Turkey and rice soup.

“So here's a fascinating thing about death I hadn't really thought about~!”

“Okay.”

“I don't think most people can really think about it.”

“...well that was quick conversation. I'm going to go back to making dinner.”

“Wait wait, there's more to this!” Remilia attempted to keep his attention. “People in reality can't really imagine death.”

“How so?”

“I mean, as people by nature are pretty selfish, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“We are sentient of our own existence. We can't stop thinking about us, alive and being here in the moment. We can't separate ourselves from it. So death is just us ceasing to exist.”

“Unless you believe in some sort of afterlife.” the author said.

“That's a load of hooey.” she sneered. “I grew up in a Christian community, I was FED this garbage.” She refocused on the discussion. “What do we imagine death as? Black? Nothingness? The pearly gates? All of this stuff is flawed, it's still something to imagine. We as humans... can't really imagine what it's like not to exist because by design we're always conscious of existing. We can't really cease all thought and VROOM, that's what death is like. We can't really think about what happens when death occurs because it just stops for us, and that is a level of nothing that we can't comprehend.”

“...this sounds like a discussion you'd see on Reddit.” The author sounded exasperated as he spoke.

“And this brings us to where we're at today!”

“Which is?”

“Why is the thought of not existing so enticing to you when you can't even imagine it?”

“Because existing hasn't worked out.”

“I mean it's had its perks, right? You've met some good people, played some good games, had some good food~.”

“Got laid.”

“Let's not talk about that, Pa.” Remilia reconstituted herself. “But the fact of the matter remains... you've been thinking about this a lot lately, haven't you.”

“The thought of suicide is always hovering around, let's be honest. I don't think it's going to go away.” he said.
“...so this is where we're at, huh.” She sounded tired.

“Don't give me that. You've been around long enough to know that it's never really left.”

“...I know, Pa.” The author was in the kitchen preparing dinner while Remilia laid on the couch, her feet kicking up in the air while she stared at him upside-down.

“Pa there's a bullet hole in the couch.” She was looking at the corner of the middle cushion.

“I'm aware.”

“You can't own guns for another year.”

“I'm aware.”

“Why is there a bullet hole in the couch?”

“It was there when we bought it.”

“You aren't lying, are you?”

“I'm not. It was there when we bought it.”

“Hmm.” She didn't know what to say. The monster was in the room again, its grip on the author tightening and she couldn't get it to let go.

“...you okay today?” she asked.

“No.”

“...okay.” Rhythmic knocks against the cutting board filled the room. “There's nothing anybody can do right now, I guess.”

“Pretty much.” She sighed at the response. She stared at the ceiling a bit while silence enveloped the room. Brief glances of sunlight made their way through the clouds in the sky and the closed blinds in the living room.

“...it's nobody's fault.” she said.

“I know.” he responded.

“You told them it was their fault.”

“I know.”

“You want to burn bridges, don't you?”

“Probably.” His brevity wasn't giving her an opening. Remilia sighed and turned onto her stomach and continued to watch the author's back in the kitchen.

“The less people around, the less people to guilt you into not doing it, huh?” The author said nothing. “I mean I get it, it's not like they were doing you any good right now. That's why we're talking.”

“...everybody has their own problems.” he responded.

“It's a good excuse not to ask for help.”

“Mmm.”

“But as we said though, it's not like you get anything from the help nowadays anyway.” She slung her scrawny limbs over the couch's armrest and let them dangle. “I know how it is. It's what I went through too, Pa. When the depression gets bad enough and you want to--”

“Commit suicide.” He said it so she didn't have to.

“Yeah, that.” She was a bit shaken. “I know one of the things I did was guilt myself into being alive regardless of how unhappy I was, because I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing everybody who cared about me. Who loved me. I didn't want to hurt them that bad.” The sound of a knife grinding on a cutting board was the only noise in the apartment. Neither said anything for a bit until Remilia broke the silence again. “But that sort of backfired eventually. All it did was eventually desensitize myself to the thought of it. I sorta stopped caring about hurting them altogether, ya know?”

“Can't say that I do.”

“You're lying again~.” Her patronizing tone struck a nerve with the author, as if she had the nerve to be patronizing in the first place. He didn't have the energy to snap at her though, and she noticed he didn't, either.

“I'm right, you know.” she continued. “And so are you. We went over this earlier, while the other things happened.”

“I'm aware.”

“If you were, I wouldn't be here reminding you, now would I?” Her tone was becoming increasingly assertive as she continued talking. “You don't know what you want anymore out of these people, do you?”

