It has been a very long time since I last updated this blog. That is because I use it as a way of artistically communicating my thoughts so that people can not only be engaged but can be carried on a journey through my thoughts, my imaginings and my emotions whether they be happy or otherwise. Honestly, nothing has inspired me enough to take this challenge on, these past few months. Until now. So y’all had better sit down, strap in your seat belts and prepare yourselves.

Before I begin, you must understand that I have an immense fear of confrontation. As well as this, if I am in a conversation where too many strong opinions are being expressed, I start to feel physically ill. When I was in grade 12, I had to leave my Study of Religion classroom because I felt so unwell from all of the feminist arguments being tossed about the place that I feared I was going to throw up. This is the level of discomfort I get to.

So anyway:

When you are like me, and you have differing views on many things, you get used to staying silent. Especially when you know every idea or concept you voice will just be crushed under a stampede of the standard ideals. Occasionally, however, in the hopes to bring back thought and fire to an otherwise one-sided and wildly repetitive conversation, you may make the mistake of voicing your thoughts. What then happens is the inevitable. The stampede. An innocent challenge-to-thought is seen as a direct and wounding blow to the other side. Is received as either condescending, misguided or in other (more wounding) cases, inferior and uneducated. Every time this happens, I get this feeling inside. It’s not anger. It’s not irritation. It’s not pain. It is simply emptiness. The kind of emptiness that reveals itself as disappointment. Disappointment because when you are placed in a situation that encourages talking and thinking and challenges, you are still forced to stay silent. Disappointment because no matter how hard you try to be respectful of everyone else, of their thoughts, of their beliefs, you know you are never going to receive the same back. Disappointment because you know that you have to pick the right time and the right place to pose these kinds of cognitive challenges but you also know that no one will ever be pleased with your selected time or place, no matter how seemingly reasonable. Disappointed because in a  moment of complete desperation to overcome the discomfort inside you, you do the one thing that will bring you to an even higher state of discomfort, opening every back door to every form of fear residing within the idea of confrontation.

It is one of the most crushing things to have my kind of analytical-mindset mixed with my heightened fear of confrontation. But at the same time, I suppose my fear is a blessing. Because from one bad experience to the next I am consistently reminded that it’s not worth it. My food for thought is not worth the trauma and the discomfort that its voicing brings. No matter how carefully I phrase something so that I can shape it later, if I have to, to make everyone else happy… No matter how much I sit back and analyse a situation before I even consider voicing a contrary thought… No matter how much discussion is encouraged, it is never worth it. It is never worth that crushing feeling. That loss. That discouragement. That complete and utter emptiness. The accusations that you are there to start an argument, to belittle someone else or to make some kind of point just to be contrary.

My ideas on many things are unconventional. My views on many things are vastly open, carefully justified and immensely understanding with regards to other, more conventional trains of thought. I suppose that is all that needs to be known. As long as people understand this, I need not move to specifics. And I know now, that I will do my best in every situation to avoid specifics. Because it is not my intention to judge nor to hurt. Nor is it my desire to be judged or to get hurt.

In typical Alice fashion, I will round this blog off with a nod towards the reason I started blogging in the first place. I have always said that there is brilliance in everything. The big, the small, the happy, the otherwise. I suppose there is brilliance in this too. Because as wounding as it was and, in fact, still is, I learnt something and I helped others to see something maybe a little bit differently. Even if it didn’t go too well, it was still an experience worthy of acknowledgement and further pondering. That, to me, makes it brilliant.

That is all from me
Be happy
Be thoughtful
Stay brilliant

– Alice