Inspired by Earnest Hemmingway’s

It’s an odd feeling: reaching for the phone, and realising I can’t call them. Seeing them, and stopping, because I can’t hug them. Finding an old t-shirt - the one they gave me, and curling my body around it. Seeing past photos, wishing it was then again. Something great happening, and all I want to do is tell them. Feeling so incomplete because they perfected me, and now all I am left with is this gaping hole in my soul, the one they once filled, so perfectly.

That

Feeling

Body trembling unable to move chest being crushed unable to breathe tears pricking my eyes like needles unable to see

Pain consumes every single particle of me, while their memory retreats into the shadows

By Arlo Evans

meets

As we lose ourselves, the essence of what we once were, we tend to say ‘what happened to me? I used to be so much more.’ We no longer define ourselves as we did, say, a year ago. In this instance, therefore, are we not returning to existence? Optimists talk of a ‘new leaf’; do they truly mean a new essence? A new purpose, a new definition. We are not predefined creatures. It is possible. Yet is it ever possible to truly, fully, let go of your roots? To leave an old pot, an old personality, behind and be planted into a new one, with new soil to dig into and fully root? We may never wash the old soil from our roots. As long as mankind is an intelligent life form with a well-working hippocampus, neo-cortex and amygdala, then can we ever unashamedly, unapologetically cut off our roots in order for them to sprout again? There is no way of knowing whether what will grow in its place will be healthy or self destructive and worse than before.

The latter would feed into the part of human nature that is in constant need of sympathy. Sympathy can be a dangerous weapon, burrowing its seeds in our deepest roots, memories that the world would be much better without. Those who crave validation and sympathy have the worst cases of root rot. Some don’t realise it until the time comes to be repotted and they discover that their roots have been turned into a mushy pile of goo and have come away with their old, sodding wet soil.

Personal development is an integral part of human nature. In order for personal development to have a long lasting, preferably positive effect, we must make sure that our roots are healthy. Like a plant, we must chop those that are dying, not good for us and unhealthy, in order to give the new ones a chance to truly thrive. If you go about making new memories with the tainted old ones still in the forefront of your mind, you will crash and burn. If you stay stuck in the past, forever searching for sympathy and not trying to get better, then you will rot. In order for personal development to have a positive effect and change you for the better, you must be willing to change. With the right mindset and willingness to prevent root rot, your mind can go from a terrifying, all consuming cavern of pain to a bearable, slightly less all consuming cavern of pain.

If you do not want to get better then fine. It's not me who will rot.

By Hollie Downie