“Correct.”

“Talking about your problems isn't helping anymore. Either people don't say anything and you feel that horrible vindication that you were right in believing nobody cared. Or they extend their hand and you realize that you can't bring yourself to grab it anymore. You wanted them to do something while it still mattered, right?” Remilia stopped talking for a bit while the author turned on the water in the sink. He was filling up a pot.

“What are you making?” she asked.

“Turkey and rice soup.” he said.

“I don't like turkey that much though.”

“You can't eat anything.”

“Pfft.” The author finished filling up the pot. He set it on the stove top to begin simmering. He pulled the leftover turkey from the other night out of the fridge and set it on the counter. Remilia stared at his back while he was in the kitchen.

“There's a lot of things going on. We have your friends, who seem like good people bu—”

“Except the one.” he interjected.

“Right, except the one. She seems to bother you a bit.” She let out a sigh. “But people are trying to help, and now, well... it's too late huh?”

“...” The author had nothing to say.

“Even I know in the back of your head that you don't want the answer to that question to be a 'yes'. But you know it is, at least it is right now.” She flipped back over onto her back and sighed. “While I'll at least say a very real part of you doesn't want to be alive anymore, it's probably being made worse by the fact that you don't know what can help anymore either.” The author stopped working and stood there in the kitchen.

“...I'm just feeling tired. And empty.”

“And nothing can fill that. People saying they love you and that they care about you, your own feelings of self-guilt about taking their concerns for granted, your anger to blame somebody for any of it. Nothing's filling that emptiness to justify whatever it is you're doing or feeling now.”

“...yeah.”

“And regardless of that... there's nonetheless probably some real resentment that nobody takes it as seriously as they should until you're ready to give up.”

“......yeah.”

“I mean,” Remilia sat up straight as she continued to speak. “Nobody wants to be told not to jump when they're already at the edge of the building. Like, we could've avoided going into the building and up to the rooftop in the first place. They could've been told that it's a bad idea before they got that far.”

“Means a longer walk down the building to convince myself that jumping really wasn't a good idea.”

“Right~o.” She looked around the room a bit before she continued. “Those feelings of resentment are still there amidst the other thoughts, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And those thoughts of resentment are why this is easier to convince yourself to give up.”

“Probably.”

“And it's not like those people reaching out to you will help, huh?”

“Will probably make it worse.” he remarked. Remilia's eyes had a bit of a dullness to them. She was tired, too.

“So what's the plan then?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“Could avoid everybody until you hopefully feel better.”

“Whenever that will be.”

“Do you still care about your friends and what will happen to them if you're gone?”

“Not really.”

“Do you think you eventually will again?”
“Don't know anymore.”

“Well, I mean, you're gonna have to talk to them eventually, Pa. You can't talk to me forever about this.”

“'Forever' is a relative term.” She grimaced a bit and stood up. She walked over to him and turned him to look at the door and the window.

“Listen Pa, out there, there are millions of people. Millions of people who eat and poop and have things they shouldn't have, like responsibilities or opinions.”

“Like Trump voters.”

“Exactly.” she nodded triumphantly. “Eventually you're going to have to stop talking to me and talk to all the gay weirdo minority creeps that are your friends and—”

“Except the one.”

“Yeah except that one—and at least give them peace of mind.”

“Peace of mind from what?” The author was baffled.

“That they know what they've gotten themselves into and that they're idiots for putting their hopes in crazy people like us.”

“You're starting to sound as cynical as I am.” the author remarked.

“Look, I'm just sayin'.” she patted him on the back while she spoke. “They got to understand that you've hit a point where something's broke. What you want from people isn't working anymore and you don't know what you want. What these friends think they can offer isn't what you need and it wouldn't be enough regardless. But it's nobody's fault.”

“Okay but important question.”

“Shoot.”

“Does this mean I can't kill myself then?” he asked.

“I can't stop you, but I don't think you will yet.”

“Can I still guilt-trip people to feel better about myself in a hateful and cynical way?”

“Pa you're going to do that regardless of what I tell you.”

“True.” They stood there a bit in silence.

“Feeling better at least?” she asked.

“A bit.”

“Good, good~.” She paused a bit while she mulled over her words more. “I'm fishing the turkey out of that soup if I'm eating it.”

“You can't eat it.” he muttered. She groaned.

“Oh why you gotta be like this? This is child abuse.”

“You don't need food.” She slumped and walked towards the author's bedroom.

“Well fine. I'm gonna go to sleep. This is exhausting, you know?”

