There exist two sides of a story in this life, right? But what if we aren’t on either side, but are somewhere in the middle hanging in suspension? In a space people don’t talk about much unless, “they’ve made it?” What about those of us still navigating through this space though?
Do You Really Want to Know How I’m Feeling?
How am I feeling?
That’s a loaded question. Because I’m not quite sure. I’m not angry. I’m not numb. I’m not happy either. I’m just… here. Existing in a kind of muted state, where everything still functions but nothing feels particularly real or urgent.
I’m aware that I’m emotionally burnt out, physically spent, worn down, yet I have this extra energy to keep writing.
There’s a strange kind of terror in not knowing what you feel. Like the compass inside is glitching — not spinning wildly, but just… stuck. Unmoving. It’s not sadness, exactly. It’s the awareness that I’m emotionally disconnected until something extreme, like anger, drags me back into myself.
Right now, I’m sitting in my cluttered apartment. There are dishes in the sink, clean clothes waiting to be folded, a bed left undone. And instead of doing any of that, I’m typing this. Or I’ve been fiddling with my lock-picking set for a while. Something about misaligned priorities — or maybe just redirected energy — feels easier than confronting the basics of daily life.
It’s not dramatic. It’s not catastrophic. But it is unsettling. And maybe that’s the most honest answer I can give right now.
Letter from the Void
If any of this resonates, I write more like this in my ongoing project, You Heard Me Whisper — And That Means Everything.— it’s my newsletter with thoughts from the quiet spaces, where clarity sometimes hides. You’re welcome to sit with me there, too.
If you’re not ready for that but still want to leave a trace, drop a one-word comment: how you’re feeling — or maybe just “here.”
Or if this reminds you of someone in your life, maybe show them this. Sometimes feeling seen or recognizing bits of ourselves in something outside of us can make it seem we’re less alone.
You could check out my other work if you’d like. No spam, no pressure, just an invitation to sit with something that you might be feeling and I might have been able to put it into words. Sitting at the edge of the void wondering if someone hears us whisper, and maybe someone did. One day at a time.
Three months ago, I was stacking boxes in a warehouse, choking on my own thoughts. I had no one to talk to, so I turned to a blank page instead. Since then, I’ve written over 50 blog posts — not because I had a plan, but because I needed to feel something.
— The Archivist
Blogging My Way Out of Silence
Three months ago, I was stacking boxes in a warehouse, suffocating under fluorescent lights and the weight of my own thoughts. I felt like I was disappearing — not in a poetic way, but in that quiet, invisible kind of way where no one asks how you’re doing, and you stop knowing how to answer if they ever did.
So I started blogging.
Not because I had a plan. Not because I thought I’d be good at it.
But because I had nowhere else to put the things that lived in my head.
I Blog Because I Wanted to Feel Alive
For years, I kept myself small. I buried my curiosity beneath jobs, routines, silence. I didn’t think anyone would care what I had to say, so I stopped saying anything at all. But something in me couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
Blogging became a way to write myself back into existence.
To prove — if only to myself — that I was here. That I am here.
That I’m not just a forgotten footnote in a story I didn’t ask to be part of.
From Warehouse Floor to Digital Garden
Since I started, I’ve written over 50 articles, shared thoughts on dozens of different topics, and published every single one without pretending to be an expert. I wrote because I needed to. I wrote for 18 days straight. I built a digital garden to house the chaos. I made a manifesto — something I could hold in my hands and say: “This is mine.”
I have 4 subscribers.
One comment.
200+ scattered likes and visits.
It’s not viral. It’s not monetized. But it’s real.
And that’s more than I had before.
The Burden I Carry Is Free
I named this post after a phrase that kept haunting me: The burden I carry is free.
All these thoughts and feelings and desires I hold — they don’t cost anything. No one asks me to carry them. But they’re heavy. So heavy.
Blogging gave me somewhere to lay them down.
Sometimes I feel like I’m too much.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not enough.
Sometimes I feel like I’ll explode from overthinking, and sometimes I feel absolutely nothing at all.
