Studio shots

A friend of mine recently asked me to model for him for a photography exhibition at a camera store opening in Oxford Circus. It was kind of weird having people walking around and observing whilst you're standing there posing, but anyway, here are a couple of shots. 

ON: The ego.

EARLE

NB: Earle's original name has been altered in respect to privacy regulations.

There is a common dilemma in society, which one can not elude, manipulate or escape from. At some point, each and everyone of us will plunge into a nefarious darkness that often boasts a promising on-set, but is plagued with sorrow, desolation and and a deepened sense of expendability. Yep, you've guessed it. You fall in love. And by this, i'm not talking about that mushy cant-keep-our-hands-off-eachother-googly-eyed-puppy-dog love, i'm not talking about that 'we've been together for 18 years and in respect of that we'll probably get married' love, i'm talking about that dysfunctional, i-hate-you-but-i-love-you-cant-live-with-or-without-you love. I waver skittishly on the word love, because the truth is that it isn't love at all, it's something inexplicable. But what I can tell you is that it is completely self-inflicted, and it begins with a wounding to our truly unguarded ego. We subsequently enter a place which for all intents and purposes I shall herewith refer to as Earle (like Hotel Earle i.e. the worst place in the world. From Barton Fink -  "Hotel Earle is quite literally hell") 

All of us have been, or will go to Earle at some point in our lives. Usually, it is our first love that sends us to Earle, for this is when we are at our most vulnerable and impressionable. I, like every Earle survivor out there, can tell you this. Earle is a morbid, self-loathing place. Somber and terribly grim. It is characterised by a desire for solitude, a general lethargy, an indefinite TV coma for lack of wanting to leave the house, a 7-day pyjama cycle, an in depth and maddening analysis of every interaction that took place with you and the person who sent you there, a loss of friendships and general social interaction, and in it's most severe cases, unemployment. Earle will hands down be the worst time of your entire life. Anyone who has been to Earle will be reading this with an accidental smirk pulling up at the sides of their mouths thinking "Yeah, I'm familiar with that motherfucker." and the thing about it is that the only way out, is through. Once you're out of Earle, however long it may take, the only justifiable reason for your return should be death of spouse. One might even say "Send me to Earle once and it's shame on you, send me to Earle twice and it's shame on me." But here is the crux of my argument. The most poignant point about one's time in Earle is this. During their stay, they should learn something very important. Something imperative to their well-being. Something remedial. Something that will shake them, break them down, tear them up and rebuild them again. Something that will not only change the way they look at other people, but also the way they look at themselves. Something that will ensure they never take the path that leads to Earle again. And that is - the recognition of the *reason* they are in Earle.

This could take weeks, months, years and many heartbreaks to identify. But luckily for you, you have me to give you the answer, so as long as you pay close attention to everything I'm about to tell you, you may just bargain yourself a one way ticket out of Earle, and better yet, a complete embargo of it's entire terrain. It's almost like skipping death. By the time you've finished reading this, I expect you to be mentally in a place so far away from Earle, that when it's daytime where you are, it's nighttime in Earle. When you wakeup in the morning, Earle is getting ready for bed. It'd take you AT LEAST a 24 hour flight to get to Earle, with multiple layovers. In fact, the distance between you is so far that you're ageing at different rates.That's how far I can get you from Earle, if you pay attention. IF, however, you do not heed my seasoned counsel, I shall await a postcard. 

So let's get right into it. 

The reason we are wounded so deeply, enough to send us to a place as antarctic as Earle, is 9 times out of 10 because the person we lust does not feel the same. Either that or, they do feel the same but they just keep hurting you. They use hurtful words towards you, they break your trust time and again and they never learn from their mistakes. They promise you everything and deliver nothing. They awaken your love with no intention of loving you. But would somebody who sincerely loved you, hold you in such disregard? For the 1/10 of you who are in Earle because your families are of different religions that prohibit interracial marriages, you can piss off. This post is only for those who had the courage to take life by the cahonas and desperately plunged into something they wanted, but were bitch-slapped in the face with rejection. You poor fuckers can keep reading. 

