Psychological Mishandling

I promised to write about myself in a blog. Here it is.

Name's Kyle. You probably got that bit. Male, 18, Australian, transitioning from little-working-school-kid to Mr Responsibility. It's pretty average, at the moment.

Asian mum, Irish dad. Weird mix, right. Even I raise an eyebrow at blatant interracial marriages as if to say "the fuck happened there?"

Childhood, good. Mainly exploring, crying, playing with Lego and K'Nex, bikes, computers, the average shit kids do these days. No dramas.

Teenhood, average. Pretty glad to be born into a drama-less family, nothing with alcohol abuse or drugs or one-parent balancing.

Enough of the blah.

In this blog, my main goal is to explain my perception of people as both individuals and as a group (mainly, the society of my age group, since that's the only shit-sad excuse of social exposure I can manage to get at the moment). Sorry for the little aim statement, but in my previous blog I ranted off into some education biography. Just trying to keep on track here.

To begin, I'm going to admit that I'm fucked in the head. As you may have read previously, I moved a few high schools. One bad [and obvious] thing about this is the lack of settlement, or rather, environment absorption. If you move about, you get no real sense of who's who and what's what. Only those who have attended a high school from 7 to 12 knows the people and places inside and out. I have never experienced this.

One good thing about this was my exposure to so many different people. Think of the situation as an explorer on a quest to discover the many exotic animals of the world, first starting in the tropics of Africa, then land-hopping to Antarctica and finally the plains of America. The common factor? You find animals. They're complex organisms that breathe, eat, shit, breed. The differing factor? Habitat. They dwell among us with completely different, lifestyle, diet, physical shape and behaviour.

My obsession was to study this different behaviour (and to a lesser extent, the environment which may influence such actions) in order to gain a better understanding of the general human function within our modern social world. The reason I emphasise 'general' is due to the fact that one cannot accurately and consecutively predict human behaviour. This statement only emerges from my observations during 18 years of life, though I am quite certain it is correct.

What I learned from my relatively regular school migration is that

• I can make friends with incredible ease
• Some people are scarily clingy and insecure
• Those who are clueless about the social happenings around them are put at great disadvantage

Addressing the first point, due to a source of free-flowing friends, I removed the needing factor of cling or insecurity. Everyone needs friends, sure, but if you know you can lose them and replace them with ease, the relationship's value drops dramatically. Now, call me a hypocrite, because everyone has their stages of cling and insecurity. I'll get to the third point later.

Here's my fucked up logic. I could replace friends with ease, thus the relationship's value dropped dramatically. I found that I didn't even care about those on the other end, that it was their fault for getting attached to me in the first place. For some reason, I assumed a proper friend could foresight my lack of neediness and be sure not to get too close. Oh boy, was I wrong, and oh boy, did I think people were stupid for not doing so. Big headed, right?

As a result of my replacement abilities, I experimented with relationships. From normal friends to girlfriends to randoms to teachers. I tweaked my behaviour in a way that would either

• Adapt to their liking
• Repel their interest
• Think sceptically of me as a person

At the end of each relationship, I would analyse what I did, what the [in]significant other would do in response, then how the 'animal-inspection' process could be improved in the future. I learned how to tick people off, how to make them like me, how to manipulate the socially clueless. When I lost a person as a result of my analysis, it didn't matter, a new subject was put in place. On with the learning.

This hands on practice obviously caused some stirs. A damaged relationship never sinks without the gurgle of a ship fighting to stay afloat. Care factor? Never rised above 1. If only the whole social network didn't twitch at the sight of a dying friendship, then my job would have been much easier. It wasn't though, which retarded some of my progress, but I pushed on.

Midway through my final year of high school, I'd entered myself in a three-person friendship bond. Now initially, this was all an experiment for me. I thought I'd see what it was like, fish out the biopsy, inspect, analyse, trash it. I tried to somewhat distance myself from the bond subtlety in order to leave when I need be. I thought I was succeeding, until one day when I did decide to leave, my apparent connection had already been made much, much stronger than I'd expected. Upon leaving, I had damaged the other two participants to such a degree that it forced me to reconsider my actions as an explorer, or more so, a person. I literally had nothing to gain from my adventures other than the ability to manipulate people, as well as the side-fun that came with it.

Of course, it took me this long to realise how fucking idiotic I was. To think I could treat other people with such lack of care for their feelings. It was like, "I didn't care about what they felt. If they crumbled, they fell because their structure wasn't strong enough". My theory was, if everyone was able to look after themselves, then no one would be reliant on others to maintain their security. To me, reliance was a sign of social weakness, a symbol of incapability and inexperience. Defend yourself from what can happen, so when it does, you can still stand strong.

Apparently, it didn't work like this, and although my logic wasn't flawed, it certainly did not apply to the real world.

I reinstated my connection in the three-person bond, and although bumpy (isn't every relationship, to some degree?) we're all making an effort to maintain the social balance. This had concluded my life as an explorer, as of now. I sometimes feel, however, when I'm angry or when I think too much, that the explorer in me yearns for those animal inspections once again. It's currently my job to suppress the inner adventurer, and tell him that he cannot analyse the mystical creatures of the world, that he must first learn to respect the animals before intruding their regular habitat. Only then can he observe without practice. Invasiveness is uncomfortable.

I think I'm getting better. It seems like my blogs already do follow a natural format, though whether its fluent or not, I can't be entirely sure. I can only wait and hope that I get some constructive criticism as to how I can improve my writing skill without trading off my self expression.

