by say

why would you bother telling the prince that you know what work is?

do you think it's going to change the way he treats you? people are not very empathetic in general, probably because they lack the intellegence to view something outside their realm of experience, or because they simply lack the intellegence to grasp fully the reasons for being empathetic. some are even (!) selfish.

anyway, about empathy, the idea of your life remains an abstract notion, only deserving of sympathy usually. now, very few emotionally stable adults (in my experience anyway) need sympathy... by itself. or need sympathy period. sympathy is useless unless you are a bawling child, and they have not begun to develop their sense of what they themselves believe and think, therefore the grounds of all of their actions and reactions are the actions and reactions of those around them. nobody likes to keep on bawling, so children are inclined to ask that someone verify that the situation really isn't that bad. and i understand a bit of regression in this respect, in emergencies mostly. situations of excrutiating pain. finding out you're pregnant when you know your boyfriend doesn't love you and your parents won't support this decision you've made. realizing you've spent your life chasing the wrong ideals. etc.

however, sympathy (as mentally developed persons are fully aware of) is short-lived. if you want the problem not to bother you any longer, you need sympathy from yourself.

one reason, still, that others (i, for one) seek what looks like sympathy is to gather facts. however, one must be prepared: when gathering facts in this clandestine manner, you must have your shields up and on full power. the blasts from some random tidbits of information people throw out by accident (i mean, the "one" of whom we speak is supposedly in severe emotional distress, not playing detective) can just hurt you further, or send you into a line of panic where you leave your supposed rational mentality and actually DO need sympathy. at any rate, this easily backfires. the point of all of this is that i cannot personally see the benefit of sharing your problems with anyone. at any rate, people will LIKE you better if you don't share. they hate hearing other peoples' problems, generally because the concensus is that everyone needs childlike sympathy when they are emotional as adults. despite the total irrationality of this analogy (adults are to rational as children are to emotional) this is the way people think and you have to deal with it. it is a rare listener indeed who will even try to consider your problems on a mature level... or even (heaven forbid!) try to put themselves in your place and from that stance give you whatever most excellent advice you do crave. for, of course, if you didn't want advice you'd only be needing sympathy... hahahaha not like there IS anything else out there.

back to what i was actually trying to say. i have never benefitted any by sharing my problems with others... and seldom (i think...) do they benefit from hearing my problems (unless it is a rare case of "the crappy state of your life makes me feel better about the slightly less crappy state of mine") so i have decided to try to "shut up" about my problems. no i've really been very open. i really have. my little sister is a rare listener, so it's not like i'll get lonely not talking to anyone. at any rate, i've put myself in a funky position with my irrational little fickle weavings in life... everyone thinks i'm stupid! okay, well, not everyone. the people who are ACTUALLY smarter (and they are few) do not underestimate my intellegence... ironically. therefore i have tons and tons of people treating me like an imbecile, which i have come to act like, when truly i generally outmatch the above-average person in every arena except for people-dealings... ahh life. so fucking bizarre and scripted. i really can't stand how unreal it all seems when you take it apart. then, reality is an unreal notion, as time, perfection, and chaos ...even the intellegence i've been writing about... all human constructs to explain things that fall outside of our range of sense. and yet they make sense... i am not trying to tear these notions down (for of course, love is among them) because they have a real, true basis... however perfection is not. and even as i say this i see the flaws in my own reasoning. the world is simply too complicated to be seen through anything but a generalizing machine. i wonder why we bother, when we are destined, seemingly, to be slightly off the mark when it comes to absolutely everything. haha lookie there another absolute. it all comes back to why we bother. silly little arbitrary fickle irrational little crazies...

just like me with telling other people my problems