“Alright, good night.” the author said as he stood over the stove.

“You should go to bed soon too. You know your not-getting-enough-sleep is probably not helping this either.”

“I don't want to hear that from you with your sleeping habits.”
“Touché. Good night~!” As she went into the room to sleep, the author stood in the kitchen. His left hand was on the cutting board while he held the knife with his right. He stood there for ten minutes in silence, hesitating. Every day he still hesitated, but it's gotten a few seconds longer each day he has.

Remilia Bonheur.

“So uh, this is kind of a bit odd. I've never done this before.”

“Yes yes, it's a bit different than what you're used to.” she said.

“Are we really doing this?”

“Take it slow, it's not like anything can really go wrong.” The author was fidgeting as he sat on the bench. It was an early March weekday, a rare occurrence of the sun managing to fight its way through the Oregon clouds in a fruitless attempt to bring some heat. The chipper young girl next to him wasn't much for the cold weather despite her Nebraskan heritage, but nobody noticed due to her convincing impression of a Valley girl. Her vibrant blonde hair was messily pulled back into a ponytail, with tufts and bangs hanging forward to cover her gaunt, pale face being illuminated by small cheeks dabbed with blotches of color.

“...Remilia?”

“Yes, oh dear father of mine~?” Her voice had a bit of dramatization to it. The author couldn't look at her. He sighed a bit as he wondered what to say.

“I. I don't really know what to say. I don't really know what to say.”

“Take your time.” she had a patient tone to her voice.

“I'm... really sorry.” was all he said. “I'm just... sorry for this.” She smirked a bit and looked at her dainty legs swinging back and forth underneath the bench.

“I know you are. You are for a lot of things, Pa.” The author's face grimaced.

“Don't call me 'Pa'.” he muttered.

“Hmm? Why not?”

“It's what I call my old man.”

“Well, you're more of a father to me than my actual one. I'm here because of you, aren't I?”

“...This is going to get really weird, isn't it?”

“Yep, probably~!” The author turned to look at Remilia. She had a wide, dumb smile on her face. It was pure and honest, the construct didn't matter. She was born without a belligerent bone in her body.

“I guess,” the author mulled over his words. “I guess, I don't like letting this happen to you. I don't think it's your responsibility anymore.” She turned away and looked down.

“I had a feeling it would be about this.” There was a bit of resolution in her voice. “The thought of putting someone through the same awful things you grew up with. It hurts a lot when you get attached enough, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it does. I just... why am I doing this to you?” There was a moment of silence. The ambient noise of cars, a few stray birds, and some rustling branches were all that were filling the air. The girl broke the silence.

“I'm okay with it, you know?”

“Why?”

“Well... you made me that way, didn't you?”

“You shouldn't be okay with this.” The author was getting frustrated. “Nobody would be okay with this.”

“I'm a nobody, so I'm okay with it.” she responded. “Listen, Pa, I know what you're doing here. You're thinking about giving up again, aren't you?” The author sighed. He was read like a book. Not a book he'd write, because he had yet to finish any.

“Well, yeah. I guess I have been.” There was another pause. The girl's face scrunched and she looked at the author.

“No, I don't mean on me. Or on this. I mean GIVING UP.”
“Eh, fuck.” The author's tone would've been familiar to a shoplifter who just got caught. Remilia's face turned and it looked like she muttered under her breath.

“This again, huh?” she let out a deep breath as her voice became subdued. “It's this monster again.”

“Oh for the love of God, don't act so exasperated. You have no fucking idea what this is like.”

“You know that's a lie~.” And the author did. He knew that he was full of shit when he said that.

“Okay so you do.”

“THAT'S HOW YOU RAISED ME. SURPRISE.” She had a smug cartoonish grin on her face when the author looked over.

“Shit.”

“Oh why are you so bent out of shape over that? How could I not know? You make it so darn obvious, not even just to me, but to EVERYBODY.” she proclaimed to the park, standing up and spreading her arms. People in the park started looking over at the two.

“Like that guy.” she pointed. “And that woman over there. That dog sure as heck knows. All those people know how much of a debbie-downer you are!”

“Oh for the love of God sit down, you're making a scene you stupid child.”

“RUDE.” And with a 'hmph' she situated herself back on the bench. He placed his hand over his eyes irritated.

“Good God I forgot that you're a tactless bint.”

“Hey now. No need for that kind of talk.”

“Why do you always do this?” he asked. “Did you ever consider I don't talk to you about this because of how you treat it?”

“You mean like a big joke?”

“Yes.”

