Pissed

"Antonio. Why are you pissed?"

"What?", I feigned to respond in reflex to a question I did not understand.

"You look pissed. Why are you pissed?"

"I'm not pissed, I'm just tired."

I knew I was not in a cheery mood, but I didn't mean to make anyone think I was in a bad one.

But that got me thinking about whether I was indeed pissed. Just a little introspection, and yup, there it was... piss. More precisely, anger. Fairly well repressed, I'd say, but still fresh, ardent, vivid. Why the piss?

1) Working on research I don't want to work on.

2) Having to clean the house with Min and Yi when in fact I should be working on my research, which I don't want to work on in the first place.

3) Having a buggy project for research when an experiment with 50 people playing simultaneously is supposed to occur on wednesday.

4) Continuing in my Ph.D. program when my insides just tell me to quit it, to do something else, to use my youth to the fullest, for better, richer things - for things that will make me happy.

5) Seeing Laura around me, seeming to feign even excessive happiness and concern, while my pride is chipped, maybe slightly broken, from not being reciprocally liked by her.

6) In general, from not doing what I want to do.

And what do I want to do?

Travel. Meet new people. Learn new skills. Explore my possibilities. Absorb the richness of the world. Be happy. Make other people happy. Do significant actions and projects. Be... as much as possible! To be MORE!

But many days I am virtually the same person as the previous day - an educated zombie at the computer checking off tasks that he doesn't really want to do, but still does by habit, by fear, because of the convenient comfort of his stable, "good" life.

And I'm pissed because I don't change my situation. I could, but I don't. And that infuriates me, against myself, against my laziness and my lack of courage. Against my freaking conformity that I vouch so much against. It pisses me off.

That, and because you said you were at the bus stop and you weren't, and I ended up coming here on the bus alone, Ashik motherfucker.