What can I do when friends are mad at me? I honestly don't know. I suppose, first, I would ask why. Why are they so mad, to that specific level? What have I done that is so terrible? Often, I treat people as I feel they ought to be treated and I feel I get treated the same. So when someone acts negatively towards me, I feel it's me they are aiming their negativity at and so I need to know why. The second, I would think, is apologize. I apologize all the time, even if I don't know what has been done. Often words and actions are mistaken as something else. While to me, my tone is even, logical, caring or concerned sometimes, to others it may be harsh, upsetting, abrasive. I don't know why an inflection may come out a certain way. I can only guess that if I am feeling hostile energy coming from someone, I will give back their negativity in my voice, even if I don't mean to.

I bring this up as a vent, really. My most recent roommate and I started off as friends but as time went on I would often be out. My roommate was not pleased, this was not what they signed up for, and my disappearance apparently was a lack of commitment to our friendship. I shall admit here, it's gotten to a point that I'm in my room no more than ten hours a week, on average. When you compare that to the 168 hours in a week, that is quite weak. However, I have an equation as my defense. If you think about it, 56 hours in class or work or school work (approx. 8 hour * 5 days, plus 4 hours for weekend total on homework), 10 hours at home (approx. 2 hours per weekday, plus rollover for weekend stops), 49+ hours for sleeping  (7 hours a night, plus sleeping in), together that is 115 hours already per week filled. Now, add in 10.5 more hours for eating (one hour and a half a day for all meals combined). Now, take that original 168 - 125.5 and so I have  42.5 hours a week to hang out with someone. If you divide that evenly, I have 6.0714 hours I can spend with a person each day. However, as we know it, time is not divided evenly thanks to the variable of how we included the work day vs. the weekend. If we include a little from each catagory as it's been broken down, we see I have 5.5 hours when put it together, to hang out with someone during a weekday, and 13.5 hours, when put together, to hang out with someone on a weekend.

I know what you're thinking, I'm a horrible friend. I thought so too when I first saw all the time I was wasting. I have all this time but I'm not using it? Yes and no. There must be some sort of reasonableness in all this. If you take out each chunk of time that I have open, and put them together, you see I have loads of time, but let's be honest. No one can take chunks of time and rearrange them. I have a spare hour here, I have a spare hour there. I have a spare half hour over there. Often those moments are no good for any quality friend time. I fill those with extra pockets of homework, or a part of a movie or game progress. Logically speaking, I only have about 4 hours of free time during the weekday and about 12 hours during the weekend.

The weekend I generally don't use because I am off with my significant other. I don't see anything wrong with using weekends for someone you are considering for marriage with. What about my 5 hours per weekday? What about them? Yes, I spend them with my significant other as well, but if someone has something planned for me, I will do my best to move around my schedule and plan time with them. I confess again, it's happened. I've had to cancel things and move things around and simply avoid other things. It happens; but not often, at least not often to me. When things aren't planned, I do spend my time with my significant other. No, not doing the horizontal dance all day, but watching movies, doing homework, talking and eating. Notice, I did not specifically label time with them. For good reason. I do not consider them a necessity that I must block out to time to make sure I do. With them, I am able to continue all my necessary things that I would do on my own, except my mind is more at ease. When I schedule time for other friends, I know I will not concentrate on homework, I will (likely) not be eating for more than a half-hour, nor will I sleep. I must put it somewhere in its own category, knowing some other activity will be done, therefore, I schedule it.

So what can I do when friends are mad at me over this? Show them my fully drawn out equation about how there are not enough hours in a day. Certainly not, that comes off as far more rude and egotistical than I am willing to be with someone I call friend. All I seem to be able to do these days is shrug and joke about the few hours and how I must be kidnapped to give any quality time. It's sad and disappointing because I know how fun they are to be with and how I wish I could find more time for them, but I can only stretch my body and mind for so long before even I snap. It is also sad because it seems my mind snaps much sooner than my body.

Thank you for your time.

Is it sad we cannot create without something profound, often negative, to happen in our lives?

Is it sad we cannot create if we are so focused on the process of creating?

I find it quite sad, ...  but good to know.