“That's your own fault and you know that too~.” As dimwitted and tactless as the girl was, she knew exactly what the author was thinking. She grew up with him, and often knew him better than himself.

“And stop calling me 'dimwitted', it's not nice.” she interjected into the narration.

“You are dimwitted.” he replied.

“And why are you writing about this? We talk a lot, so why choose to do it now?”

“It's... to maybe give me something to mull over later with. Something concrete.” Remilia smiled.

“So you're at least getting better about talking about it, right? That's a good first step.”

“It is, I guess.” At least he thought it was. He believed it with his heart that it was. The soul was absent though, and Remilia knew that, too.

“Of course I do, how wouldn't I?” she interjected again. The author sneered.

“You think you're cute.”

“I know I'm cute~.” she smugly admitted.

“Yeah well, I'm not sure what's happening either. I don't know how to feel about this.” Remilia was a bit confused by the author.

“Like you don't know what to do, or...?”

“No, I don't know how to feel.” he paused to figure out how to articulate his thoughts. “I can't react the way I want to, or the way I know I should. All this shit happens and all these people talk to me and there's just—”

“Nothing.” she said. The author sighed.

“...yeah. Not a damn thing.” His eyes glazed over a bit as they looked around. “I know I should care about this. About these people. But it just doesn't mean really anything to me, anymore. Nothing is there.” Remilia had a bit of a grimace as her head followed some children walking by.

“Well.” She paused. Her motormouth contrasted her contemplative thoughts. She understood the importance of each word she spoke and chose them carefully. “People go numb after seeing enough, going through enough.” Words rolled out more slowly than before. “You detach and stop feeling everything, you can't really pick and choose what. That's why it's scary when it happens.”

“Yeah.”

“And you know I don't like it when you get like this.” she said. “The monster's coming again, isn't it?”

“...yeah.”

“I know what the monster does to people.” her voice rang with a slight dullness and exhaustion. “I know what it was doing to me. And I know what it's doing to you.”

“Just be blunt with it. I want to kill myself again.” The author's bluntness was a weapon. He was tired of coming up with workarounds.

“Yeah, that thing.” she meekly replied.

“Look, the best I could hope for is to die while leaving as little of an impact on other people as possible. The less they care, the easier it is for me not to be guilt-tripped into putting up with this any longer for their sake. They'll be in shock day one, grieve through day three, be bitter at the end of the week, and come the following month I won't even be brought up. That is what I want to mean to people.” Remilia was unamused by the author's nihilistic rantings.

“Is it really.” Exasperation was oozing from her lips.

“Meh.”

“You're just tired.”

“You think?”

“I mean, I don't blame you.” She stretched and leaned back against the bench. “You have no self-worth. If you're no good to people, then what good are you, right? It's that logic.”

“...yeah, a bit.”

“It hurts a lot just being alive. BEING ALIVE FEELS TERRIBLE.”

“Well, for us.” he nodded.

“So we want to live through other people and avoid ourselves as muuuuuuuuuuuch as possible. If other people are happy because of us, then we're happy! Yaaaaay, everybody's happy!”

“Right.”

“Buuuuuuuuuut...” Her mood soured a bit. “We can try as much as we want, but we might be around people who won't ever be happy. You've been around some bad people most of your life, Pa. They're no good and you know it.”

“...right.”

“If we can't make other people smile, other people happy, then we're just stuck with our miserable selves. We're stuck with that hurt that comes from just being alive. We try our best to get past it, but it's still always gonna be there. And when it goes on long enough—”

“You become numb.”

“You start having conversations with yourself.” she added.

“I couldn't begin to imagine.”

“Without the company of friends you get stuck inside your own head and pull yourself apart. Like, I know I'm a good one. I met the other people in your head, they're jerks.”

“They're fucking pricks.”

“Right, so.” she readjusted her top straps underneath her coat. “You don't know what to do with people anymore, huh?”

“That's a way to put it, yes.”

“And you're tired of trying to figure something else out that might work this time.”

“Pretty much.” he bluntly stated. Remilia let out a sigh.

“But... this time it was bad.” she looked down. “Otherwise we wouldn't be here talking.”

“This time it got bad.” he said.

“This time it might be donezo for good, is what you're feeling.”

“I don't know what I feel at this point, honestly.” The indifference in his voice hid his anxiety poorly.

“Usually you just regress for a bit and then it's back to normal later.” Her bubbly disposition was becoming gradually subdued as the conversation continued. “Just like we always talk it out.”

