emotional_maturity epitome of incomprehensibility Unblathed, eh? I'll fix that. Of course I'm the most qualified to tackle this topic, given that I threw my phone on the ground in frustration about two hours and forty-five minutes ago. Dad interrupted me as I was talking. I got mad and flung the phone towards the (luckily carpeted) floor in the library building atrium. I don't know who saw, but I felt ridiculous. I picked the thing up and apologized. I was the one to call him in the first place, complaining that an in-class writing assignment didn't go well because I couldn't finish what I'd planned to do in the intro. Because it wasn't officially an exam, I didn't have my 33% more time. Why do I need to rely on 33% more time? Life doesn't give you 33% more time. Stop repeating 33% more time. I started crying near the end of the class, but that's relatively normal for me. The thing is, I don't know when "not normal for the world in general" becomes a problem that I should apply expensive therapy to. Most of the time, I'm not visibly upset about things. It's just sometimes that my humanity is reduced to a whiny blob of annoyance or anger or unreasonable anguish. 240208 ... warmthofrelease The times I feel most angry with myself are when I feel like I've compromised my beliefs and ethics, that I've misrepresented myself, when I feel like a hypocrite, etc. I know we all have to compromise to some extent. I try to let things go and forgive myself as best I can. But the higher the stakes, the less I'm able to take it easy on myself. When it comes to the really important stuff, and I'm unable to be the good person that I want to be, that's where the inner_anguish comes from. Polyamorous relationships. "Open" relationships. Free love. It makes so much sense. It's such a healthier more open hearted more sustainable approach to life. Maybe 200 years ago when life expectancy was dramatically lower, when we were closer in evolution to a hunter-gatherer_species than what we've become since the_industrial_revolution, maybe then monogamy made more sense. Better get hitched and pop out a kid or 5 by the time you're 25, because you'll very likely be dead by 45. But this is a different time. We're in a place psychically and emotionally that a lot of us can afford to take for granted the most important things necessary for survival. The need for reproduction is in a different context for us now as a species than what it used to be. A very. Very. Different. Context. What's the point in only ever allowing yourself to love one person for the rest of your life? It just doesn't make sense. But it doesn't matter. There's still no way I can do it. And it's because of my emotional maturity. I can't even begin to explain what it's like to live with envy to someone who doesn't. It's like a permanent intoxication, it's an infection that lives in your heart. It's the thing that makes it seem ok to manipulate people or to disrespect their boundaries. It's where those thoughts come from. You know those ones that creep in. Thoughts like "I was hoping you two weren't happy together" or "if I was 6 inches taller I wouldn't half to try even half as hard" or "is she going to fuck every guy in this town except me?" The ugliest and nastiest parts of the human psyche, which will drive us to do the ugliest and nastiest things. The things that I don't want. The things that exist within me that prevent me from being what I believe in. Yes this includes bigotry as well. Yes this includes power lust as well. Yes this includes an obsessive need for control as well. And yes, naturally, it includes good old fashioned greed. So so much of it is born of or severely exacerbated by envy. But, I have to say. First of all that I'm not a lost cause. Maturity does require effort and time and, generally speaking, willpower and good faith. I'm getting better at managing my expectations, both of myself and others. I know in my conscious mind and in my heart that there is no excuse for things like slut_shaming or for holding someone's feeling against them or any of that garbage. All of it, across the board with no exceptions, is wrong. Even if I never allow myself to express those things, even drawing those conclusions within my mind and in my heart is still childish and toxic and wrong. I know that. And I know that even if there is disjunct between what I believe and how I feel, then there must also be disjunct between how I feel and how I behave. Because that's what matters. And just hope that the correct behavior will harden like lava into good habits and eventually into nature. That I might build my emotional maturity. I have to try, at least. BUT. I still also have to say...that maybe if I wasn't so god damn alienated and confidence-stripped and psyche-shattered and HUNGRY ...then I might not be so angry. 250324 what's it to you? who go blather from