I've decided that the artistic thumbnails at the end of my blogs represent either a portion of me and how I appreciate art in all of its mediums and styles, or an image to somewhat relate to the content of the blog. It could easily be both.

My first few entries will most likely be about how I've lived for the past few years (as that's mostly all I can remember) and try to identify what imperfections I have as a person. I can only try to improve myself in hope that others are too.

Hopefully someone will understand.


Unrequited, unseen, forbidden love.



Thanks for reading.

Judgement Day

I've decided today to be my first official day of online blogging. I've been wanting to do this for a while, though held back due to a friends' passion for blogging. I didn't want to seem like I was copy-catting or competing. So instead, I migrated to a blogging site hidden from any friends' eyes. Sorry if my writing is a bit simplistic for now, but I'm guessing it'll improve as I write more. Here I am. My name is Kyle.

Today was Judgement Day, or more officially, the release of our ATAR's. For those who don't know, in a nutshell, this is pretty much one number which decides the future of your university path based on how you performed in the final year of high school. I've always disliked the concept - one numeral defining a person's intellectual capability. One could argue that the determination of the ATAR is an unfair way of classing a student's university work ethic, but to me, it was fair. The more effort you put in, the more you got out of it. Just like with everything else.

My results? Poor. Ever since I was in year three I'd realised I was a bit smarter than everyone else. Not just academically, but common sense, maturity, general intelligence. Why? The environment wasn't up to standard. I excelled in maths, due to my half-Asian heritage (sorry, but seriously, 99% of Asians have the work ethic to crunch maths), ripped junior science, proceeded to do well in foreign languages. Through this, I gained the "smart kid" label, one that had to meet expectations, but however, didn't stick long.

I moved schools a lot in high school. To be honest, when I was in primary school, I always found new kids as a threat. Who are they? What are they like? Friendly? Sporty? Smart? Competition for once? I'd loathe them, mainly because I thought sticking to one school was some kind of noble thing to do. Commitment or something.

Year 7 began in Warilla High school. Originally I'd tried out for a selective high school, but I didn't get in. Much confusion as to why, since I was.. you know.. the "smart kid". Mum made up reasons, though today I still don't know if they're true, or even if I still believe them.

Warilla was bad. Local public school, people getting caught for drug dealing, smoking, general inappropriate behaviour. I liked it as an introduction to high school, though. Very basic. I topped pretty much all the classes, not much competition.

Year 8 I moved schools - mum decided Warilla wasn't the right environment. I still hadn't been accepted into the selective high school, so next step was a private all-boys Catholic high school. Oh boy, what *fun* that was. Egotastics who only cared about sport and reputation with its corresponding all-girls Catholic high school. Topped maths, did above average in science and English. Three years of dealing with 'mob mentality'.

Year 11, accepted into the selective high school. Finally some competition. What's this? Too much competition? The first term of year 11 killed my spirit, no doubt. Here, the smarts were top of the range. Real effort, and I mean, real effort, had to be put in to even raise above the 'average' bar of intelligence in this school. It was a real killer for motivation, with my "smart kid" label finally slipping from my grasp. How did it feel? Traumatising. Was I stupid? No idea.

The question stuck to me for so long. Was I actually smart? Or was I just above average in a shit environment? To find these answers, I lurked a popular education website to find out details on

1. How other higher-standard students were performing
2. How our ATAR is calculated
3. How much effort I needed to put in to get what I needed

The third point was apparently my real killer. I'd always been the minimalistic worker. Do only what you need, not what you can.

Year 11 degraded my working conscience, though. Dramatically. It was like taking blows from each subject, my report only stating "You aren't doing good enough". Thankfully, Year 11 marks meant nothing (it was rather a trial run for the preparation of Year 12.. I wish someone had told me about this earlier), and that next year, my final year, would be my last chance to re-claim my initial "smart kid" label.

Did it happen?

Ahaha. Apparently not. I only really improved in a couple of my subjects, which pinned me down as like a butterfly trying to escape a swooping net. Freedom became limited, which forced me to actually try my hardest in the final two months of study. These were seriously challenging, I had never worked this hard in my schooling life. Before, good results came with little effort. Now it was all or nothing.

The result? I won't give a specific number (again; one number defining capability), but I've decided I'm above average with regards to smarts. Not the "smart kid" anymore. Here's how its gone from primary school > high school

• Primary: smart kid
• High: above average

Now for university? I surely hope it doesn't follow the trend and turn to be "average". That label is truly depressing.

It all comes down to contrast, expectation, standards and realisation. You've probably heard this shit before from teachers, parents, whatnot. But seriously. What you expect of yourself, how you perform against those around you and how much effort you put in are major factors to how your intelligence levels are perceived in the competitive education world. It's all about the image and the ability to prove yourself a worthy contributor to the worldwide economy, but only as another individual competitor in the race for satisfaction.

I have so much more to write, to get down in words and express thoughts. I might write about the same topics here and there, just so I can cover everything I think about it. Sorry if I do this often.

I might blog a couple of times a week. When I'm feeling that friends or family don't really get what I think. At least anonymous words might make some sense to others.

I didn't really reveal much about myself as a person in this entry. I will introduce myself properly another day. I'll be mainly writing about social perceptions and standard issues, behavioural logic, people's reasonings. Just for practice.

Whether the blogs will have some set format, its too early to determine at the moment. I'll religiously add a favourite thumbnail picture from my deviantart collections at the end of each blog. At the moment, for this, it's my profile picture.


Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.



Thanks for reading.