“This time it seems like something finally broke. I don't know how to come back from this. Or if I want to.”

“If you can't connect with people anymore, you're isolated, and you're stuck with us.” she shrugged. “And you know they'll eventually find a way to shut me up for a bit.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you'll be stuck in here with just them, and that's—”

“When I'll probably call it quits.” She didn't really say anything in response. She just looked at the people in the park.

“We'll find a way to fix this, we always do.” she nodded reassuringly. “I'll get you out of here.”

“...hopefully.”

"You still mean something to somebody. I wouldn't be here telling you this if you still didn't believe it yourself, right?"

“...I suppose that's how that works.”

“You know that they can't keep me quiet for good. I'm too stubborn for that.”

“Far, far too stubborn.”

* * *

“Hey, I have a question.” he looked over at Remilia.

“Hmm~?”

“Do you think everybody can be forgiven? Deserves to be forgiven?” Her expression widened a bit at the question.

“...that's awfully progressive of you to ask, ain't it?”

“Yeah.” The author seemed a bit surprised at himself as well. “I suppose I've done a bit of growing up over the years.”

“Just a decade ago you'd be just like the rest of your family, unable to let a grudge go. I'm proud of you!”

“Grudges are too heavy to carry around for so long.” There was a bit of a tired resolution to his voice. “This shit gets exhausting after a while.”

“That's good, that's good~.”

“So answer the question.” Remilia rested her tilted head on her hand looking at the author, then turned forward.

“...I think I know what this is about.”

“Just answer it.”

“I think,” she rolled her words around in her mouth a bit. “I think, an important part of becoming a better person is learning that you aren't always going to be forgiven, and that you shouldn't always deserve it.” The author's vacant stare remained locked forward.

“I figured you of all people would be qualified to answer this.”

“Sometimes it's too much to ask of the person who was hurt to forgive somebody. It's not fair to them to expect that, even if you think you fixed the problem or that things are cool between you now.”

“Sometimes you got to take the L and move on.” he responded.

“And it's not always because the person you hurt is holding a grudge, but you know, you gotta just ask sometimes if it's... well...”

“If it's worth the effort.” Monotone punctuated the brevity of the sentence.

“Yeah.” she nodded in somewhat solemn approval. “It doesn't make you a mean-spirited or a spiteful guy if you think it isn't, too.”

“Just have to... move on.” he quietly said.

“Sometimes people just suck and they won't change~.” There was a fermenting bitterness underneath her chipper attitude. “I don't think everybody can be forgiven just because the lousy person became a decent one, ya know? Sometimes the people hurt or burned can't... what are the words...?”

“Develop the capacity or desire to forgive the people that hurt them.”

“Yeah, that.” She let a bit of silence settle before speaking again. “Sometimes even if you want to forgive somebody, you just, can't. Just because you became a decent person doesn't make things hunky dory. That doesn't undo what ya did, it wasn't something that happened fast enough.”

“That's probably where reality sets in a bit, I guess.”

“I think,” she paused. “I think if you can't get that person to forgive you, then you gotta forgive yourself. You know, for your sake. And, yeah, move on. I guess. I dunno.”

“I don't, either.”

“So it IS about this.” She sighed and turned to look at him, grabbing his shoulders to make him look at her. His dead eyes had a shutter of life in them as they avoided contact with hers. Her chipper disposition was set aside.

“Listen, you know I'm repeating myself when I say this, but you gotta let this go. You gotta stop beating yourself up over this.”

“...over what?”

“Pa.”

“...” The author remained silent.

“Lucas.”

“Oh fucking Hell call me anything else but that.”

“PROMISE ME.”

“You know my promises are no good.”

“PROMISE. ME.” She remained stubborn and resolute.

“I... can't.”

“Lucas. You gotta let them go, let her go.”

“I know.”

“But you can't.” she said.

“But I can't.” he said.

“Pa.”

“But I got to.”

“But you gotta.”

“I...” his once-monotone and lifeless voice started trembling into bitter unfortunate life. “I... I've got to let this go.” A strung-out sigh shook his throat. “Fuck. Fucking shit.” She shifted her hands from his shoulders to his face. Her soft palms rode his jawline while her thumbs roamed across his cheeks. Her own mask was managing to slip off, too.

“You know I can't watch you keep doing this to yourself. I know how much this is killing you.”

“Some baggage is too heavy to just leave somewhere.” he shakily replied.

“Sometimes closure is too much to expect. You know that.”

“I'm never going to know how any of it would've panned out, will I?”

