Heart, do you have it?

[thekrez]

I was reminded tonight of Heart at Repton.

Its a term in boxing I was first taught which encompasses a lot of things.

When you get knocked down you, you get back up.

When someone smacks you, you smack them back just as hard.

You never give up. Its better to try and fail even if you dont succeed.

Give it your all, and never give in, never never NEVER.

However Ive applied it more to daily life and think it encompasses a lot more things.

Heart is about standing up for that old lady on the bus.

Heart is about actually being friendly instead of being a pissed off Londoner, and not letting this city get you down.

Heart most of all is about thinking of others. Someting that I need to do more often.

The question is, do you have Heart?

[avax]

Yes. I do. Abnormally so but I don't quite agree with your definition. There is also a darker side of Heart - that chooses the lesser of two evils but is still damnable. That gives the seat to the old lady but ignores the bone-tired single, working mother on her way to school in her late teens. There is Heart that defends justice or equality and ignores requests from a mother, that protects the living but disrespects the dead (and vice versa). There are many things that, in the preoccupation of trying to do its (perhaps stereotypical) best, Heart actually neglects a vast spectrum. Most of all, what of Heart's own wellbeing? I firmly believe that it needs nourishment or at least the ability to separate itself from neglect, resentment, sadness, before it can accomplish anything.

There were points in my life where through stupidity and ignorance, I made wrong decisions and others had to suffer for it.. and then myself too. I'm not going to go through an inventory list of all the s***ty or bizarrely strange things that have happened. It's funny you brought this up as I'm trying to understand how it is that some refuse to get back up. I kick and cajole, and beat with mace, and show ways but some people are deadset on flying off the deep end, and are strangely okay with it. It's hard seeing someone you care about doing this.

I also don't really know if this is a blessing or a curse. What good is it to get back up only to get knocked down again, they say. Then what? Crawl? Yeah right, all the better for you to kiss my ass.

Somehow at the end of the day I'm always laughing. I do get upset but no matter how dark, filthy or hopeless I know I'm gonna be laughing soon. People think you don't think, feel, know as much as they do when they mope around and hate the world for years, and you don't. They should get a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig hug.

[thekrez]

^ I am starting to realise, not for the first time, the negativity I bring into my life from having moved here is only doing me harm in the long run.

Positivity, for all its naffness and naievete, is a far improved state to be in even if its blind and completely unrealistic.

Case in point, out one night with a mate he said "did you see that chick checking me out?". Um no, she wasnt, at all, in your wildest dreams, why do you even think like that? "Look, I would rather prefer to be in a state of mind where I think they like me, rather than not, because it makes ME happy, who wants to go around thinking every chick is indifferent to them? How depressed would you be?". Fair call.

And re the people not getting back, its easy to give up. The key thing is knowing that the alternative is worse than your current state. You need that to make you get back up time and time again.

[avax]

I don't know. I just know it feels bad one way and it feels good another.

I do tell the occasional white lie to make someone's day brighter and they mean a lot to me.

Which do you find is more of your nature? This Heart thing or something more realistic? Even though this sounds nice and pretty, it may just not be you and swinging back and forth will kinda be like manic depression. ? It's something you may want but you're just wired with a more skeptical, realistic outlook. Maybe then it is better to turn that into a strong point and look at that itself in a positive light.

[thekrez]

No being utterly realistic and negative is more me.

But its taken to an extreme sometimes and this city is bringing out the worst of it. And I need to stop it before it gets any worse.

A little blind positivity and fantasy world living would not go astray right now methinks.

[avax]

Hmm. I say the first step is looking up the fruit thread, dressing up as (of course), envisoning how your favourite fruit would react in say.. Spin the Bottle, and then what your landlord would look like in the same suit.. at a boardroom meeting or a strip club.