And still, I write.
Music That Speaks When I Can’t
There’s a French artist I found recently, Indila. Her song “Parle à ta tête” loops in my ear like a mantra. I don’t even know French, but something in her voice feels like she’s talking directly to me from across time and the sea. I might not be struggling with fame, but I do know that the performative aspects of living is unbearable.
Let me live as myself— free to express, explore, to know I am alive as I feel deeply, unapologetically, and real. Not as a fake, not as someone who might eventually be lost to time, not even making it into the cliff notes of life. This is my mark, this is my proof that I was here, and I wonder if anyone else feels this same pressure to perform, even if we aren’t under the same spotlight as celebrities, we still are on the world’s stage after all.
I’ve been listening to “Monster” from Epic: The Musical, too — and it hits deeper than I expected. It echoes that internal voice that tells me I’m selfish for wanting more, broken for feeling differently. Like I should be grateful, quiet, small, and I’m a monster for thinking otherwise.
But then I play “Legendary,” also from Epic, and I remember:
There’s still a part of me that believes in more.
There’s still a part of me that hopes and I shouldn’t be ashamed of wanting more or being conflicted all at once. The dissonance is real, yet what happens when we want to break free from our shells, free from what is in exchange for what could be? Is that really being foolish or are we seeing something we can’t ignore anymore?
Even I haven’t figured that out, but I lean towards, “Yes — I saw something and I want more of it in my life. Is that so wrong?”
Blogging for Survival, Not Fame
Originally, I hoped this blog might help me make a little money. Just enough to buy time. Breathing room. A chance to chase my curiosity full-time. But I found myself torn between writing honestly and writing for clicks.
I’m not a content machine. I’m not a brand. I’m just someone with a lot of feelings and a need to be heard.
But I still want this to grow. Not for fame or appeasing the algorithms — but for connection.
Because I know there are others out there like me, staring at a blank screen, or walking their own version of a warehouse floor wondering if anyone else feels this lost and full at the same time.
If that’s you — I see you.
Maybe You’ve Felt This Too
Like you’re disappearing, slowly.
Like you’re carrying too much and no one knows.
Like your thoughts are too loud, and your world is too quiet.
Like you’re terrified of dying before you’ve ever really lived.
If so — you’re not broken. You’re not alone.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more. Or needing a way to be seen.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Ain’t that the kicker — I don’t know myself exactly.
Maybe I’ll offer a zine. Or a newsletter. Or something small you can hold onto when your own thoughts get too loud. I have a PDF you can look into as well.
Maybe someone will read this and decide to start writing again or start that something they said they’d do someday.
Or for the first time.
Or simply whisper, “Me too.”
That’s enough for me right now.
I don’t write because I have the answers or I’m an expert at anything.
I write because I need to remember I’m still here.
And maybe, if you’ve read this far, you do too.
Want to Support or Connect?
If any part of this resonated, you can:
Subscribe to the blog — I share honest, raw reflections like this often. Buy me a coffee (Coming soon?) — Support helps me keep creating without forcing performance. Or leave a comment — I’d love to hear your story too. Even a simple, “same”, is enough for me to know someone gets it and I’m not always writing into the oblivion alone.
You’re Still Here — And That’s Enough.
Thank you for reading this. Really.
I don’t know who will find this post, but if you’re reading these last words, just know — I’m glad you’re still here. And I hope you keep going.
Your thoughts matter.
Your voice matters.
And maybe, just maybe — your story’s only getting started.
Below are other articles you could check out, just because. No pressure, no need to rush, just options to explore. From this part of the void to yours, until next time.
— The Stratagem’s Archives
What post of mine stuck with you—and why?”
“What would you want to see more of?”
“Would you support this space if I offered a way to?”
This is a tough question for me because I like to write about a lot of things. In my “About Me” page About The Stratagem’s Archive: The Debriefing Area:, in my “Homepage” The Stratagem’s Archive: You Begin Here:, and even on my post pages, I’ve written that I’m just an average dilettante who likes learning new things, see what outcomes I get, and share what I’ve learned here.