“It's gone. They're gone. She's gone.” she said. He had a coughing fit, attempting to stifle himself. Her damp thumbs skirted across the surface of his face.

“You can tell yourself that eventually, right?” she asked. “It doesn't have to be now.”

“Eventually.”

* * *

“...so for a while there, you lost yourself, didn't you?” Remilia asked as they walked. The author groaned. “You started this conversation in March.”

“...that I did.”

“I told you they couldn't shut me up forever.”

“You really are incredibly stubborn.” he chuckled.

“...You almost did it though.”

“I did.”

“But you didn't. That's good at least.”

“Still can't bet on it if I will or not.”

“Well, good thing you're lazy~.” there was a slight hint of mockery in her solemn tone. “When you're tired you can't even put in the effort to give up.”

“Yet.”

“And I'll be there waiting like always~.”

“Because you're a meddler.” The the park was empty at this point as they strolled through it side by side.

"Hey, Pa." she looked over as she spoke.

"I told you to stop calling me that. And what?"

“...do you think I would've been a good daughter?” He was taken aback by the question. It made him uncomfortable.

“...yeah, I think you would've been a good girl. A good girl with awful, awful parents.”

“Well, you turned out—“

“Terrible.”

“Okayish.” she replied.

“Still a stretch.”

“Not your dad.”

“Okay I'll take it.” There was a bit more of silence between them.

"Hey, Pa." she said.

"I literally just told you to stop calling me that."

“You're Pa to me, that's all.”

“What is it?”

“Thank you for creating me.” she said as she smiled.

“You're welcome.”

"I love you."

"I know."

"And it means something?"

"Yeah." He stared at his scuffed-up boots as they walked.

Empathy.

This is going to be about empathy.

I don't write much anymore. Mainly because I feel like a fucking hack, but also because I can't motivate myself to do it unless I feel like bitching about something. I'm still very good at bitching about things, but I don't have much to bitch about lately. I don't really care much at all about much of anything lately. What is there that I could possibly exert effort over to talk or complain about? My problems? I got a Hell of a lot of those, but I don't much care at all about those anymore. It's really fucking tiring to give a shit about things you have no expectations of ever getting fixed. It's exhausting.

This is also going to be about being tired. About being exhausted.

When you stop caring about your own problems so much, it becomes important to have people who will. That sounds selfish, because it is, you prick. But desiring people to care about your problems is a human thing too, I guess. Problems are objectively still problems. If you stop caring about them, it doesn't stop making it a problem. I stopped caring about my car getting fixed and getting insured, but that son-of-a-bitch still cost me 68 dollars to get it towed to my new apartment, and it'll still cost three to four-hundred dollars to get it fixed while it sits out there being an obtrusive piece of shit inconveniencing my life. Just like I stopped caring about my friends and family but those assholes are still in my life, being people and shit, all up in my fucking business like they own the place.

But I can't be bothered to care about most of them anymore. If you're reading this, yeah, you. And you. And maybe you. Not you, though, I wasn't friends with you in the first place, you're mostly just there. And not you, you're just a dick. I remember when I tried going out of my way to force myself into people's lives because I know they wouldn't. Nope. Not doing that shit anymore. Waste of my time. If they have business somewhere else, then go do you. If there's shit between us, I don't care enough to fix it anymore, that's on you if you want to. None of this is inherently the other party's fault, I just don't really want to bother anymore. People lose the ability to connect with others. They get burned out too much, or they get tired of the upkeep. Or maybe that person's perceived value just drops and you lose the desire to make an effort. Sometimes it's all three.

You get tired of how much people value you or how open they aren't about it. And when they decide to make an effort, is it your obligation to let alone want it anymore? Was too much damage done in the first place that all you could do at that point is shrug? I've been beaten up my entire life in a whole manner of ways. At first, empathy something I've wanted to enjoy with people my entire life. Connecting with people, trusting them, that shit is great. It's wonderful. It's liberating. But when you get slapped around often enough, empathy becomes scary. You're nervous about people treating your empathy like shit, underappreciating it.

Your empathy becomes something you timidly offer forward, hands shaking, not making eye contact. Hoping the person thinks it's good enough, hoping you're not doing anything wrong approaching them. Are you pitying them? Being too direct? Not direct enough? Even looking them in the face you're fucking terrified of it being rejected again. You want it to be appreciated so much and paradoxically don't think it's worth anything. You can be close to crying because you think you relate to that person so much that it hurts the living Hell out of you. You're scared of people taking your delicate, dainty little emotions and throwing them into the fucking wall like the second-born child of two abusive alcoholics who found out you've been lying about your grades for a whole trimester because you were afraid they were going to slam you into the wall again, and I was right. Oh hey I'm projecting again.

