Everyone lives by a personal philosophy.
Some people believe that the world is getting worse, while others believe that it’s getting better. Some believe that people are inherently good, while others believe that they’re inherently bad.
Now that I’m 38, I’ve learned to cast a suspicious eye on those who believe that people are inherently bad. Personally, I don’t come home from the grocery store and think, “Ugh, humanity is awful.” Most people want to mind their own business and buy their pumpkin spice muffins in peace. Most people respond to positivity with positivity. Most people will smile when you make a crack about having to decide what kind of barbecue sauce you’re in the mood for. I’ve come to the conclusion that you definitely get back what you put out.
The caveat, of course, is that I’ve also learned that some people are just plain bad. They are selfish, mean, exploitative, and manipulative, and you absolutely cannot love them into being better. It’s important to learn discernment and recognize the red flags.
The reason why writing fiction is currently so hard for me is because my foundational philosophy was tossed upside down and I’ve been rebuilding it from scratch. What I wrote about above is something that I’ve been painstakingly piecing together over the last two years. Before, I was heavily indoctrinated with “people are generally bad,” and I had no clue how many of my negative social experiences were actually influenced by just one person. Remove that one person, and suddenly my social world is completely different.
Fiction relies heavily on personal philosophy. The question of what happens next and why is completely dependent on what the writer believes. So when my world was turned inside out, I lost the ability to decide what happens next.
It wasn’t just the question of people being good or bad. I no longer believe that marriage is sacred or that love is worth fighting for — people really shouldn’t be claiming ownership of other people, anyway. Someone can spend years proclaiming their undying devotion, then wake up one day and tell you that you’re too boring for them to tolerate so they’re filing for a divorce. And then what? You spent years holding fast to love and marriage only to have it casually tossed aside by the other person. So don’t feel obligated to hang on just because love songs sound pretty. You are not property, and you are allowed to leave situations that have you feeling drained, depressed, and powerless, no matter what the other person says about their emotions.
As a side note, I want to make it clear that I’m not in the “just leave” camp. I know perfectly well that leaving is a complicated and potentially dangerous course of action, post-separation abuse is real and oftentimes worse, and I do wish that society was more supportive of people who stay. Staying does not mean that the person condones their relationship.
I still haven’t figured out how people are supposed to interact and relate to each other. I like the idea of separate individuals coexisting in a shared sphere, but then everyone else is always talking about “needs” and I still haven’t wrapped my mind around that. Personally, my “needs” vanished when I no longer had the source of stress creating the vulnerabilities and emotional wounds. So I dunno. What is it that I’m supposed to be needing? Because apparently things like “personal space” and “autonomy” aren’t it.
I also take umbrage over the idea of someone approaching me and saying, “Hey, I like the way you look. Devote your life to my NEEDS.” Uh, no. I don’t want to.
That means that I don’t know how characters are supposed to interact with each other.
I keep asking myself, “What attracts people to each other?” as we have learned to cast a wary eye on qualities like “vulnerability”, “dependence”, or “compliance”. We won’t be doing any “she softened his cold heart” crap in the future, that’s for sure. Basically everything that I was told about what men want and how women are supposed to be since 2009 is right out the window. Goodbye and good riddance. That ain’t my circus anymore.
So lets subtract lovebombing, emotional wounds, patriarchal programming, and ask … what attracts people to each other?
🤷♀️
Beats me.
Hence why I can’t seem to write a novel about people meeting and choosing to interact with each other for longer than five minutes. While it’s one thing to have a number of pleasant acquaintances, close relationships are an entirely different beast.
By Autumn Rain 