Everyone Has Problems

When the world seems dark and unfeeling, it can sometimes be difficult to see that others around you are also possibly experiencing something even worse. Imagining others complexly, that another can have the depth of feeling and experiences which have led to this stage, is difficult. We see it in all spheres, from the apparent inability of people on the internet to view those with whom they’re arguing as a human and not just some text to be attacked, to the spectacular ability to ignore the obvious signs of distress when you’re presented with them in real life. We rationalise the latter with the reasoning that there’s probably nothing we can do.

Everything happens for a reason. It’s often tricky to join up the graph of connections, but there’s always a cause. The problem arises when one of the factors is a philosophical one, a fundamental product of being human. These internal stressors can cause us distress with no apparent reason for the external observer, and because it’s so ineffable it can feel difficult to express it. As humans, we take in everything we experience, we connect up the dots and build the results graph, which then becomes part of your personality. Your personality expresses itself in so many ways.

I never want to be the person who leaves another alone to their thoughts when they are in distress.
I never want to be the cause of distress.
In the last week, I’ve unintentionally done both, and rationalized it as not feeling able to deal with it, or it being a product of how bad things are getting.

Sometimes words are not able to get across the ineffable humanity of emotion. You can always paint things as being “fine” in the broad strokes, and sometimes it’s the most appropriate to convince yourself and others that the broad strokes are all that exist. The problem is when the broad strokes aren’t quite thick enough to cover the layers of finer strokes, and they start to break through. This is the fundamental issue with imagining complexly — we are usually only shown the broad strokes, which is just a thin layer.

Never be afraid to talk to someone; often the version that you see, or that you imagine you see, will be a complete misunderstanding.

I’ve said it before, but ‘Class’ is really good, in a way that Doctor Who spin-offs often aren’t. There’s a completely unnecessary amount of death, and the plot has problems, but the way the characters actually act like humans would when faced with the situations presented. So often, especially in young adult aimed fiction, you’re left with the sense that “nobody of that age would ever say that”. ‘Class’ doesn’t suffer with this, or at least it isn’t nearly as jarring as in, say, ‘13 Reasons Why’. Discovering that Matteusz is played by an American was quite a surprise though, given that his Polish accent isn’t terrible.