It Never Mattered

Whenever I lack emotions, I can turn on the music, sit while the atmosphere around me settles into something completely different, and reimagine myself and my situation. That somehow spawns new thoughts.

That's also precisely what I am doing right now. So it is somewhat recursive – what I just wrote about came to me when I am in the state I just wrote about.

The sudden surge of this kind of emotion, especially when I am listening to something like the Tron Legacy soundtrack or the Dune soundtrack, is also unreal. It makes me feel like an antagonist – which I am definitely not. The antagonist in the real world only comes from hindsight, and hindsight only considers what has come before. What is in the future can never be considered in the present moment. But, without considering the future, how can one be an antagonist? Perhaps they are the antagonist for a period of time. That time might inevitably end with death, but their echos in the future might still turn their entire identity upside down – from prominent to inconspicuous, from significant to minuscule.

There is no true antagonist. So it is perfectly fine for me not to be one. Why care to be one anyways? Those who live to be the antagonist are in constant fear of losing their glorious title. A title that doesn't even exist! 可笑！

Perhaps it was me – I was the one who somehow craved the title of the certified antagonist. No...no...! I never craved it; it was some day when I realized that I was lucky, lucky in those big moments. Then it came to me, the antagonistic feeling, a feeling that can feel reassuring and safe.

I leaned on it; I abused it. I thought, "Everything is going to be alright."

But... it has been so far – everything is alright.

So perhaps I am not the buffoon who fooled himself into thinking that whatever they do, they won't get punished, and everything will be just fine.

I have been punished for my actions and I have perhaps been rewarded once or twice too.

Sometimes we think so hard in comparing ourselves to others. Who's the antagonist? That sure as hell ain't me is what I say to myself all the time. Who's the best? Not me.

Do any of these questions matter?

Does the desire to be the best ever matter to an individual's self-achievement, that is to say, their very own, self-contained expansion of skill, mind, and thought?

No, it never mattered.