Letter Writing Challenge #2

Edit: This letter is LONG after a break-up and not about getting over feelings, but about healing about the past relationships' damage done on me. 

Letter #1b:

Dear X,

I don't know that I'll ever fully understand you or why you did all of the things you did and why you appear to continue to be that same person while (still) claiming to be someone else, but I've found that with every day I care less and less. The power of forgiveness or moving on is that you don't need anyone else's apology or permission. I know you tried your best to get me to hold on and to not let you go, the way you couldn't (or can't) completely let me go, but turns out "they" were right when they said I was too good for you. The truth is that in retrospect I realized how literally insane I was being to stay with you - "insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" I honestly thought that if I tried being a better girlfriend or dressing prettier for you or buying cuter underwear or this and that the way you like it, that it would change things. It took a long time away from you to realize none of it had to do with me.

I should have picked up on the red flags, but there was something about you (probably the reason why chicks like you and why you have so many friends) that drew me in and wouldn't let go. I gave you so much without asking anything in return, because isn't that what a relationship is supposed to be about? Except it doesn't really work out when it's mostly one-way. Quickly I learned the things we had in common and the traits you claimed to have weren't as true as I thought and what was real wasn't enough. The pain I felt during our relationship was so hard for me to handle, it wrecked me. One friend even related you to being a campground burner: i.e. the campground rule is when you go camping, you leave the grounds the same or better as when you left and the same rule is sometimes said to apply to relationships. Well, congrats on slaughtering that rule.

In my life, I've always tried to take a view that I am in control of things and that things don't just "happen" to me, so that I don't feel like a victim, but sometimes people do awful things and act horribly and the only thing that one can find responsibility in is not waking up sooner and realizing what they were allowing themselves to be subjected to. And that is what I realized in retrospect. 20/20 hindsight, they say. And oh, how I wish (often) that I had known about your history or known what type of person you really were before I got involved. Before I shared with you my time, mind, secrets, and body.

Sometimes I think about the girls you're with and I realize exactly why nobody warned me about you - because when you're an ex, you just seem psychotic to say anything to a new girlfriend, even if you know them. It's brushed off as past jealousy or a bitter breakup. But no, I really do wish that people could know beforehand.

The truth is, I never yelled at you. I never said anything mean to you any of the times that you probably deserved it. Even at the worst moments, I kept my cool and I didn't say or do anything that was unbecoming. But the fact that you, without taking any responsibility, ever apologizing or admitting anything you'd done, tried to be my friend and have the best of both worlds, is such a fucking shitty thing to do to someone. I gave you such an easy out of my life: don't apologize, don't admit anything and we don't have to be friends. You can't treat people like crap, walk all over them, and then expect that just because you  still like them, that they still want to be friends with you or be in any contact with you. The fact that it took me SO MANY TIMES telling you to stop talking to me or trying to see me/talk to me in person when we ran into each other is ridiculous. You lied to my face so many times it's crazy. I wouldn't even tell my friends hardly anything because they were friends with you too and I didn't want to be that person who creates conflicts because of upsets (valid, but who cares?) or a breakup.

I tried a few times to say things to you, whenever you tried to talk to me in person, and it always ended with the same way things went when we were in a relationship. You, with your smooth talking, manipulating me and making me feel like a fool for bringing anything up. It didn't take long for me to be sick of even trying to be civil and point out anything to you! I couldn't even get any kind of closure or satisfaction with you so I realized the only way I'd get that was on my own.

So, here it lies: I want nothing to do with you. Not directly, not by association, not by social standards. From what I've observed directly and indirectly, you haven't changed at all and I want to be totally clean of you. Because we have so many friends in common, it's impossible to cut all secondhand ties to you, but I'll do whatever I have to to come close. You treated me HORRIBLY and most of it was you manipulating me so much that I was so blind to it, I couldn't even realize you were doing such nasty things to me and lying to me so much. You were such a coward and it still sickens me that I allowed that. Being around you makes my skin crawl and I deserve to be happy and free of you and those feelings. I won't let that control me or my life.

-D

PS. I call you Voldemort. :)

My Thoughts on "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

I personally believe that the primary theme of Brave New World is control and the use of control for the purpose of degradation and destruction of social values. Humans aren’t born to parents and do not have families, instead they are grown in bottles and brainwashed, a.k.a conditioned, in order to ensure that they believe certain “truths”, or to have certain moral “values”. This is done by way of “sleep-teaching”, and instructs these humans to not value their individualism, but the value of a society.

Every person exists to have a job and love it, to purchase lots of things like clothing, use transportation often, depend on other people and things, and serve their community. Humans are divided into social classes to make this system work more efficiently, from the Alphas at the top, to the Epsilons at the bottom. Alphas are smart and handsome, while Epsilons are ugly and stupid. They even go as far as using oxygen deprivation and lethal substances to ensure that non-Alphas stay stupid—while they grow them in the test tubes. All Epsilons are exact replicas of each other, grown in large batches.

Everything, even the apparently positive ways of life, is a way to control and take away identity and personal values from these “individuals”. The rampant promiscuity and lack of romance or relationships, wherein they actually insult or make fun of one for “having” the same partner for an extended period of time, and even refer to mating as such: “having” another person. A specific example of this is a conversation between Lenina and Fanny, where Lenina tells Fanny, “Somehow, I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately. There are times when one doesn’t. Haven’t you found that too, Fanny?” Fanny replies, “But one’s got to make the effort, one’s got to play the game. After all, every one belongs to every one else.” There is no procreation through sex, as contraceptives are forced upon one. No one is allowed to make a significant choice for themselves. Additionally, the frequent use of drugs, flippant attitudes towards life, and narrow-minded views all are signs of the control that is had over these people.

The drug called “soma” is used as an escape from problems. It is not only legal, but given out eagerly and encouraged to be taken for any reason. They don’t particularly need an excuse (as you might in the real world, to use drugs or alcohol to get away from your problems) to use soma, they just encourage each other to take it at any low moment. An example of this is as follows, where Marx is very upset and speaking with Henry Foster, who says “What you need is a gramme of soma,” and when he refuses, Foster insists that he takes it, saying, “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.”

For me, the setting of the book was eerie and disturbing, which I believe was the mood Huxley was trying to create. When I first started reading the book, I wasn’t moved at all, but as I continued, a sense of fear and even a loss of hope for the world were instilled in me. The picture he painted many years ago when he wrote the book is not unlike what the world is slowly becoming. Science and cloning aside, there are a lot of general aspects to the way that the people live their lives in Brave New World that could be looming in our future if we do not change our ways as well as break free from the insane control the government tries to have or has over us as a country. The lack of diversity, individuality, love, monogamy, and ability to think for one’s self depicted in this book is not an unreal fantasy from our culture and society in present time.