I finished The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas the other day, and I found the ending I had forgotten, very startling. The closing words of this epic tale of revenge, were "...all human wisdom is contained in the words 'wait and hope!'" An unexpected reflection of the situations I was currently bound in.
I would like to have reflected further but without touching too much upon the story's plot (for those who should like to, and most certainly should read it still, I don't want to spoil it) but I have found that great discomfort I possess when touching any matters of association or criticism pertaining to works of literature, music, movies, great people, etc etc.
Why? It's that mindset of still being twelve years old which hems me back. I continue to labor under the belief that I am far too young to hold firm, rational, credible opinions or to even form them and have a right to speak them in public to others. Especially with the audacity that I have the right to them.
I am in constant fear of holding opinions and then having them shot down by haughty elders and being discredited because of my age. What is the use of holding opinions and forming criticisms, if they are all going to be "wrong"? It seems like an effort in futility... Anything formulated is going to be rejected immediately when my age and subsequent life experience is announced without an attempt to understand, explain aright, or correct. It's just a stupid kid. What will they understand? Why bother?
I do see huge flaws in my thinking. I have completely generalized the entire adult population, just as some will generalize the entire teenage population. Not every person fits under my rules. And my opinions are worth having. Even if I were ignored now, that wouldn't mean all my convictions and opinions and such would be wrong. And even if they were, I could learn from my errors... But when I do nothing, I learn nothing in any direction. I do not expand in any direction. My fears prohibit me and stunt my growth entirely.
So then I should get out there and change myself...grasp some opinions, and although I will not be emboldened to parade them as truth, I should form more solid opinions, so that I actually have right or wrong to refute and rebuild or...
Well, something like that. But it's much easier said than done. I guess it wasn't that long ago that I first talked about this, and yes, I know this is perfectly normal for me to go through, no big drama about it, but I haven't made a step of progress yet. Oh wait. That was only a couple weeks ago. I'm sorry...it keeps feeling like a hundred years shudders and cries out in pain as glimpses of memory flash in her eyes...too much has happened for... almost three weeks. Oh man, here goes my sense of time screwing up. It seems like such a very long time glancing by in a few brilliant seconds of malaise.
Let me move this back onto topic before I lose myself to certain reflections completely. This transition is being a lot harder than I originally thought. And it's hard because I know that despite how people would view me, and what they think of me, I am trapped in childhood, I am still a child in a small part, because of how I view myself. My view does have that small glimmer of negative truth. My viewpoint is stunting me...
Ahhh how many ways I did attempt to bring order to a disordered world, and how many of these attempts have proved to be my own prisons... I have gone about everything the wrong way... I was such an unwise, short seeing child...and perhaps a little too self important... I wouldn't trade those wrong decisions though to have an easier time of it now. I would never go back and warn myself. It would make a very different girl of me today. A very different girl...and I am not sure that it would have been different in a positive manner...