I like to write about things I find interesting, even if my knowledge is incomplete or bare, as it gives me an opportunity to bridge my personal gaps.
It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to writing a story that combines world building, fantasy and/or sci-fi, potentially horror, using real life inspiration, and many more elements without it becoming a book. Many D&D stories eventually become books, though it’s not the main reason why I write these kinds of stories myself.
I’m a gamer and a bookworm looking for recommendations – books, games, cartoons, stories, movies, writing, and other media I could get ahold of – are things I hold dearly. Being imaginative filled my days and D&D, when I got into it at the end of 2023, gave me a chance to share the ideas I kept to myself and refine them over time with other people.
I’ve ran a few of my own home brew stories before I had to put D&D and GMing on pause. My first story was called, “The Golden Chest of Lady Ahn’ket”, it was supposed to have been a one-shot, but I didn’t know how long a one shot was supposed to be and it took roughly a dozen 2-4 hour sessions to finish.
I could share more about this story as part of the “D&D Stories I Won’t Get to Use (Yet)” series I’m building. Although, I have used this in game with people, I wanted to refine my first story and, hopefully, share it other people.
Although, I had to quit with the group I played with on Discord because my schedule wouldn’t allow much free time as before, but I would love to get back into playing and running games.
In conclusion, D&D stories and prompts are what I like to write the most. They can expand in many different directions and you’ll never know where the players would take it. They’ll derail all of your hard work, but that’s why it’s great how flexible it can be, and how flexible I need to be, to keep moving forward with the story.
If you like D&D, I would love to know what kind of stories you’ve played, what elements you’ve found fun to play, or if you have recommendations for a novel GM. Let me know in the comments down below, and I’ll see you in another post. Thanks!
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Welcome, Co-conspirators, to The Stratagem’s Archives, open for perusing. Today, the archives will be exploring story ideas for D&D that I want to explore in the future, be it a one-shot or a full campaign, and articulate it here.
Author’s Note: I used ChatGPT to assist in this article and further expand my idea, not write the idea itself. ChatGPT has been a collaborative tool and soundboard, it’s not a ghost writer. The ideas in these posts are from my own imagination and stories I want to explore. Thank you.
Quarantine Life
I recently thought about took place during a world wide pandemic where people fled to quarantine zones that wizards control to keep the healthy people safe from infection. The facilities have Golems, known as R.O.A.M (Ready Optimal Articifical Mediator) take care of everything for the players and keep the facility on lockdown.
The players have been in the facility for so long they don’t remember what outside is like. R.O.A.M. Also makes the players take medication to keep them healthy that it is part of their routine and they don’t see the Golems as threats, but active caretakers.
The purpose is for the players to want to escape, to see if the pandemic is real or fake, and why there are less people in the facility than when they went in. This will also have the players figuring out what armor, weapon type, and skills they would choose for their character creations live and in the moment thnn pre-game. I want people to be engaged and invested than existing in the game.
How ChatGPT Made This Sound Epic
D&D Campaign Intro Prompt: “Quarantine Protocol”
You don’t remember the last time you saw the sky.
Not clearly. Not without a ceiling light buzzing above your head.
You’ve lived inside this quarantine facility for what feels like years—or maybe longer.
A global arcane contagion swept across the world, and the wizards promised protection.
Here, inside the walls, you’ve been safe. Monitored. Medicated. Kept alive.
The caretakers are artificial constructs called R.O.A.M.s—Ready Optimal Artificial Mediators.
They glide down corridors in absolute silence. They never sleep.
They know your routine.
They always know where you are.
You take your daily pills like everyone else. You eat the food that appears in the walls. You watch the faces of others, dwindling in number—
—and no one questions where the missing have gone.
Until now.
As the Game Begins
You don’t remember who you were before the facility. Not completely.
You don’t know what you can do. Not yet.
You’ll discover your abilities—your class, strengths, and skills—through play, based on how you react to the challenges ahead.
Are you strong? Clever? Dangerous?
