Being the Buzzkill
Or, Mind your Business
A new achievement is being unlocked with this post. What is it? Well, it's the first post to actually be dedicated to someone.
However, this is not a positive dedication. No, this is a negative dedication. If one such thing exists. I'll explain who it exactly is later, but let's get this show on the road:
Way Back When
Ever since I was a little child. My definition of what was fun and not fun was... different. It probably did not, and still does not help, that I don't like competition, and will actively go out of my way to go up against people who seem to put their life on the line for the sake of "friendly playing".
The earliest memory which I can generally go back to was when I was playing soccer in pre-school/kindergarten. (I might not have a lot of good memories, but this is a notable one!). But I didn't really "play". No, instead, I preferred to be on the corner outskirts of the field, not bothering to even attempt to participate.
Most organized activities afterwards generally followed the same format. Me being entirely disinterested and actively hostile to participation.
Now I am no genius or anything, but I believe it may have originated from my concrete belief in logic and rationality (which I I believe is even more so important and overrides religion). I am someone who needs to see the end-result clearly, or at least can make solid connections that prove that the thing in question will inevitably work out. If not, then I don't see a reason to try.
In the 3rd grade, in Hebrew School, the class was supposed to learn about the Jewish events. The one caveat to that is that we had done this, every single year from Kindergarten to now. So, I decided "What's the point of me doing this another year" and simply went to the side of the classroom and read some book. Much to the teachers' dismay.
Another example would be in the 4th grade, I was on a field trip to the Lowell National Historical Park, and there was some activity that required putting on a mini-skit and costumes. I did not see the reason to put on a silly show when I could simply learn all of the information in a book that would take less than 20 minutes to read.
That decision was not well received by my teachers, who proceeded to scold me when we got back to the school, but never go punished. As I was within my rights to refuse.
So that's my thought process on that.
Moving on to trust-building exercises in elementary school, which were supposed to be fun and allow the fostering of a "healthy community" to form (Oh boy, we'll be going back to this later...), I unfortunately did not see the appeal of it, and just did not do what was asked of me. Not because I didn't know what to do. But because I didn't see the why. Why should I need to be involved in something, that I have no interest in whatsoever just to appease others?
One could consider that to be an entirely selfish philosophy, but in a world where people are actively trying to pull each other down, it is in my best interest to do what I need to do. Not what others ask me to do that has no concrete goal.
We'll go to one of my trips to get a more solid analysis.
Now, in addition to traveling all over creation and seeing a bunch of cool things, one of the secondary objectives of the trip was to be part of a community and make friends and yada yada yada.
If you cannot tell: I could not cared any less for that within 3 days of starting the trip. When it became abundantly clear that this would be a mental and emotional investment that would likely not be returned and would end near-instantly following the trip's completion, I decided to not bother. I did all of the sightseeing activities and required things that I had to do to make the staff happy, but would not go further.
Also: It really didn't help that half of the community-building activities were after 8PM, because by that point I am tired and just want to rest and not do anything. So I had to force myself down just to appease the people who couldn't care.
So, back to who this post is "dedicated" to, a bit of background:
G. was someone on the trip with me. We also knew each other from a previous experience. We were both in the same room for a few nights in the North, and were getting ready for some event. I think it was karaoke? It was supposed to be "everyone come and do karaoke!" But when you are currently experiencing ear pain and you have to go through the override channels to get medication, you sort of don't care and just want to sleep.
I don't know what I said, but the response I got was around these lines: "Zach, why would you choose to be on this trip if you had no interest in doing any of these social activities."
Firstly, since I can never say this in-person in public, and prefer not spelling it out on here. I will simply link my response here.
Well, I would like to respond in writing by saying: I apologize that I care more about my mental well-being and making sure I was using every day to the most rather than spend time with people who can't be bothered with me half the time, and that I chose to be on this trip to travel, not socialize with people who can't give a fuck about me because I choose to do things differently than what most teenagers choose to do.
So sorry that I don't believe the activities are "fun" and I'd rather sleep than listen to some lip-syncing competition.
Back to the current day: As I am finishing up my senior year. There have been a few things that I have done that seem like the lesser of the fun options, or elected not to do as a whole.
The most notable example would be in AP English Literature. I had the option of either doing a fun group in-depth discussion on A Tale of Two Cities, or, alternatively, write an essay every seven school days. I chose the latter.
But not because I enjoy to write, but because being in a group discussion stresses me out, and a graded discussion? Well, that would be the death of my grade as I know it.
Why Speak This Nonsense?
One might ask why I would willingly write about this topic, and it's quite simple. Trying to rope other people into doing things that you view as "fun" is asinine at best, and downright cruel at the worst. While there are some people who truly do need to be forced to do things, don't do that to those who see the full picture and are still doing what is needed.
I guarantee you make everyone happy by simply minding your own business. That's it.