Insanity: guest post by Nenad Petrovic

I loved how Nenad wrote about love and how he was allergic to the pathetic. I often have this icky feeling he mentioned in his post whenever I see these pathectic outburst around. 

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in fairy tales. Just not in the fairy tales that we were told by our parents, the Grimm brothers or Hollywood productions, or in the ones served to us by social media and advertisement. I believe we are all responsible not only for choosing our own fairy tale but also for creating it for ourselves, living it and believing in it. Even when it’s completely different from what is commonly considered to be a fairy tale.  

I’m still wondering what it is in our nature that draws us into embracing bad patterns and models or buying into the pathetic and the habits of consumerism that embody it. Thus I will never understand that insanity required to celebrate this and will probably many times as a consequence, like Nenad does, feel insane myself. And, like him, I will stumble and fall… and then move on because life is only worth it when you are courageous and you are actually there living it.

I N S A N I T Y

by Nenad Petrovic

I hope that God will forgive me for all this and I hope that you will forgive me too.

There is one thing that I’m severely allergic to and that is the pathetic.

Don’t get me wrong, this allergy is neither due to my own vanity nor to my inability to accept the modern day reality of romantic relationships. This bad reaction has a mere medical nature. This is a very rare illness.

 It’s all about my stomach. The cramps and the rolling of the stomach that certain pathetic outbursts make me experience cannot be compared to even the worst symptoms of food poisoning. Suffering through a spoiled cheap pâté that I once had experienced was nothing compared to the effects that the pathetic has on me. That’s why I fear it and that’s why I try to keep away from it.

Unfortunately, the pathetic is ever-present and we cannot escape it. And you know that. It’s common profiles on social networks, cropped pictures of arms and legs or, the most popular, pictures of food or drinks had together. All these, suddenly there to enlighten us on that harmonic pathetic relationship.

It’s horrifying, don’t you think so?

I’m afraid that the pathetic might sadly color something that I really love. Something like books or movies, or you. I’d say it would be easy to deal with the first two. I would condemn the people behind them, knowing that they sold themselves to the masses. But what about you? What could I do when it came to you?

Having gone through a lot of struggles in life, I never had the chance to experience that famous “butterflies in your stomach” feeling. The one which, according to teenage magazines, is proof that you are in love. In fact, if you were still unsure as to whether to become intimate with your new partner, this butterfly diagnosis would point to the right answer: of course, just do it.

My stomach and eye rolling, the inevitable sign of my illness, has often made me come across as a monster – unable to show emotion the way it’s supposed to be done. I have become cold, careful and stingy with words. At times, I’ve been labeled as insensitive, arrogant and even rude.

Don’t think that I’m happy or proud of that. It actually makes me feel really sad.

 So, darling, you will never hear from me that today you are prettier than yesterday. That would mean that yesterday you were not pretty, or that you were not pretty enough. If you are beautiful, then you are so always. Regardless of your hair, be it styled or messy. No matter if you just woke up or if you’re already wearing make-up. I don’t see your beauty in the mirror, as you do – I assemble it from all those small things that you do, say, think…

Unfortunately, I will never tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, even though I will probably think so many times. If I did say it, it would lose its sense and sincerity and it would sound as cheap flattery. So, if you agree, I’d rather keep this to myself. I think that this way I will love you more and you will see it if you are keen enough to notice. Then, instead of just words you will get hundreds and thousands of kisses. Seems like a great trade off, doesn’t it?

And this is not where it ends. This weird illness had caused a bunch of other problems. I have lost faith in popular holidays and began to disregard them. Even most important ones, such as Valentine’s Day. St Valentine: the most important saint of them all. 

So, on this loving day, instead of dragging a huge teddy bear through public transportation (collaterally earning the liking of fellow female commuters), what I am doing is sitting in a tavern, drinking wine and thinking what everything would be like if I was just a bit different, or just normal.

And I’m wondering: is it me, you or the bear?

I think it’s the bear, whose fake fur makes me feel itchy all over any time I see it. 

Sometimes I think about how thrilled a child would be to get such a nice disheveled friend. I promise, next time I see an enamored fool, I will give him a slap on the back, take the bear away and give it to a child. A child, who surely needs it more than a 30-year-old lazybones. I believe the bear would agree on it, if anyone would ever ask.

Since I haven’t posted all these numerous concerns on my Facebook status, there would be no way for you to see them, so you wouldn’t know how I feel and so you could probably argue that I know nothing about love.

And it is true.

You are right.

I never knew how to control love and I never tried to do so. I have stumbled and I have fallen thousands of times in traps of my own making. I have lost in the games that I had myself created where I would wake up with my hands tied, frozen and abandoned. In spite of all that, I would always rise up again, shake the snow off and proudly move forward.

Yes, I would be proud. Because that fall would show me that even then I was human, vulnerable and imperfect, exactly as I had always aspired to be.

Proud that I stood up. By myself.

Proud that I’ve stepped forward. Because I have faith. That I will meet you.

So don’t tell me that you’ve suffered or that all men are evil and you are all so good. No one is purely good. Some are just better than others. We all have flaws. Some of which are so dear to me that not only did I not try to get rid of them over the years – I actually became, in all my insanity, proud of them. 

Anyways, who knows anything today?

Everything is upside down and we can do little about it.

So, darling, let’s not try to understand the world. We would never be able to achieve that. Let’s just continue to spite it and to refuse all the nonsense it’s tempting us with. Let’s not accept the models of happiness of others, let’s make our own.

Let’s do things differently, in our own way. If we want to, we can succeed and we can be ourselves. We wouldn’t be bothered about what other people think.

And let them say that we don’t love each other enough and that we are terribly boring.

Let them feel sorry for us and make fun of us.

I would never exchange a second of our happiness for a year of theirs.

And if after all you ask me

Have I gone insane –

I’ll reply

Yes.