So we've established - you'll usually find yourself in Earle because said lover does not love you back. Therefore, what we know of the situation thus far is two-fold:

1. We can be certain of how we feel, knowing they do not feel the same.

2. We can NOT be certain of how we may have felt, had they felt the same.

So mathematically speaking, on an X=Y basis, we can say that we love ONLY because we are not loved. Yet, we can never be sure of our feelings if we were. And thus I arrive at my cardinal estimation. The trigger of our love was not their breathtaking smile, their glistening eyes, their devotion to us in equal measure, their witty conversation or their sensual touch, the trigger of our TRUE, maddening love was a sledge hammer to the heart. So why is it that when we are hurt, we love the most? I will tell you why, because we do not love them at all. We love OURSELVES.

That is the first, and greatest glimpse into your omniscient truth.

That is your key to the Forte-Knox of understanding. 

That is your proverbial green-card to the America of Happiness. 

All of us are born with an ego, but people often attribute the ego to qualities that are associated with arrogance and social standing, they fail to recognise it's importance in how we learn to love.  The greater bearing we place on our egos, the more defensive we become when it's bruised. The more gravely we seek to be valued, the greater will be the attachment we forge with the sole thing that collapses that image. This is why: when somebody inadvertently tells you that they do not like you, you either take it in your stride, or you bequeath your power to them. You let your ego roar like a lion and convince you that you are in a position of subservience. In your distorted perception, the person that does not like you has fundamentally pitted themselves above you, since they obviously like themselves, so why do not they not like you? What is missing in you that is found in them? In your mind, you ego has told you that you no longer have any meritorious qualities, this must mean they have many (to have noticed the lack of yours.) Your ego tells you are unlikeable, this must mean they are loveable (to have noticed your unsavoury taste.) Your ego tells you you are ugly, this must mean they are beautiful (to be able to compare themselves to you.) Your ego tells you you are stupid, this must mean they are intelligent (to have noticed how stupid you are.) Your ego tells you you are inferior, this must mean they are better than you (for having held you in lesser regard). And there you have it, you see what I did? I just explained to you, in laymen terms, how your ego convinced you to fall in love with somebody with a plethora of righteous qualities - that you invented for them. To put it bluntly, you fell in love with yourself. 

Have you ever thought about what you THINK you're in love with anyway? All the amazing moments you DIDN'T have? all the wonderful and thoughtful things they DIDN'T do for you? All the times they WEREN'T there for you when you needed them? All the times they let you down? And yet you sacrificed everything and everyone in your life for them. It's amazing how blind we can be sometimes. It's enlightening to unearth how many toxic seeds we grow in ourselves.  

This is why you often hear men talking of their ex's who left them, flaunting her picture and saying "look how gorgeous she is!" meanwhile you're furrowing your brows, holding the iphone at an angle, double tapping to zoom, trying to see what he sees. This is why you hear women talking up men who don't love them back, who treat them like crap, claiming they have all the talent in the world, and yet the rest of us are having a hard time trying to see it. 9 times out of 10, it was her ego that bestowed that talent to him. We do not really love the people we think we love, we are just so egotistical that we can not accept somebody inadvertently pitting themselves above us. It makes us feel worthless and inferior, so our defence mechanism cheats us into thinking we are in love, for we would sooner love somebody than hate ourselves. Our bodies are clever. This is how you find yourself stumbling clumsily into Earle, like a drunkard on Christmas. Moving ever in retrograde. Spending countless nights wondering why they did this to you, never realising that in fact you did it to yourself. Nobody can send you to Earle without your own consent, unless of course you are blindsided by your own signature on the acclamation. Your ego is the worst inside job since the Watergate scandal.

