and selfishness. I don't judge her -- God knows I've done my share of bad things -- they are simply not good for each other. They enable each other in the worst ways. Jonathan knows this, he's told me himself, but he continues to see her and continues to come to me to bitch about it. I just can't hear it anymore.
The reason I mentioned the concept that life is change is because I see that in life there are two types of people: those who embrace change and those who are stagnant. If you're not growing, experiencing new things, learning, than you are stagnant, a waste of potential. Like fish, we swim or sink.
Jonathan is a person stuck in the past. In high school, we would of course discuss our dreams and wishes and create capers and plot ploys. That's what boys in high school do. We were green then, and the world was ahead. But now we've reached an age at which we can truly pursue dreams and create the lives we always wanted to live. Life is change and we should embrace that change and grow.
Now, Jonathan has dreams and schemes and grand plans for the future, but he never acts on any of them. He is all talk. In high school, it was cute and funny. Now it's just sad to see a man whose life peaked in high school and who has no hope for his future.
It's gotten to the point where I'm embarrassed to bring him around my other friends because of his braggadocio, and the lack of anything to back it up.
The thing about people like Jonathan isn't that they're bad or immoral or terrible people. They're just terribly boring.
Other people don't want to hear about our high school glory days any more than we want to hear about theirs, yet that's all he has to talk about, really.
He drinks all day everyday to keep himself sedated. He thinks one day he'll be able to simply stop, but he won't be able.
He has ceased to change, drinking away all of his braincells and stunting the growth of a mind in its prime. He has ceased to change and so has become stagnant, boring, insufferable.
I didn't say what I said to him out of anger or to cause tension between us. I didn't respond to the, "Fuck you," and I don't plan to. I said what I said for my own happiness and mental health. I can't watch someone I care about slowly self-destruct. I feel like I've done everything in my power, and now I have to distance myself.
I used to be annoyed when my mom would tell me, "It's easier to pull someone down than it is to raise someone up." As I've grown, I have come to understand the wisdom in that saying.
My sincere hope is that Jonathan wakes up and changes his life for the better. I see in him such tender kindling and so little fire.
Life is change.
It's a Buddhist concept, that life is change, growth, death, rebirth, and the whole point of it is that trying to hold onto the past is exactly what causes suffering.
Today I told Jonathan that, so long as he continues to hang around Lauren, he shouldn't bother calling me.
I received a, "Fuck you," in response.
A quick flashback: Jonathan and Lauren dated for eight years and were engaged for nearly two. He proposed to her in the Superdome during Katrina. Last spring, he broke it off with her because her behavior had become completely erratic, she was (likely) cheating on him, and her life was generally a shambles. Last fall, they started seeing each other, occasionally at first, just to have sex and maybe fight a little. Since then, he's begun sleeping at her house regularly and (for all intents and purposes) dating her again. Though they do still fuck other people.
For the most part, I don't care what my friends do with their dicks. I'm usually happy for them if they're having sex.
The problem for me has been that Lauren has not changed her habits a bit since they broke up and, in fact, has only gotten worse. More drugs, more fights, now physical, more lying and underhandedness, more manipulation and selfishness. I don't judge her -- God knows I've done my share of bad things -- they are simply not good for each other. They enable each other in the worst ways. Jonathan knows this, he's told me himself, but he continues to see her and continues to come to me to bitch about it. I just can't hear it anymore.
The reason I mentioned the concept that life is change is because I see that in life there are two types of people: those who embrace change and those who are stagnant. If you're not growing, experiencing new things, learning, than you are stagnant, a waste of potential. Like fish, we swim or sink.
Jonathan is a person stuck in the past. In high school, we would of course discuss our dreams and wishes and create capers and plot ploys. That's what boys in high school do. We were green then, and the world was ahead. But now we've reached an age at which we can truly pursue dreams and create the lives we always wanted to live. Life is change and we should embrace that change and grow.
Now, Jonathan has dreams and schemes and grand plans for the future, but he never acts on any of them. He is all talk. In high school, it was cute and funny. Now it's just sad to see a man whose life peaked in high school and who has no hope for his future.
It's gotten to the point where I'm embarrassed to bring him around my other friends because of his braggadocio, and the lack of anything to back it up.
The thing about people like Jonathan isn't that they're bad or immoral or terrible people. They're just terribly boring.
Other people don't want to hear about our high school glory days any more than we want to hear about theirs, yet that's all he has to talk about, really.
He drinks all day everyday to keep himself sedated. He thinks one day he'll be able to simply stop, but he won't be able.
He has ceased to change, drinking away all of his braincells and stunting the growth of a mind in its prime. He has ceased to change and so has become stagnant, boring, insufferable.
I didn't say what I said to him out of anger or to cause tension between us. I didn't respond to the, "Fuck you," and I don't plan to. I said what I said for my own happiness and mental health. I can't watch someone I care about slowly self-destruct. I feel like I've done everything in my power, and now I have to distance myself.
I used to be annoyed when my mom would tell me, "It's easier to pull someone down than it is to raise someone up." As I've grown, I have come to understand the wisdom in that saying.
My sincere hope is that Jonathan wakes up and changes his life for the better. I see in him such tender kindling and so little fire.
posted by jesse at 9:01 PM
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