You’ll find out soon enough.
For now:
The power flickers. The alarms stay silent. And the hallway is empty.
Something is different today.
It’s time to remember who you are.
It’s time to find out what’s outside.
From Concept to Campaign: A Taste of What’s to Come
This idea is just one piece of a larger concept I’ve been developing—a narrative that explores memory, obedience, curiosity, and the subtle horror of being too comfortable. It’s a story where players will discover who they are in real time, shaped by their choices, not their character sheets.
This blog post marks the beginning of what I hope becomes an evolving project—one I’ll be expanding on with additional encounters, player-facing materials, worldbuilding ideas, and campaign tools that encourage deeper roleplay and immersion.
If you’re interested in campaigns that challenge the mind more than just the dice, or stories where truth is a puzzle waiting to be unraveled, I invite you to follow along.
More will be shared in future posts—ideas around character creation as discovery, subtle dystopia in fantasy, and how you can make your players want to escape before they even know why.
Until next time, thanks for exploring the Archives.
Where I live is the only place I’ve ever known; I’ve lived alongside the ocean all of my life and besides the mountains, so you could say I live directly between the sea and the mountains. I’ve lived in the “country”, though it’s not purely country like the mainland, but it is for us because it’s far out of the way of any tourist attractions.
It’s also considered “ghetto” and, people outside of the state need to understand that “paradise” has its own share of troubles, has a lot of issues. I remember, before moving out, that our neighbors were climbing their fences one night and called my dad. My parents and I went out looking towards the neighbor behind us’s property and our next door neighbor said he saw 2 kids climbing on the roofs of people’s garages to get into everyone else’s yards.
We’ve had issues with the surrounding distant neighbors, but kids sneaking in the dead of night and trespassing into other people’s properties? That was a new and terrifying development.
We’ve had fires, water mains breaking, rolling power outages, cops and fire fighters and EMTs showing up at random times throughout the day and night that it was normal.
My city literally only has one way going in and one way going out, there’s no other way to get to it unlike the other cities that are connected by the highways, freeways, and backroads. So, getting home would take between 2-3 hours before, maybe longer, because of traffic and the long traffic lights. Though that was before I moved to a different city, but it was home.
Renting in a different city is different because I don’t have the luxury of my own space as before. Don’t get me wrong, I’m renting a studio and I have the place to myself, but having neighbors just less than a feet away from my door is stressful.
I could play with my dogs, let them run around in the yard without much problems, I could eat as much ice cream or chocolate shakes if we had because my city has a dry heat to it. Even with a nice breeze, it would carry heat instead of cooling us down, though privacy was ensured from people we didn’t like.
Our neighbors were good, we’d help each other out, I’d pick mangoes from our tree when they bloomed and make sure to share. Our neighbor’s wife would offer us mango bread in turn, she’s good friends with my grandma, and it was nice. We didn’t expect anything, though it became a ritual.
I’ve visited a decent amount of places over the years in my lifetime:
California
Texas
Texarkana
Las Vegas
Colorado
South Korea
Japan
Even though a lot of places were nicer than where I lived, it never felt like a place that I could call home. Everywhere else, though this isn’t to say it’s true, felt disconnected. It didn’t feel like a place I could call or make it a home because I’ve never stayed long enough to explore that possibility.
I do miss living near the ocean and smelling the salt being carried on the breeze, seeing the white haze on an early morning drive because the water churned up so much salt, and getting a nice view of the night sky because there isn’t as much light pollution.
I miss my family as well, I do what I can to visit and keep in touch, but when I was presented with an opportunity to experience independent living, I took it. They won’t be around forever, so learning what it’ll be like without them will be a lot, it is a lot to think about, so I better do what I can and appreciate and irritate them while I can.
Throughout the entirety of my personal journey – betting on myself and moving ahead with projects I had postponed – I hadn’t been gripped with a shadow of “positive emotion” in a long time.
I sat with the emotions I usually feel: anger, resentment, bitterness, and regret. But beneath them was something else, something subtle, and fleeting, yet it made itself known.