Or significantly worse, and even simpler than that, people just ignore it because it doesn't mean anything to them.

Eventually empathy stops being a desire and it starts feeling like something you should do. You don't want to empathize with people because you legitimately care about them anymore, you do it because you know it's the right thing to do, and solipsistic feelings like alleviating your own guilt or obligations becomes the motivator. But even then, people are still kind of indifferent and then you sort of realize that being a selfish bastard is easier and you eventually just stop altogether.

I'm projecting a lot, but I suppose that's all my writing is good for nowadays. God forbid it be for anything constructive.

I've just sort of disconnected myself to the thought of being relevant to, well, anybody. When you yearn for a validation of worth from people and hardly ever get it, you just get tired after a while. And when you're finally surrounded by reasonable adults who might actually care, you've already stopped caring. There's really nobody to blame, that's just sort of how it is. The internet's a terrible place to expect that shit from, too. You're nothing but a shitty character on a TV show. The safe-zone for people where someone's value, someone's worth is in a screen name and the opinion attached to it. Nobody cares if there's actually somebody on the other side of it. It's so goddamn easy to just interact with each other and feel that's good enough without having any of the responsibility to empathize or occasionally treat somebody like a human being. Hell, the only reason I attempt to empathize with people anymore is honestly just to reassure myself that I'm still a decent person, I don't give half a toss what actually happens. Phantom empathy is easier than actually caring because that requires commitment.

It's not like people haven't tried. Maybe they just didn't try hard enough, or they were too late. Maybe they tried and they just fucked it up constantly, DAD. But I'm just projecting again. Maybe a functional person would've responded properly.

When a person has had such a strong desire to just empathize and connect with people his entire life, to make others happy however he can, what happens when he doesn't want that anymore? What does he have left to define himself by? I have felt like I've meant nothing to people my entire life. My entire life is my desperate attempts to empathize and care about people and mean something to people, and people have never been receptive, have never cared about me, never helped me. They've been indifferent. Hell, they've been exasperated by it, burdened and angered by it.

I used to be a good person. I used to be a good kid who loved people, who tried his hardest to make people happy. And it's barely meant anything to anybody. I am empty. A vessel that only exists to be validated by other people. Half the reason I think I go on these bleak and nihilistic rants is to fulfill some self-defeating prophecy that nobody is listening, nobody gives a shit about any of this and I'm only here talking to validate this isolation and fucked-up absence of worth in my head so I can give in further to it. That anything said here means absolutely nothing. It's become a well-versed act, almost a mantra because I've become so desensitized to bringing it up constantly. I've hit a point where I'm tired of it.

So what does this all mean? I don't frankly know. I doubt anybody will read it, at least I doubt the people who should will. And even if they did, I've sort of surrendered to the thought that anything wouldn't come of it anyway. I'll wake up tomorrow and go back to my dead-end job like nothing ever happened.

Empathy is hard. If people haven't done anything yet, why would they now? Maybe out of obligation or guilt? Hah.

Apathy.

“Tonight's 'Talking Points' memo: Was Hitler onto something about mandatory IDs for non-Christians, and how can Donald Trump learn from it?”

*click*

“How not caring enough about EVERY tragedy makes you no better than the terrorists themselves, more at 11.”

*click*

“Another shooting has occurred in Colorado and Texas, see why liberals are stopping our lone hero with a gun from showing up and putting a stop to these violent crimes and how the irony is completely lost on us because our gun laws already don't exist he--”

*click*

“I thoroughly believe that every white cis person in this country is a part of the problem, whether they're aware of it or not. It's not my job to educate them on their ignorance, only to condemn them for their stupid--”

*click*

“See how entitled millennials are while we sabotage their future because of how badly we've fucked up. Yes you can say 'fuck' on television no--”

*click*

No more of that for me, my heart can't take it. Is it okay? Do I have to feel ashamed for not caring about everything as much as other people? Because it sure as Hell feels like I should. Lately whenever I talk to people, the only thing that comes to mind is how much I'm not caring about whatever happened in some distant country I will never go to, about some child getting shot to death again for the fortieth time, or the ever-collapsing black hole of rational thought also frequently referred to as the American political system.  And I don't mean a singular child dying repeatedly.  Does that happen?  There would either have to be some incredible science or fucked-up witchcraft to be making that shit happen. 