Now that you have learnt the truth about your conceited ego, I shall proceed with the cornerstone to my cerebral literature. In order to stop future vacations to Earle, in order to ensure you never again love the people that only hurt you, it is crucial to learn how to disengage from ones ego. How to ascend from ones ego. The ego is an unhealthy entity. It is the biggest internal assailant. What's worse is that it keeps feeding you poison until you grow so delicate that you submit to it's every whim. You become disillusioned. We can not love ourselves THIS much. There has to be an internal strength that takes every beating and undermining with a humble certainty. If you value yourself highly enough, a bruise to your over-inflated ego will not be the end of you, so long as you recognise it's voice the next time it whispers sweet nothings into your ear. If you can uproot yourself from your ego, if you can learn to walk away from whom-so-ever brings you down, with a certainty so great that nothing can impeach on your value, such that nobody can make or break you, you will walk free of the shackles of Earle. And you will learn to build and attract a pure love that is entirely disentangled from the savage ego. This is the type of love that lasts a lifetime, because when we remove the rose-tinted glasses, we can truly fall in love with another persons authentic and concrete qualities, and not the ones we've invented for them.

All that being said, people learn only from experience, not from reading blogs. And they will do what they will anyway. So in light of this, I have devised two quick and expert tips on how to best survive Earle.

1. You don't.

2. See 1.

Entitlement

Entitlement is a strange thing. It is born of the expectation that comes with trust. When we trust, we relinquish a certain part of ourselves, in the belief that whomever receives it will handle with care. Since we have relinquished ourselves in part, and yielded our nuances somewhat, we believe that we are obliged to receive something in turn. Whether it be love, time, affection or attention. This is the unwritten code of trust, it is shrouded with entitlement. Upon entering into any relationship, there exists a pre-consented protocol that ties us by default. It quietly states that I here-forth, give you, say, loyalty, and in return you give me, say, time. I got your back when you need an alibi and you got me when I need a wingman. I hold your hair back for you while you puke, and you dry my tears when I cry. A tit for tat, if you will. But the problem is that most of these details are in the small print. And nobody ever reads the small print. So when does entitlement go too far? At what point are we asking for more than we should?

The demise of almost every relationship i've witnessed fall apart, be it friends, family or lovers, has almost always been predicated on an entitlement disarray. For as long as a relationship thrives on give, take, give, take, give, take; at some point the cycle will collapse and form a give give give, in which, when not met by a take will almost certainly inspire an end. Because you can bend over backwards for someone, but there is only so far back you can bend, and only so long you can stay bent. But the question arises here - are we even entitled to receive in return at all? The truth is, quite frankly, no. We are not. And the sooner we come to terms with this, the sooner we can enjoy fruitful relationships that do not incur charges of entitlement. The truth is, what we give to people, whether it be our time, love or money, we can not give with the hope that it will be returned. Instead, we must be wise enough to judge whether giving those things will ultimately be worth our while. Whether we are investing well or just acting foolishly. If we emotionally invest in something, with even the slightest premonition that it  is a waste of our time, then we can only blame ourselves when we are proven right. Do you see my point? We can not unleash our anger on those who we have coerced into carrying the burden of our extravagant demands. We can only hope that in the rarest and most precious cases, what we have invested will rewarded in a mutual affinity. And if not, then we will tighten our emotional purse strings. Some of us may need a backhand to heed this advice. 

My point: Don't take it out on the person you love for not loving you, take it out on yourself for foolishly investing so much into somebody who never had any intention of loving you. BE WISE.

This begs the question, however, what if we were deceived into thinking our investments would be returned? As is often the case, what if somebody promised to love us, and they did not? what if somebody promised us loyalty and they let us down? It's fair to say this is often the case, however this just calls for a more strict observation of behavioural characteristics. Or even a wider eye into our own intuition. The truth is, people rarely ever *really* surprise us. Of all the instances somebody has truly let you down, it's a very VERY rare occurance that you'd have been *truly* shocked by their actions. Deep down we always know who is going to hurt us. From the very beginning. In fact, often we are waiting to be hurt. Expecting it. But it is embedded so deeply in our subconscious that it is often disguised as the opposite. An unwarranted trust. This is the only way we can suppress the little voice inside of us that is telling us that the one person who we want most not to hurt us is going to do that very thing. Instead, we tell ourselves 1000x times over that this is the person who will give back to us what we give them. We entertain this perplexing notion that we can walk around throwing our investments at whomever tickles our fancy and they ought to throw back. We make ourselves believe it. Then, when the inevitable happens, we act surprised, confused, dumb-founded and hurt. But if you've ever really sat down and had a conversation with your soul, you will have realised that almost every single time, you knew it was coming. We know it is our own misgivings that often lead us to misery but we are too precious to punish ourselves, so we seek blame outside ourselves. 

