It dawned on me, during this year’s Silent September that just because someone does something routinely and consistently, that does not always indicate that there is always progress being made.
For example, the oversaturated podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan has had over 2,000 episodes, and I am starting to think he is all out of new ideas. In that same vein, I have written about 300 posts, and I would imagine that a lot of it has been the same redundant reworded repetitions of the same revelation.
This reminds me of the lovely poem by Robert Frost titled After Apple-Picking:
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
The green line is about the old man being done apple picking – and apple picking is symbolic of the fruits of knowledge. And the red part is about how his brain hurts from gathering so much knowlege for so long.
Old Joe has picked many of his fruits, but I am young. It is a gift that will someday be gone, much like life itself. And with my youth, I am picking my apples with literature, psychology, teaching, and exercise. It is so sad to think of the rotten apples others pick on meme pages and TikTok. I don’t care if I sound pretentious; I am so happy I am different than most people I meet.
;
Alright, so this second portion—bear with me—is a new idea or apple I’ve picked! Well, there is this old concept I’ve been mulling over. It has to do with the coveted nature of being human.
There have been recent studies that show that covid negatively affected brain development in young teens. Click on that sentence for the scoop.
That article indicates that “For both sexes, exposure to stress over long durations of time can often be a trigger for the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders.”
This is my experience. I think that because I was exposed to a lot of negative trauma and psychiatric dilemmas, it resulted in my brain having a different, neurodivergent development – possibly one of increased maturation.
This can be good and bad. It’s good because I’ve always had a good early understanding of most things and people so I’ve thought. The bad news is that now I am nearing thirty, I feel as though my brain has already been overworked and it may not function optimally throughout my life – and furthermore, I would be hard pressed to suggest that trauma and mania have resulted in any sort of positive brain development or beneficial cognitive inclination. But who knows?
The second part about this is the concept of how we mature socially as people.
When we are young, things we can’t understand, we talk out or write down in order to better understand the situation in itself.
I have a theory that ties in with brain development and an X amount of social interexchanges – that at a certain point of those two things, a person learns discretion.
Discretion can mean a few things: One of the things it indicates is both the ability to withhold affection/disdain towards a person as well as the ability to feign affection/disdain.
I used think people were fake because they would pretend to be nice to me when I knew otherwise.
Well, first off they are just stupid.
But second off, they are navigating their social and neurological maturation process from a different point than my own. Perhaps one with less trauma, or more social exposure, good or bad.
I like to think I’m a good person. We all like to think so, but I am 100% certain, whoever you are, there is somebody who dislikes you for no good reason.
The important part is both how this person treats you and how you treat them.
Is it wrong to pretend to be nice? Or is it correct to be upfront about your thoughts towards a person.
I can only speak from experience, but I have found being upfront always – and being nice- is the path I choose. I may talk poorly behind people’s back, but I do it in private way – usually to myself- and if asked, would say it to the person themselves without involving others.
I don’t know if I’m a good person or not. And lately I feel like I just have a lower opinion of others, because they all seem to want to just showcase their toxicity, while I, having my own private beliefs about them, try to be nice as a general rule.
But perhaps a. This is false b. My brain development is inferior c. Being mean to others with discretion is high society
I would love to hear your thoughts – be nice – use discretion.
And lastly, in relation to this subject (of discretion and brain development) is about relationships. I hope you don’t think I don’t see the irony of my last paragraph without acknowledging there was a long period when all my posts were about my ex-girlfriend.
Social awareness = stupidity? = ignorance = not mean because he doesn’t realize it?
However, I just have a small gripe with relationships right now. I feel as though they are a double-edged sword. They usually start out, either terribly and then end, or they start out beautifully, until the bubble pops, and someone is imperfect (This can happen in a matter of minutes, or weeks, or months), and then are prolonged far too long.
However, once this bubble is popped, and one individuals determines that this relationship is not necessarily indicative of a long-term investment, they begin to lie.
They begin to lie to the person about what they think of them, what they want to do with them, and that they want to be with them.
I know not all relationships are black and white and once you kiss someone you have to marry them, but somewhere in there, there is the implication of a lifespan, commitment, and affections.
I was in a relationship that I was lying that I wanted to be in. And, I’m pretty sure the other person didn’t want to be with me either, being that they consistently broke up with me. However, we stayed together a long time.
And that is because when your with another person, for whatever reason, you don’t want to not be with them, you kinda forget you don’t want to be with them, because they are usually somewhat enjoyable, smell nice, and you don’t want to break up with them because that is uncomfortable, so you prolong a considerate discretion – and if you have sex with them you are caught in a lie that corresponds with physical connection, trauma, and confusion.
Well, thats all tonight. As usual once the blood and oxygen start flowing to my brain again after not smoking a hundred cigarettes this past week, I usually have a few guerrilla intellectual ideas.
Ben Bonkoske 