I am my own worst enemy

"You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself." - James Baldwin

Such a true statement is often unheard of within this so called "paradise" that we live in. Things were not so fluffy and happy, or pretended to be, back in his days, but James Baldwin was a man who never looked on the happy side of anything because he knew a complicated yet simple truth. Nothing is happy. Nearly everything in the world is derived from pain and suffering, if not yours then someone else's. Something as joyful as giving birth to a baby involves incredible pain, emotional and physical, for the mother, but in the end they may have a bundle of joy. For others, a child is a nothing but misery and a chance for disappointment, which it never should be. But dear author, you say, what about Love? Yes, there is even pain involved in love. You love someone, but they did not return your affections, or they burn you in the relationship you share together, or any number of things that can manifest. There is pain there, there is turmoil there, there is hopelessness and depression. They say love can heal all wounds, but this is a lie created in the happy, fluffy minds of the people who call our society a "paradise". There is pain in everything. To accomplish anything, someone must be pained in some way. Minor or major. There will be pain.

But now I am rambling.

The quote itself is a truth all in itself. While, when we begin life, the world is our enemy, with it's snide remarks and rebukes, it's way of tempting us and cursing us, to destroy us from the inside out, it is, in the end, ourselves that eventually pull us down. The world fills you with doubts, calls you no good, for example. You don't live up to the world's expectations. Parents, siblings, and friends all expect you to be something your not, and fill you with doubts about yourself when they rebuke what you have become. If they do it long enough and hard enough, eventually you will begin to torture yourself. No longer will it just be them telling you your no good, but you yourself will now be in the position to call yourself no good. How far we have fallen if our greatest rival is ourselves. But dear author, you say, we would never drive someone that far. You would offer "Constructive" criticism, but even constructive criticism when heard too much becomes nothing but hallow, harmful drivel. This is completely unacceptable, and yet ever present in this "paradise" we live in. Parents scorn children, friends pick on friends, and man becomes pitted against man in a verbal war with no end in sight. There is only one place to run to, and it is a dark place. Alone and cold, where no one can touch you, only there can a person find peace from the hypocrisies and rebukes of the world.

Is this where we want to go? Is there where you want to chase us? Should we stand here and take it? Should we run? Or should we fight?

The answer is up to the individual. So choose.