One of the problems with believing that you are entitled to someone's love is that, the more you voice it, the more responsibility you put on them to love you. It should never be a responsibility. Be it a friend or lover, you must never ask somebody for love, for if it is not given freely, it is not worth having at all. Demanding time, affection and attention is useless since those are the things indicative of a persons feelings towards you. Use it as a gage, if you're not receiving these things, they probably don't want to give them to you. So why do you think you are entitled to something that is not fuelled by any desire to invest in you? Do you even want to stake a claim in those dysfunctional gratifications? I've come to learn that the less you demand of somebody, the more people want to give to you. Because all of a sudden, investing in you becomes natural. it becomes free of entitlement and free of a stigma. It is easy and there are no consequences. Once you add consequences to a persons dedication, you are likely to evaporate it. 

I think marriage is the biggest culprit for cases of serial, bogus entitlement claims. And this is why divorce is not as rare as it should be. We fall in love and we dedicate our entire beings to another single, sole entity. And in exchange we expect all those things back, to compensate the pieces we gave up. It seems fair, in theory. Once again, it SEEMS fair. But as we all know, that is generally not how things tend to play out. Once again we fall back into this cycle of give and take, until somebody breaks the cycle. The trouble is, if one person keeps giving without complaint, the other party will become complacent and learn that they do not need to give back in order to keep the relationship alive. So what does one do in this scenario, claim a stake in their entitlement to the other party's love? List all the things they've done and complain about how they have yet to receive a thing in return? No. You do not do those things, do you know why? because you are NOT ENTITLED TO ANY OF THOSE THINGS. THAT is the truth. Love is not born of entitlement. It is born of a free heart. The only thing you CAN do, and the only wise thing TO do, is to quietly remove yourself from the situation. Allow the cycle to break naturally. If the love is real, without you having to do a thing, the cycle will naturally restore itself. In fact, you will probably appropriate a few takes out of the fear you evoked when you left; and just to regain the balance. If you get nothing, even after you've taken yourself out of the situation, LEAVE. Do not cry, beg, cheat, scream and accuse; JUST LEAVE. You do not owe them a heart-felt explanation since you're not owing each other anything any more at this point. Not everybody deserves your emotional sincerity. That person has made it abundantly clear that they do NOT care about you. Have enough self worth to know that, although you are not entitled to anything, the person who truly loves you will give you everything without batting an eyelid. If you want something pure, leave your unsophisticated demands at the door before you next step into something that could potentially serve you both lucratively.

I've seen people send themselves to the darkest pits of depression over entitlement. I had a friend who got caught up in a murky situation with a guy. He mistreated her gravely and then told everybody she was lying about it. I saw my friend get very desolate over the matter, and she slipped deeper and deeper into a dark depression. I remember one night, when we were having an emotional heart to heart, I asked her, "what would make you get over this?" and she said to me, simply, "an apology." Her entire mental well being was dependant on this one apology, which more than likely, she was never going to get. She believed she was entitled to an apology, and her persistence with that entitlement saw her own self destruction. First of all, pinning your sanity on the will of another person is the first step to self-destruction. To depend any of your personal outcomes on another being is fatal. The truth is, to stay sane we must learn not to fully depend on anybody. But to build fruitful relationships we must depend on each other somewhat. It is a delicate balance that one learns to tread with age. Everybody has a bottom line. A place in ourselves that we will never surrender to another living being. It is called worth.

One of my favourite quotes to use is "accept and don't expect." It can be applied to any situation. You just have to ACCEPT the circumstance, as is, and do not EXPECT anything from it. Once we drop all of our expectations and entitlements, suddenly we become mentally and spiritually emancipated and able to move forward freely. 

Nothing good can ever come of entitlement, whether we receive the love we believe we are obliged to or not, the point is that it is not received willingly and therefore it is useless to us. It is wise to suppress the ego, that seeks desperate validation from giving and not receiving, and worthwhile to remember that only 'UN-ENTITLED' love is worth receiving. Because if somebody gives you something, not because you're expecting them to, but just because they want to, the answer to every question you've ever had lies there within. 

