A Rat Pushed Into A Corner

And that's exactly what I am. Some certain things recently have made me realize this in a painful way, as the result of which my trust on people has reached its all-time low. I'm tired of all bullshit (certain) people pour on me. I'm at the moment totally prepared to take on any attacks from those people, any muck-throwing, and it's getting on me. That has made me reach again some more unpleasant parts of my personality. A rat in a corner will attack, it has no other recourse. It is not a nice or a cool or a well-behaving creature; its only goal is survival which exceeds everything else.

I am aware of the fact that there is a lot of repressed rage and aggression in me which I have learned to keep in control somehow -- but just don't push me. And unfortunately I'm a sort of person who, once hurt or insulted, will never forget and finds it very hard to forgive. I hope this doesn't sound like I have a need to justify my actions or defend myself, or to make myself a blameless victim, because I'm far from innocent myself. I just do my best (but do I succeed?) to get out of these vicious circles (or you might call it "bad karma", if you're inclined to believe in that sort of thing) -- which might mean endless escaping and running away from a lot of people and situations.

There are moments in life when situations just seem to reach some sort of boiling point, and things are not plain everyday pleasant and nice any more. Suffice it to say that the foundations of pHinnWeb and pHinn himself are more fragile than you would like to believe, and behind that facade some very ugly and scary things are going on all the time.

A tightrope walker survives only because he doesn't look down, doesn't think about the abyss beneath him, just goes on. Let me tell you that I've just glimpsed into that abyss, and my options now are: keep walking or fall. I'm sorry that this is very vague and I can't explain it any further, because I'm aware that the situation would only get worse if I made any more noise about it than I already have.

Last night one person was kind enough to tell me that I will go down to history. Well, that really doesn't matter to me now. I don't consider myself a self-destructive or suicidal person (any more), but at the moment I'm not really afraid of dying, even if I had to leave this mortal coil just now. That would mean several (grandiose? lunatic?) plans unrealized, like an unfinished symphony (heh), but unfortunately that's life for many people, anyway. I don't know about my place in history; perhaps there will be some sort of footnote in some cultural history written in the future, but it's not my task to conjecture about this. I am well aware that I live only on borrowed time, time which may run out just any moment. This realisation and understanding make me the person that I am.


From Richard Wilhelm's and Cary F. Baynes' translation of I Ching: Or, Book of Changes" - hexagram 30, "The Clinging, Fire":

Nine in the third place means:

In the light of the setting sun,
Men either beat the pot and sing
Or loudly bewail the approach of old age.
Misfortune.

"Here the end of the day has come. The light of the setting sun calls to mind the fact that life is transitory and conditional. Caught in this external bondage, men are usually robbed of their inner freedom as well. The sense of the transitoriness of life impels them to uninhibited revelry in order to enjoy life while it lasts, or else they yield to melancholy and spoil the precious time by lamenting the approach of old age. Both attitudes are wrong. To the superior man it makes no difference whether death comes early or late. He cultivates himself, awaits his allotted time, and in this way secures his fate."