I stem this post from a movie I just watched called "Speak", it features Kirsten Stewart and is about how a simple high school freshman girl must deal with her first year in high school after being raped that summer. The rapist is a senior in that same high school. I will say now that I do not plan to give away much more, so as not to spoil the movie. All details I give are basic introduction things that don't kill the movie, I hope. My point of bringing up this movie is simply that the girl takes an art class and starts creating dozens of works of art as she tries to process her rape and how to deal with it.

I began thinking after the movie, and then I realized I was thinking. Then I realized what I was thinking about. It was about the movie, it was the fact that I am thinking about rape, about the movie, about what happens in real life. I found it disappointing that such a topic created such a long chain of thoughts and how easily I could discuss this with any intellectual. I started to wonder just how often this topic created art; beautiful and eye-sore alike. Eventually, I wondered why even I was thinking so deeply about my own similar encounters. Not to say I have been sexually abused or anything such, merely encounters that made me need to find outlets other than speech to express myself.

My chain of thoughts were not particularly long but eventually I did reach the link that read "rape, creativity, our creativity gets drained over the years unless something profound and generally negative occurs". As I thought this line of thought I realized how true it was. Some my own best work comes from moments of deep depression, of sadness or of anger. How easily it is for us to express such events in our lives through art. Oddly enough, Happiness begins strong when we try to express it, but unlike the negative feelings, it fades as we realize such happiness does not last. As such, our creative juices do not last as we try to express the joy. We may often find ourselves repeating works of art in a futile attempt to be original.

I cannot say I found it good, nor bad, to realize this. It was merely another realization of life in general. I was accepting that my best work may have stemmed from negativity in my life because that meant I would always have a place to reach into and pull something out that is expressive. Even if i do not get very far in creativity, I know it will be expressive and possibly even emotional, which I feel is what every artist (of any kind) wants.

I am scared of the dark. I hate it. I hate how it engulfs me at night and how cold and lonely it is. I hate how things pop at me from the dark, even if its just from my imagination. I hate how I see things in the dark, things I strongly dislike. Images from gory thriller or horror flicks or imaginary screams. The voices I hear are not friendly. Every time I try to think of something good I end up remembering why I want to think of the good so much and end up seeing the bad instead. Sometimes I wake from a bad dream and am paralyzed because I'm still alone in the dark. It takes every single ounce of courage to move to turn a light on. I always feel like someone or something is watching me, waiting to grab my outstretched, trembling, hand.

I surround myself with covers and stuff animals to keep my safe, knowing that nothing logical can get to me without moving the cover or the stuffed toys. If I feel them move I know I will have just half a second to scream my head off, hopefully waking someone in the process. 

Light helps me. Light shows me nothing is here. Light helps combat the dark. I can see shadows move before they come up right next to me. Sounds help muffle silence. It lets me know that if something is to take me in the dark I don't have to know or expect it and therefore there is no anticipation. I know if I keep my back against a chair or pillow I will not be sneaked upon.

I close doors and possible hiding spots. This way I know if something does come towards me from the hiding spots I will hear them. Also by closing doors I will hear anything coming. My imagination is strong and while I know logically things cannot get me from the dark, I still fear their presence. I crawl under covers, leave lights on, have things that glow and leave music on when I sleep. 

When I get the chance to sleep with someone I feel comforted. I feel their touch and believe it is them and not the darkness. It halts the fear before it can come. When I get the chance to sleep with someone, I know that if I scream they will be right there to comfort me. Times when I wake alone, I feel sad and for a brief moment scared. They need the restroom or they're curled on their side or for some reason they must leave to check things. It has nothing to do with me logically, but in that brief moment before I open my eyes the darkness greets me, the darkness of my eyes closed, and I fear I am not where I fell asleep. A brief, illogical, thought of course, but it's there. Sometimes I must remind myself where I fell asleep, that I am in a safe place. When I open my eyes to the daylight that shines between the blinds I feel much better, despite if I awake with someone there or alone. Often it is a confirmation that I was not taken somewhere else, that I am no longer dreaming and, more so, that I am in a place I want to be in.

Fear is strong. I do a lot to combat mine and embrace it. What do you do?