- Elica Le Bon November 22nd 2013

Time

Tick tock tick tock tick tock. All I ever hear is tick tock tick tock tick tock. My clock is so loud. I love that. I love the sound of time passing. It puts things into perspective for me. I don't often hear it, because the human brain can not focus on one particular thing when met with 1000 tasks, but when I sit still, it is loud. Deafeningly loud. Every time i hear a tick, i picture a gigantic hour glass with my name written on it. My life. Every tick is another grain of sand falling. Another second of my life that I will never get back. You'd think this would motivate me to get up and do something. but no. Quite the opposite. It inspires me to be still. And in the stillness all i want to do is listen to the falling sand and not wonder too much about it. Instead just to let it fall. Let it slip away. Because it will do that, whether i wonder or not. So I revel in the stillness. There is something so majestic about stopping. People always tell us to work and never stop until we get there. But get where, exactly? Ignorance is blinding. Every time we get to where we want to be, we find another goal to reach, until we die. Every goal seemingly more urgent than it's predecessor. How is that? It is so because we are too stupid to realise this pattern, so we just keep chasing our tails. 

Getting there is not unique. It will never be unique. There will always be a 'there' to get. And we will always get there. Because we are humans and we are slaves to our egos. We let society propel us into something we do not even understand, yet we continue to linger aimlessly despite our oceans of dubiety. We do not ask questions because we know there are no answers. So we just float through time in a random sequence of: trying, hoping for an eventual: getting. we will always want more no matter how much we get. We don't even truly know what we want, but we absolutely must get it. Because we can not undo so we must compensate through gain. If time could speak and generously bestowed us the choice of moving forwards or backwards, i wonder how many of us would travel back. I'd politely ask time if I could just have a little peak, if that's okay. I'd like to see what i looked like 20 mistakes ago. If time was not so hell-bent in its rigid quest forward, I would certainly be inveigled by her plethora of cardinal points. That being said, in the absence of time, we can appreciate the majesty of stillness. Stopping is exhilarating. Silence is melodic. An ocean without waves is hauntingly beautiful. Silence has more power to destruct and redeem than do any thousands of loquaciously strung together words. Let that permeate for a moment. The world of time has never compelled you to do anything extraordinary. Our brightest moments are alight only in the lack, thereof. Not wanting for anything but what you have is nirvana. Brief as that moment may be. Let that permeate. Living in the moment does not have to be bungee jumping, cliff diving and telling people that you love them. Living in the moment is also just a heightened sense of awareness that we are, in fact, alive, in the moment. In THIS moment. The moment that is passing me by. 

And there it went. 

They say time is running out. I'd like to hear how it sounds when it's running, if that's okay. We live in a world of earnest people who live, work and die. We are pushed and pushed until we have our backs against the wall, and there, stuck in between a rock and a hard place, is the precise moment that we are judged. And then we torture ourselves with the mentality that we absolutely must press forward, in all manners of urgency. Please tell me, how urgent exactly is that? We are not in a hurry to go anywhere but Heaven. They say time is your worst enemy. They talk about the mountains of human potential, were we not handicapped by time. But i disagree. Time is the only thing that has been consistent with you, that has never lied to you or deceived you. Time has always been honest about how much of itself it lends to you. Time has never given you 23 hours by mistake. Or because it doesn't love you any more. What we have made of time, and what we will make of time is predicated on our own misgivings. They say if you misuse time, you will never make it. Make it where, exactly? That place is just this place with a different point of view. Success is mentality. Happiness is arbitrary. So on that note, what if in this exact moment, i am exactly where I want to be - but I'm just too stupid to realise it. What, then? Am I even capable of understanding what I truly want, or am I ruled by my vicious ego? I can not delineate the capacity of my mind, but i can be certain that it is bound by a number we created to calculate our limitations. An IQ. Huh. Would you look at that. They're putting numbers on intelligence now. How many more intangible things are we going to quantify, just to satiate a need for hierarchy? I thought only time was impeding our greatness, but thank you very much for those glass ceilings. We've created a society where our greatest limitations have been placed unto ourselves. Alas, we have become slaves in their penitentiary, since we are too afraid to find out what is beyond them. But I think ultimately we must learn to accept that in this lifetime we are incarcerated by time and ceilings. And we can not outsmart either. So we must learn to build a life within their confinements. And so, as humans do, we will mindlessly build cities and sky scrapers under these ceilings. And that is okay. Because we are limited in our intelligence. But what is absolutely necessary is that for some moments in our lifetime, we do not submit to the will of time, and pause to gaze at what is beyond that which is beyond us.