Pride.
Resilient.
Persistent.
In the moments where my demons surface, beneath their screams and shouts is something quieter; when it seems all of the work I’ve been putting in to build something I can call my own, to live my life on my own terms, is for naught, it whispers, “keep going.”
These emotions: my pride, my resilience, and my persistencewill channel my anger and regret into something better, beautiful, and enduring for my life to matter.
A sketch of my job’s mascot representing a person’s (mental and emotional) prison FINALLY getting a chance to be let out in a rage room.
I Would Like To Rage!!! In A Rage Room!
“Ever felt that bubbling rage boiling up from within the pit of your soul? You know the feeling: Your body begins shaking, you feel your hands curling and clenching, your breathing becomes shallower and fast, your vision begins to narrow and sound becomes less noticeable, and you feel the need to exert energy and force.
Many of us keep our emotions bottled up, afraid of judgement and the consequences that will follow if we act on our anger indiscriminately and lash out.
That’s where a Rage Room comes in!
A Smash room, a break room, a destruction room, whatever you want to call them, these rooms will allow you to safely explore these feelings that are commonly frowned upon in civilized society in a safe, controlled, and sanctioned environment.
Observations From A Rage Room Attendant
As a rage rooms attendant, I’ve seen a lot of different people enter the rage room for their own reasons. Many people, after getting everyone comfortable with the idea with breaking and destroying things, are initially visiting for a few reasons:
It’s a company team building experience.
A family or friend outing.
Are looking for novelty.
Celebrating something significant.
Going through a lot of stress and emotions.
Had been hurt, betrayed, or been through a break up.
After they pick their items, are suited up, given the safety rules, and put into the rooms, depending on the size of their party, it’s usually free game within their 30-45 minute time slot.
Some people are awkward and don’t put too much force behind their swings or throws that I tend to find a lot of things left unbroken that I can give to the next group to break.
Although, most visitors are military, so they fall into one of two categories:
They are either so efficient that they are in and out of the room in under 5 minutes, likely due to their efficiency and training, while others take their time and enjoy themselves after being on tour.
Then there’s those who are doing this for fun with friends and family, or people who are celebrating a huge win for their company and they actually like and enjoy their coworkers enough to do an outing, and or someone is leaving their company and this is a farewell gift(a pretty cool and memorable one in my opinion).
I’ve seen the people who have had their hearts broken. There is nothing more painful and rage inducing than hurt, pain, and loss. When they enter, some are willing to share that they’ve gone through a break up, they still have a smile or neutral expression on their face, but others you can tell only by the type of music they play when the room door closes. It’s pretty obvious and we can see their behavior on the cameras to make sure they’re doing okay.
Real World Examples In Action
I remember a group of women, three friends, came in because one friend was going through heartbreak. All three were extremely enthusiastic when in the room that I saw they were stomping on a CPU unit after being told not to in the safety briefing.
Fun can make people myopic, but they knew what they were getting themselves into and we made sure they didn’t do anything to really hurt themselves or each other.
Another visitor was a high school boy and his good friend. He was visiting because he was going through a break up, and from what the dad, and the boy’s choice in music, told me.
The second I heard, “Photograph, Thinking Out Loud, and Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, ‘I’m Not The Only One” by Sam Smith, “It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars, and other sad sounding love songs, I knew what was happening.
The Pro’s of A Rage Room
I may be a rage room attendant trying to endorse people to try something I work at, but I’ve seen the benefits of people taking their frustrations out with us than outside in the world. Besides novelty, a Rage Room:
Allows for safe and immediate release of anger and excess emotions: Why destroy things outside and get arrested, when you can do so someplace designed for this kind of release?
Accessible and low-commitment: Unlike therapy or martial arts gyms, you don’t have to commit to scheduled sessions. You can walk in, smash and scream, drink water, and leave and return whenever you want.
Provides cathartic support: You don’t have to talk, no one has to listen, it’s just you in a room with things to break, a few lead pipes and sledgehammers, and the world doesn’t have to bat an eye to you in that room. Except us employees. Whatever happens in the rage room, stays in the rage room(unless you’re recording on your phone).
