My Antagonist – A Review
Every story has a villain, even mine.
Now... That sounds needlessly edgy, but it’s true! There is someone in my life who lives to second guess me, to take me down a peg, and to try and tear me apart. He doesn’t do it intentionally, after all I’ve known him for longer than I’ve known anybody.
Before we get into it, I should make it clear that I have done my best to talk to him about it, but he really never listens much to what I have to say. If he does, he picks out the worst bits and spits them back at me and misconstrues them to be harsh.
It’s exhausting, and honestly. I can only do the best I can, and sometimes it’s abundantly clear that my best is not good enough for him.
Which sucks, because I never know what he wants to begin with. Partly because he’s always very fake. I can never tell who he actually is, or what he actually wants. It’s like he puts on layers of personalities to disrupt that and then he gets mad when I’m real, and asks me to change or put on my own fake self for his sake.
And I get that people are entitled to the walls they put around themselves, but geez, we’ve been through enough together, the least you can do is be consistent.
Life is strange, but despite having this vortex of negativity in my life I do my best to be positive. While I’m not the happiest guy in the world, I certainly believe in humanity’s intrinsic power of “good,” and that mankind will naturally do what it can to protect itself in bulk.
But then there’s the mounting “evidence of evil” that exists out there. Whenever someone who has a more pessimistic outlook points that out, I do my best to suggest we look at the underlying issues that caused that problem. And I don’t think the bad ever outweighs the good, however it certainly seems to yell much louder.
And of course, there’s the witnessed evil we see in our immediate surroundings and in our minds. The small thoughts that tell you to do something ridiculous, the ticked boxes of privilege and waste, the pervasive issues of society, of the disenfranchised, of the wronged. But these can be fixed with perspective, time, and energy. The world didn’t default to that, it fell to that. And it’s often not humanity’s fault, but rather a human’s fault. So, don’t let one bad egg spoil breakfast.
Just like how I can’t let the villain in me spoil my life. That’s right, it was a Shyamalan level twist. I bet you didn’t see that coming. I’m the guy who causes problems for myself. I’m the one who gets in my way. I’m the one who takes my life and tries to tear it apart. And it’s hard to stop myself, for a while, I cut the bad me out of my life, nearly for a full year. But one bad day spoiled the bunch, and he’s back, watching me from the other side of the mirror. The thing is, now? I accept that this is a part of me, that this pervasive self-entitled brat is just doing what he can too. He exists to keep me in check, to remind me I’m fallible, and as dumb as it might sound, I need that every now and then. But I don’t let the antagonistic side of me abuse myself. Rather, I let it remind me to stay grounded, but to also see how far I’ve come.
Thanks for reading! And good luck fighting whatever demons try and keep you up at night.