- Elica Le Bon - 23rd October 2013

The Race of Life

I whole-heartedly believe in the unequivocal concept that every human being is born at the start of something which I call ‘the race of life.’ This ‘race of life’ (which for practical purposes I shall hereby refer to as ROL) begins the second a person is born, and finishes at the height of ones success. The endpoint to all one has struggled in life to achieve, that point where one can look down at his feet and realise the world is at it. Every one of us is born at the start of this race and every one of us, in equal measure, has the ability to reach the finish line. There are a million different routes to get there, and we have a million options before us, guiding and willing us towards that end - like a magnetic force from the universe pulling us towards what we deem as our destiny. There are, however, external variables which impinge on our perception of our capacity to reach it. 

Despite the fact that our birth places us firmly in the same continuum which levels us equally at the start of the race, we are not holding hands whilst uniformly jogging at a leisurely pace towards the same destination. Of course, due to variability in character, personality and desires, we are all running at different speeds towards different ends. Success, however, and our perceptions of the end of ROL are completely subjective, and are measured by our own assessments. For example, if my friend, ‘Sarah’ believes that her sole purpose in life is to produce plastic cups and observe them as they progress down a factory conveyor-belt, that then, is the end to her ROL. Regardless of how another measures this level of ‘success’. My personal ambitions may impeach on her self-evaluation, because they are greater or slighter than her private agenda of ‘success’, but it is ultimately the recognition of her own potential that determines the end of ROL for her. If that is forgotten, then we once again sit awkwardly on the side lines of the race and are no longer a part of it. 

Some of us have an easier means of sprinting ahead in the ROL, and quite possibly gliding through it without turmoil or discord, depending on certain variables. For example, some are born into families of the upper echelon of society, which can mean a more seamless transition into success and fortune, pertaining to nepotism and other such advantages. Luck is also quintessential to getting the leg up that we are all strive towards, and a thousand other reasons that divide us infinitely in the ROL. The point is, however, that we are all capable of reaching that end, regardless of the means and irrespective of a starting shove in the right direction, but some of us just have to work a lot harder to get there. 

There is no such thing as being exempt from the race. This can only occur if one fathoms the notion of ‘can’t’. ‘Can’t’ is a myth that has been circling human minds for as long as we came into existence, and is one of the greatest factors contributing towards failure. Developing the notion of ‘can’t’ ultimately renders one inept and life is promptly summoned to throw you off course. It’s easy to assume there was an obstruction waiting at the next turn, but much harder to grapple with the idea that you put it their yourself. The theory of ‘can’t’ is often concurred through the demoralizing process of comparison. One compares themselves to somebody who stands successfully at the endpoint of their very same destination, realises they have not emulated that route verbatim, and then throws their hands up in the air and says ‘I give up.’ There is no such thing as the same road to the same destination. There are too many millions of variables in life to possibly recreate the same exact scenario for two different people. There are, instead, a million different roads to the same destination, each as legitimate as the other, each uniquely and inimitably designed for a specific individual, and a billion of them lay before you. The second you begin to doubt the road that you’ve been sweating, bleeding and crying on for so long, you quickly fabricate this debasing notion of ‘can’t’, thus rendering you tersely out of the race and back to square one. How is it possible to meet the end of the ROL when you don’t even see yourself as a part of it? The only means of pushing forward and unto that end is to keep believing that your road will take you there. 