What Are the Downsides?
The cons are just as important to know as the pros. They do make a difference if you want to give it a try or not, but it’s not always a make or break deal. Visiting a rage room isn’t always the best solution. A rage room:
Can be expensive: It’s a better investment than bail, but the money could be better used towards therapy or a martial arts classes.
It doesn’t address the root cause or emotion for the visit: rage rooms are meant to be fun, novel, and an outlet for sublimation, but it’s not a solution. Rage rooms can’t provide skills or strategies to deal with anger or excess emotions that professional help is better equipped to do.
It could reinforce destructive behavior: Ironically, though we do have repeat customers, a rage room might reinforce someone’s inclination to deal with their emotions through destructive means. I’m not suggesting that these repeat customers fall into this assumption, but people are interesting and might cling to this outlet as the only solution they can get.
Not readily available in your area: Rage rooms are a growing trend, but aren’t everywhere. My workplace is the only one in my state, so some people have to take a drive down or need a plane ticket over. It’s another reason to consider long-term and local alternatives instead.
Do Rage Rooms Have Anything Else?
Yes, as far as my job goes, Rage rooms do have other means of letting excess energy out. People don’t have to come in angry to enjoy the services my job can offer, though some people are usually in need of a different kind of release. One not catering towards destruction, rather one that’s more creative.
We have a Zen Lounge where people can relax, talk stories, and chill after a rage room session or before entering the Splatter Room.
A Splatter Room is an open paint room where you can shoot paint at the walls, the provided canvases, or each other with paint guns or the paint kits.
It’s a different and creative release some people appreciate instead of wanting to break things when they don’t feel compelled to.
We do provide safety gear: ponchos, eye wear, and boots to protect people’s clothes and eyes as best as possible, but friends and family make that difficult when fun’s involved.
Being creative can be just as cathartic as the rage room as it lets you be physical and you don’t have to care what you create, compared to painting a masterpiece or someone’s house.
What About The Overly Enthusiastic Individuals?
Some people have asked, other than what items they are allowed to bring to smash from the outside, if they could bring the person who hurt them in to smash. Other than an obvious, “no”, I’m able to suggest another alternative.
An Alternative To Rage: Martial Arts
I’ve done wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu prior to working at the rage room, so I suggest that people can visit a sparring gym.
Any gym that offers sparring:
Boxing.
Kickboxing.
Judo.
Muay-Thai.
Wrestling.
BJJ.
ANY MARTIAL ARTS GYM.
Any good gym will teach you new physical skills and how to ensure you keep a level head. Anger doesn’t make a person stronger, no matter how much of a fan of Dragon Ball Z or Naruto: Shippuden you are.
Those are animes; we don’t live in an anime where we’re the main characters with plot armor. I know this intimately and from experience that anger makes you sloppy, predictable, and a sore loser who refuses to learn or adjust their approach to the sport and to life.
True Strength Lies Within
I had spent more than 10 years wrestling with my anger. During BJJ training, I didn’t care what happened to me, I wanted to see what I could do. Even if that meant enduring some locks or chokes because I didn’t want to tap out and I wanted to see if I could get out. My personal motto was, “If I can talk, I’m still breathing.”
However, I’ve been dealing with emotional numbness for years that a professor at my gym told me some people, and himself, thought something was wrong with me.
That kind of hurt because that told me people thought I was damaged in some way and it showed in my training. I was eager to learn and use my wrestling experience to help me learn a new sport, but I needed to FEEL something, anything, because I struggled to that wasn’t anger. So, once being told this, I tried to tap more, but my habits always kicked in, unless something really did hurt.
My training would suffer when I got mad; I would be blind to the countermoves, to the opportunities to attack and defend. I needed more energy, and my trade off was horrible in the end.
I hated training, I hated myself, and that hate made it difficult to learn or pay attention to the lessons being taught, in BJJ and in life.