I mean, it's not like I don't want to care. But it's just so gosh-darn difficult to. Let's examine one small instance where this came into play. FACEBOOK.  People remember the attacks that occurred in Paris. I mean to this day, I still really don't care to think about the details, but it happened. People died, and it was sad, yes. But a few things that I noticed. ...a few select groups of people were getting upset because others were either using a flag filter for their profile picture in remembrance, or because it was apparently stealing Lebanon's tragedy thunder when something or another blew again in there for the umpteenth time. This entire experience was enlightening to me, the impassive viewer. You know what it taught me?

Fuck people who care too damn much, and fuck their FEELINGS.

Empathy is something that is seriously overburdened in this day and age where everybody should care about everything and we should all be strong and open-minded individuals and should strive for social equality and the such, blahblahblah. If you don't care, you're contributing to the problem. Because we cared about the attacks in Paris, it contributed to the problem of the westernization of social media since we're not paying attention to other regions in the world that simultaneously were awash with grief at the same time. Like Lebanon. Or for the people mocking the others who were too busy chasing Lebanon's ambulance to notice, Kenya where somebody shot up a university and killed 148 people, because we ALL remember that on the news. Oh, I can get more, it's not difficult. In this day and age of over-exposure to every shitty event occurring all around the world? You bet your fucking ass that we can go further down the rabbit hole.

Instead though, let's take a healthy dose of “not give a fuck” and take this: just because you can care about something, doesn't mean you should. Empathy is a finite resource. It's the reason a secondary stress disorder like compassion fatigue exists. People get burnt out on their feelings, when they're forced to care too much too often. A lawyer has to deal with a man who just lost his daughter in a car accident; to the man, that's like trying to navigate an issue during the worst day of your fucking life. To the lawyer, it's Tuesday. And to the news, it's every day.

In this day of the internet, everything is faster. Gathering of information, networking, everything is sleeker, better, immediate. Unless you use Century Link, in which case it randomly drops and slows down. But we have a generation, the millennials, raised on this information superhighway. But the issue with that is that for people seeking a cause to rally behind, they quickly learn how much of a problem it is. Media outlets make it that much faster and easier to get information to you, and to a generation diagnosed with ADD, overexposure occurs. And if there's anything to take from what I'm going to say that is absolutely true, this will be it:

Overexposure to the media only breeds two things. It's either apathy, or contempt.

If you are bombarded with information relentlessly long enough, you're going to go numb to cope, or it's going to breed that cynical, malicious fire and it's going to consume you. Why the Hell else would people get upset over a fucking flag backdrop on Facebook when people are just trying to memorialize an event? It becomes a switch people can't turn off, where they look for the cause, the fight in everything that they can look for a fight in, where they look for the negative connotations. What paranoid, fucked-up, hateful world have you created in your head-canon where complacency or ignorance is misconstrued as malicious intent?

Simply put: why am I condemned for not caring enough? What is enough? Not everybody has time for that shit. I gots shit to do. Like sifting through pornography or posting Star Wars spoilers on the Splatoon Miiverse.

It can take something really fucked to make somebody realize the mistake they've made when caring too much about something. It's easy to put your empathy in a statistic or a news article; it's fucking easy to empathize with Lebanon when it's not at any of your actual empathetic expense. Once it gets personal though, that shit ain't so easy now is it? How many times have you seen somebody bring up a tragedy in their life, or post about it online, and you just offer your courtesy care? “Don't worry, if you need anything, I'm here to talk” you say. Then that person's now in your life, talking about all the terrible shit that's happened, and whenever something goes wrong again, you have to put up with that person again. Like when you find out that they lost their job. Or their girlfriend broke up with them. Or a family member died. Or they got mayo on their sandwich when they said 'no mayo', oh the humanity of it all! Then you go “Shit, this empathy crap is harder than I thought. I didn't actually care, I was just trying to be nice.” Oh, but you would NEVER say that, right?

Listen, it's okay not to care about people. It's okay not to care about things. It doesn't make you a bad person. People only have so much real estate for empathy. Not everybody has it in them to care about every single fucking terrible event that happens in the world. That person you're just sort of friends with, you don't have to let them into your life and place serious personal value in them if they're not important enough. You aren't a villain for it. Your empathy deserves to be taken care of and respected by other people for what it's used for. Apathy isn't necessarily evil, sometimes it's being your shield keeping out all that awful shit from making you want to kill yourself.

Care about what you can to the extent you can, it's not someone else's place to tell you what it should be and how much.

Unless it's something really fucking stupid like being an MRA. Fuck those guys.