About destruction and perversity

Been reading some stuff and thinking some stuff.. seems like my mind space has been very busy and occupied.

One thing led to another, and I ended up re-calling this incident back in Secondary school.
We had a Chinese test/ mock exam that day…
And as usual, the last minute me is cramming for it..

And in panic and frustration, I just tore up those pages of Chinese text and throw them into the school pond. And I gave up the test, determined to just write nonsense in the paper. And I did.. figuring that if I cannot do well in it, I may as well just do the reverse. And I failed the test horribly, just the way I wanted it.

That, unfortunately, is not the first time I gave up in advance.. or engineered my own failure.

Sometimes, for some things, I aim for perfection. If I know something is less than perfect or will be marred, I take it upon myself to destroy it first. Rather than to sit around and wait for the bad news.

I think I can be destructive, yes.
Not only destructive, but deliberately destructive.

That explains why I needed so much counselling when I was in JC, to pull me back from the dumps.. Cuz thinking back, I think that was what I was doing, I was deliberately trying to destroy myself, my life and my future when I was in JC.

It is a perverse streak. Kinda like, if things are not gonna be the way I want it, or I can’t be what I want to be, then I will go all out to make it worst, destroying it myself and doing as much damage as I can to it.

The scary thing is: I realize I am still like that. And I saw it once in Xuan Xuan too, young as he is.

He was playing with his toy puzzle, and when he could not get them to fit, he ripped the rest of the puzzle apart and throw the pieces all around. Maybe he was just expressing his frustration. He is still very young after all.. But when I saw him do it.. I can perfectly understand why he did it. In his helplessness, the only control he had was to destroy.

In my desire for control… sometimes I deliberately damaged some things. Like relationships.

If I can’t have it the way I want it, sometimes, consciously or more often, unconsciously, I start to create trouble, or withdraw or give up on the relationship.

To have this realization is a good start, but it does not mean I am any better at handling it. I think I am into my usual bout of being difficult, creating trouble and giving it a reason to fail.

Human beings are complex that way, sometimes.
The perverse thinking is intriguing, if you can look at it objectively speaking.

What can be done to reverse the perversity?
Maybe if the rewards are rich enough, motivating enough. Cuz for me, to want something bad enough does not seem “enough” for me.

Because I know wanting something, and getting it are 2 very different things.
You want something does not mean you will get it.

And in my case, if there is no assurance that I will get it, then to justify the failure on grounds that I can reconcile with, I destroy it. Yes, even if I have to justify the failure on my destruction. That is better than having to cope with something that cannot be explained or flimsy consolations offered, e.g. “You are just unlucky.. things happen, it is not your fault… nobody could have anticipated it”

No, I cannot cope with the un-explained. Or the odds.
So I configure and engineer my own odds.
Even if it points towards failure.

Scary? I think it is. Very. Especially when I can see it insidiously working. When I start thinking about certain things in ways which is sure to bring about failure.

Sometimes, I think I am so capable of being a walking disaster. All the best to me.