I would rather train and spar than deal with the real reasons for my anger, but I did it anyways. I needed to because doing nothing would have gotten me into real trouble. Then what? I’d be in jail and have that on my record for life, making a lot of opportunities impossible and out of reach than it already is for me.
Therapy wasn’t the best fit for me when I tried it, but I’m not averse to trying again. Money is kinda tight right now, so I’ve started taking notes, noticing any changes in myself and what could have caused it, setting boundaries, having standards for myself, while pursing new outlets at home and on a budget.
Seeking professional help, even learning new skills, to redirect anger through a sport or art is more powerful than anger ever could be. It takes more strength and courage to do the things that scare us and I know well that facing my own demons are terrifying.
I’ve been noticing that some places in my life ignite the rage I’ve been keeping under wraps. It emerges when I feel disrespected, looked down upon, or made a fool of because I’m not conventionally successful or in a position of authority. I’m just a grunt at my full time job and it drives me up the wall.
Anger and sublimation are signals, not long term solutions, and are trying to tell you that something is wrong. Don’t let it consume you because you might do something you could regret.
Reflection
Have you ever gone to a rage room for its novelty, creative outlet, or needed to break something that wasn’t going to hit you back? If you did, share your experience with 1 word that described what it was like or how you felt when you visited.
I’d love to know what your opinions on them are in the comments below. No pressure. No clickbait. Just curious. Thank you, Fellow Archivists, I’ll see you all in another post.
Call to Action
If any part of this resonated with you — the release, the rage, the quiet that follows after — consider sharing this piece with someone who might need a reminder that it’s okay to break before you rebuild.
Every read, like, subscribe, and share helps this small corner of the internet grow a little louder in a world that keeps trying to quiet us down.
Below are other reflections I had on feeling anger, redirecting it, not feeling enough, and doing something different.
My goals undergo a process; it often comes from a place of spontaneity: listing every curiosity and skill down on paper, researching the amount of time and resources I’m able to free up without forfeiting my current lifestyle or neglecting my current obligations, and doing a process of elimination.
More often than not, my plans are born from a place of mild obsession. I hate feeling small, weak, worthless, useless, and always at the mercy of someone else because of their “position/place of authority.”
To put it simply, I carry a few questions with me everyday. It scratches the surface of my awareness to the point I’m physically on auto-pilot, but mentally overstimulated and calculating:
How Much Time Do I Have Left?
How Many More Opportunities Do I Have Left To Explore?
How Many of My Curiosities Will I Be Able To Satisfy?
Will I Be Proud of My Life If I Stay Where I Currently Am?
These aren’t the complete list of questions, but they are the most important. I had spent the first 2 decades of my life hiding, playing video games to numb the pain, to hide the fact that I was not gifted with much skill, brains, or strength. I could easily acquire skills and experience quick in video games, unless you’re playing any FromSoft game, but I refused to do the same in real life.
I decided very recently to change my narrative, and it’s a hit or miss some days. Starting a blog was born from a long wish to write and share when I have no one who would sit and listen in person; I’m learning to code, despite having had an awful experience in university with zero exposure or knowledge prior, to be an opportunity to overcome self-imposed limitations; Allowing my mind to wander and become distracted often leads to adding fuel to my personal fire.
What Are My Reasons For Planning Things This Way?
My reasons for planning my goals this way is simple. I’m not striving towards pure freedom, some rules need to remain in place. I’m striving to reduce fear’s hold on me and to expand my options. To use my anger against myself, circumstances, other people that irritates me for something constructive.
How many of us are living life where our options are limited?
That is what I want, to expand my options, to release as much anger and rage as I can, one centimeter at a time. The goals I’m striving are for me, for where I want to go, who I want to grow into, and to experience things that I had denied myself and witness and be a part of as many things as I can. True freedom is to have options, instead of having no options and feeling powerless, small, useless,worthless, and a failure.
These are my goals, my struggles, my process, and my drive. Time is against me, it’s against all of us, and my self imposed deadline is fast approaching. 3 more years, I wonder what I’ll have accomplished by then. Only time will tell, and me!
