Hello there!

It's been awhile, and I've been busy trying to settle into the university life. I wouldn't explain much, because I know how word spreads faster than fire in the university context - so I'll just say that I'm still trying to find my ground. Mostly, it's struggling with the idea of taking a step back in life anyway. Nothing new.

I'm in extreme (physical) pain from the horrors of my menstrual cramps so I'd strangle anybody in a heart beat if they were to provoke me now. I do hope you feel my anger and frustration and be as thankful as I am that nobody should probably be within physical reach to me at the moment of me typing this.

Apart from being busy, I guess I've been really holding back with my writing? Why? Well, it's the issue of being "right" today (in today's context) I suppose. And that is exactly what I'm about to address today. And no, I am not backing it up with substantial evidences or objective points of view. I'm on my period - I'm entitled to be unreasonable today.

It's one week a month (2 days of extreme pain, in fact) so just give it to me alright?

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I used to love to write - everywhere and anywhere. I love to talk about everything and anything. It's scary, thinking back on how little I thought and how much happier I probably was. Today, when I'm about to write anything, anything at all - I consider how objective my opinions are, and how I'm about to justify my subjective opinions lest I receive a strong backlash from them.

It's no longer as simple as "we can agree to disagree" because that's honestly just a lazy and lame excuse for "I don't have a reason and I'm too tired to find one for you".

But what's wrong with having opinions that aren't substantiated with evidences today? Are we wrong to have opinions that we don't feel the need to explain? Why do we have this urgency to explain ourselves the moment we speak of something controversial (or maybe even not so at all)?

Why are we so caught up with the backlash? Are we really afraid of the opinion, or feeling like we're not being supported? Perhaps, we are afraid of being deemed as "dumb", "narrow-minded", "naive" by people who feel the need to constantly nit-pick at our opinion pieces?

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I used to love to share my opinions - it showed who I am. By having opinions about subjective matters, I felt alive. I feel like I actually felt something about an issue or an event; It made me feel part of something. But somehow, I've lost that with time.

Surrounded by amazing people who are no less than sheer genius at providing strong and well-supported arguments, I've lost my voice. Perhaps I've not. I've just lost the motivations to speak with it. Every time I type something, I stop short at the thought of having to deal with these arguments. I find myself trying to answer their (potential) challenges even before I finish writing my pieces. At the end of the day, it isn't even something I intended to talk about in the first place anymore.

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It's scary how the opinions of others and the pressure to be accurate has sacrificed the voice of people who are more than willing to speak out about how they feel about something.

A close friend of mine was once branded "dumb", "stupid", and "naive" simply because she believed a source that wasn't accurate and tried to use it to talk about an issue to a few friends of mine. Don't get me wrong - these people who called out at her about believing a false source did so with kind intentions. They didn't want her to be deceived. But here's what happens when you use unkind words despite kind intentions - you make people lose their voice.

Strong criticism that are phrased in the worst possible way ever - they hurt others. They lose their self-esteem to talk about certain issues. They stop being alive about their opinions and voices. My friend no longer speaks up about controversial issues, or anything at all. She simply goes along with the majority voice, and it's sad to see her losing her voice like this.

Why are we so eager to pick faults at others' arguments? Why are we so quick to be critical? But is it wrong, to be critical? Is it wrong to have kind intentions and have constructive arguments? Where is the line drawn?

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Constructive criticisms and arguments are so prevalent in my circle of people today. Having been in the media industry and now arguing over what Shakespeare intended in his writings breeds a space filled with people who are more than ready to challenge your every argument.

It's good though, because we learn something new from everybody's arguments. We see a new point of view, and we learn something from a new angle we never saw before that. But there's a difference between constructive criticism and being plain unkind/rude. People who simply shut your argument down, who simply tell you that you're wrong - these people are so toxic. There is no space for growth, zip zero. Nothing at all. And I guess that's where people went wrong.

That's where the human race went wrong.

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I don't have the answers to the perhaps gazillion questions I posted earlier on. And honestly, I'm not in the mood to answer them, or to account for any statement I made today. I'm so goddamn sick and tired of arguing for my opinions. Everybody deserves a safe space to talk about something they feel about, without having to argue for it. Everybody deserves their safe haven.

This is mine, and if you have any issues with it - you can get the hell out of this space. I'm most frequently kind, but I'm in a huge amount of pain and I'm losing a lot of blood so I am most unkind now.

I'm tired of losing my voice, chucking away post after post because I'm so tired from school work to answer all the (potential) challenges I may be breeding. I want to feel alive again, like this space is a space for me to speak about anything and everything without having to account for it. I want this to be a space where I don't have to cite academic sources or put a works cited page at the end.

Am I asking for too much? Perhaps I am.
But whatever, I'm not going to deal with that today.