‘God’ and ‘fate’ are also two common culprits which universally encroach on our esteemed opinion of ourselves. Namely, these fatuous ideas are used to satisfy a disconcerting belief that some of us were born inferior and are lesser configured for success. Conceding that you are not designed for success is most certainty an easy option, because it eliminates you as the sole custodian of your own fate, and positions it comfortably into a celestial being. This effectively exonerates you of the responsibility of blame and creates a suitable forum for apathy and redundancy. We concede that being unproductive is okay because we don’t know any better, and are incapable of being better. This endorsement in lavish idleness begins as a small pond that eventually streams into an ocean of regret. It’s never too late or too soon to get back into the race, but there is no end in sight until we believe there is, in fact, an end in sight. 

There are many people who have been indisputably successful in life, for richer or poorer. There is only one thing separating these people from those of a lesser fortune, and that’s perseverance. Nothing ever has, and nothing ever will come close to the sheer importance of perseverance. Being thrown off the track is a blunder, but you get back on it. The longing to give up will never recede but you carry on anyway. Because that is the definition of perseverance. Ultimately, it is the power of the mind and its ability to stay on track which determines whether or not we do just that. Whether we action our thoughts and continue to the finish line or stop believing and drop out. There are only two options in life, to continue, or to quit. There are only two outcomes in life. To succeed, or to fail. Make your choice. 

- Elica Le Bon - January 2nd 2010

The good, the bad and the ugly.

I have learnt, in life, that there are people who will always do their best to put others down in the hope of feeling like a bigger person. This, however, is motivated by a crippling insecurity driven by their own deficiencies. The comforting thought, here, lies in the moral victory we own in just knowing that these people will never be half as great as those who they so profusely disparage. 

In trying to bring us down, it seems they better serve to make us stronger, because in some strange way we can seek solace in the fact that, had they not been so threatened by our capabilities, the danger that we might just have a good opinion of ourselves would not have bothered them so imposingly. This, then, becomes their biggest burden of all - how do we manage to feel so secure in ourselves, since they failed so miserably in their endeavour to follow suit? 

When I think about all the hurtful things they said and the way they tried to make me feel so small, i am, at first, burdened by a seething rage. Subsequently, however, I question what kind of impact they really managed to achieve at the end of it all. I suppose I can say that I learnt three things from this experience.

1. Most (but not all) people are never really who they say they are
2. Everything they try to make you believe about yourself is very often a far cry from the person you really are. 
3. All their spiteful allegations are, ironically, an uncanny reflection of everything they are.

Further to this, it soon became clear that those who adhere to these opprobrious qualities never really have the privilege of making any real friends in life, if any at all. This is simply because their irrational suspicion prohibits them from dropping their guard for anyone, coupled with their inability to recognise the beautiful qualities of their counterparts without feeling some contempt toward them.

Some of them become fanatical in their hatred. They attempt to gather a heard of sheep to indoctrinate with the same ugly thoughts that consume them, espoused by a resentful, black heart. Some, the smart ones, are aware of this from the onset, and listen with indifference for the sake of sheer amusement. These are the wise ones who learn by making second-hand experiences serve their own educational purposes. Others, however - the weak ones - allow their minds to be warped as they succumb to this heinous manipulation. These people I do not hate, but merely feel sorry for, as they are unaware that, at some time or another, they will too become a victim of the same malevolance, because those people that they so unquestionably respect and admire do not reciprocate this appreciation, simply because it is not conducive to their nature to hold anybody else in high esteem.

I think, in life, the great people will never need their self perception to be reinforced by others, and that is why they are so immune to negativety and always perservere unfazed. Even if they are oblivious to all their beautiful qualities at first, it will eventually become clear why they suffered so much for the sake of appeasing to somebody elses crippling insecurity. 

To retaliate, however, would be to succumb to this insecurity and be seduced by their taunts. This, I have learnt, is a futile approach in the grand scheme of things, as we would simply be supplying the ammunition they so desperately hanker after. Words will never suffice. When, however, we fulfil our dreams and become everything they denied we could ever be, when we confirm in practice everything they refuted in theory, that, then, is the sweetest revenge of all. The type that does not even require our own acknowledgement or recall, but forever haunts them for the sheer realisation that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong all along. 

 - Elica Le Bon - 21 Mach 2008