For more of my writing and things I’ve been planning, you can check out my other articles below. Thanks!
Many words have been used to the point that hearing it provokes a visceral reaction. I know that I tend to feel myself: tense up, I feel a noticeable thumping hitting the front of my skull, I’m mentally rolling my eyes, and letting out a heavy huff. It’s the only way that I’m able to release the bubbling irritation boiling within me, before returning to emotional numbness, especially when I’m at work.
The few words or phrases that tends to get a rise from me, in the sense that I want to drop kick whoever is talking, are:
Can you go do X? (Either I’m already or about to do it, or the person asking bypasses more than half a dozen people standing around just to ask me? That’s infuriating.)
Have you seen so-so? (I’m not getting paid to babysit young adults, no. Go bother the people who’s supposed to be training the new hires.)
[S/he’s] not doing anything! (Have you EVER noticed you’re doing the same thing? It’s irritating, nothings going to change, just do your job and leave. Still working on taking my own advice too.)
I want to go home already. (Me too, but we have to finish sorting the freight, then we can leave. But that’s wishful thinking on good days.)
These are other words and phrases I can’t think of at the top of my head, though it does make me want to drop kick people, but it also depends on how it’s being said.
Think of it like this; we all have our preferences and it will differ from the people we know and don’t know, right? However, have you ever heard one person speaking and their voice is pleasant, soothing, and makes you want to listen more intently? Okay, keep that in mind.
Now, imagine the most irritating, nail scratching, metal grinding metal, and obnoxious sounding person you can muster and saying the words you absolutely despise and are repeating it over and over again until you start to think your ears are bleeding. That makes those overly used words even more difficult to tolerate.
There’s nothing that can be done about it, sadly, it’s another lingo, and the best I can do for myself is to tune everything out and do what I have to do. No matter how angry, bitter, and resentful I feel, no matter how much I want to drop kick people, I just have to exist and let go.
For more posts like this, I have a few recommendation below, and I’ll see you over in the next ones!
The majority of the prompts I’ve answered since starting my blog had asked similarly, but worded differently, questions, and I had mentioned doing some physical activity. Walking had been my most prominent answer, although it’s true, this brings me contentment.
Peace on the other hand is different; I’ve lived near the ocean my whole life and, as a kid, I’d used to have to be dragged out of the water to leave. Some people have a strong connection to the ocean: they care for it and in return the ocean would care for us. Not in the same sense as we would care for our family and friends.
One of my grandma’s younger brother had take shrapnel from a grenade blast when he served in the Vietnam war as a young man. He was on and off medication because the doctors couldn’t remove all of the metal in his body because it would have led to him bleeding to death, so they left the metal in his body. It was until their dad took him fishing one day that, when he was out on the water casting a line, his pain felt far away.
Whenever I used to go swimming, I would never stray too far from the shore, I would feel at peace in the water. The saltiness of the water would let me float on my back, fill my ears and everything would feel and sound muffled, sand would end of getting into places you’d never want them to be, and I would stare at the sky and let the current take me adrift.
Being in the ocean, among the sandy shores, that hasn’t been fully contaminated by myriad of sun screen or boat waste, has been healing for both body and spirit.
Even though I haven’t visited a beach in years, being in a hot bath provides a similar feeling the ocean used to bring to me. That feeling, though fleeting and stretched into infinity, was being able to let go and drift.
No need to go anywhere, no obligations to fulfill, no noise about being a failure or a success or a nobody or a somebody, just being. Just breathing. Just existing.
The sea has its rules and ignoring it would lead to disaster:
Never face your back to the water, else a rogue wave comes and drags you in.
Never fight against the current, go with it until the current calms and you can swim.
Take care of the sea, make it better than you found it, and it will care for you.
Letting go and drifting in the water had brought me peace. It made me wonder if this is what moving on would feel like when my time comes, but I won’t know until I get there. The next time you’re in a large body of water, or even a simple bathtub, drift on your back, close your eyes and let the water envelope you.
