Residual Grudges

When I was in the fourth grade we were given a project to do a presentation on our role model. It was the first project I ever did completely on my own and I was really proud of all the biographical information I was able to gather on my chosen role model, Jacques Kallis (who incidentally finished his cricketing career today).  I was really fluffing my feathers about my great mark when the next boy, Lian van der Lith, did his presentation on Nelson Mandela. To my absolute horror he did better than I did (this might have been the beginning of my whole Mandela issue in the first place).

Now this entire boring and traumatising story was related to explain to you a concept that I refer to as Residual Grudges. I still remember 8 years later about a guy that slightly upstaged me in painful detail.

I am a terrible victim of both Jealousy and Holding Grudges. Sometimes it even happens subconsciously or involuntarily. I will be jealous of something or someone and start feeling anger. This anger translates into a very cold attitude toward that entity and before you know it I can’t stand it and become all dark and dangerous in its presence.

And I really can’t think that I’m the only one who holds these grudges.

The problem comes in when I allow these grudges to affect my entire life and existence. I need to learn to consciously check situations for this jealousy and control it, so that I won’t keep destroying myself and my relationships.

And as we all know “Jealousy makes you Nasty, Nasty makes you Fat, Fat makes you Ugly and that’s a Fact”

Peace

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The Illusion of Familiarity - My Transition to Internet Stalker

Recently I have discovered a dangerous problem I have.

Immersing yourself in social networks such as Tumblr and Youtube can give you the opportunity to make a myriad of new friends. The problem starts manifesting when you forget that even on something accessible as this there are limitations.

I find myself increasingly attempting to befriend internet celebrities as I would any other person I meet via a social network.

This seems to come from the illusion of familiarity that is created by the internet. These people broadcast their lives publicly. Not a difficult concept to grasp. So do my friends. Oh hey look! I have instant access to the lives of my friends. And to the lives of strangers I find entertaining. Strangers and friends.

Here my brain goes haywire. It used to happen with characters in books and series, but I could never interact inter-personally with those characters. This wonderful thing called the internet not only shows me the lives of these familiar strangers, but also gives me a way of contacting them. Directly. Hey! I can contact my friends directly. I see no reason that these people whose lives I am intimately familiar with and who I can reach with a few key swipes and a simple click.

And bam! I'm a stalker who should be receiving a restraining order through the mail just about now.

I somehow forget that the things these people tweet, post or film are not sent exclusively to me. They are publicly broadcast to millions of other people internationally. I am one single person of a multitude that are reached daily. And beside that which I can learn from their videos or blogs, I do not know anything about these people. I simply am not their "Friend".

I would be lying if I said I was simply a number to them. But I am very unlikely to be more than a name, an occasional comment and an irritating fanmail out of a heap every day.

And I cannot think that I am the only person who struggles with this.

So for those of you out there who have this problem too, I guess all we can do is take a moment to breathe. Step back and realise that these people are, until some weird twist of fate, simply more characters whose stories we can enjoy. And then get back to crossing our fingers and waiting for that reply to the millionth letter we sent to a certain Youtuber ^_~

Peace
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