YC124, March 25th.
Well, it’s been quite some time since I last felt the need to do this. Since before graduating from the institute even. Strangely, those days feel both like a lifetime ago and as though they were only yesterday. How strange our perception of time is.
Ms. Ardepa always told me to not stop writing these; that it would get easier the more I did it. I suppose it’s my fault for not following that advice. Perhaps I thought that life as a capsuleer would somehow make things easier and thus I wouldn’t need to retreat here again, or perhaps it’s because I’ve always felt a degree of shame in having to admit that I struggle. Either way, her appraisal of me was right, of course: I need to practice putting these things into words for my own mental well-being. After all, what good of a servant can I be if I can’t do what is necessary to keep myself healthy? The difficulty, as always, is knowing what it is I need to write. I mean, I do know, but turning it into words is hard. I suppose nobody else will ever read this, however, so perhaps I need to simply force myself to write and not worry about how neatly it reads.
I suppose I’ll just get to the point: I don’t like the way I’ve caught myself behaving these recent weeks. I know I struggle to deal with the aggressively misguided, Directrix Phonaga can attest to that, but I’ve found myself becoming increasingly spiteful, temperamental, and just… bitter as of late. Not just internally, but in terms of how I come across to others in public. It’d be tempting to say that it started with a certain Emilia Dallocort; a cynical Electus Matari pilot I encountered in the warzone that seems to have developed a penchant for getting under my skin. I think that would just be making excuses for myself, however. It’s easy to get under my skin when I’m already on edge, and patrolling the warzone has left me exactly that.
I’ve heard several stories of how the warzone changes people. The CEMWPA war is hardly the only inter-factional conflict in this cluster, but it is surely one of the most bitterly fought. Yet it isn’t just the constant stresses of conflict nor the often-spiteful exchanges between combatants that has left me so high-strung since I’ve been flying more regularly here. Really, it’s first and foremost the horrifying realization that part of me enjoys this. It’s hard to understate the rush of euphoria I feel upon successfully engaging another pilot, especially the loud-mouth abusive ones like Dallocort. I fired a round through her pod recently… and I enjoyed it. Seeing that body that had only moments before been insulting and questioning my integrity now floating helplessly as a lifeless corpse adrift in space. How could I ever look upon a corpse of an enemy and feel joy? I’m supposed to be better than that. Mother and Father raised me better than that. I’m letting them down. It’s wrong. It’s not who I am. Conversely, losing does hurt bitterly, but even then, I just feel more motivated to return and make up for my failure; the cycle repeats and the heightened state of emotion I’ve been put in as a result of my failure just leaves me vulnerable to losing my composure even more quickly.
I don’t like the person I’m becoming. It’s contrary to who I am. I know full-well that you cannot destroy an ideology with material weapons. You can suppress it temporarily, but you need to defeat the ideology on an ideological level to truly see its evil rid from existence for good; whether through weeding it out through multiple generations of education and service, or by simply making people realize for themselves their own folly. I swore to Directrix Phonaga that I would help her show Amarr to the cluster through its shining light. To be that light that illuminates the way for the less fortunate and the misguided. I make a mockery of that promise when I act like a bitter idiot, hurling insults and throwing tantrums the moment somebody pushes my buttons. I’m ashamed of myself when I read back the conversations I’ve had, or tried to have, with Dallocort, Elkin, Macsliebh, and others. Not because their behaviours aren’t utterly deplorable, not because they don’t deserve it, not because I’m wrong, but because I know I’m playing right into their hands. I’m turning myself into the caricature they want me to be, and they just smirk away the whole time. I can’t keep doing it; I have to find a way to control my temper. I know I can be so much more than the way I’m behaving, and I can’t bear to disrespect the Directrix’s trust in me. What type of a Junior Diplomat cannot keep their cool when dealing with people hostile to them? What type of a guiding light acts like a petulant child in public view, smearing their own public image at the behest of those that would do them harm?
I just don’t know how to fix things. The CEMWPA conflict remains an unfortunate necessity in modern international affairs, with the terrorist state masquerading as a self-proclaimed Republic continuing to pose a risk to the entire stability of the post-CONCORD international order. One would have hoped that a silver lining of the Collective’s emergence and unlawful occupation of our worlds would have been that it would have woken the Republic up to the dangers of the path it walks, but I suppose their bloodlust and convenient hatred for the color gold knows no bounds. Thus, doing what little I can to assist militia forces by hunting down vulnerable TLF combatants remains a valid and justifiable pursuit, even if not my sole purpose. But how do I do it while keeping myself from giving in to my own weaknesses?
The Directrix’s writing contest may go a long way towards helping me there I hope. Writing something in my own space, at my own pace. It’s always been easier away from others. Perhaps I can use the opportunity to write this year’s entry to reconnect with the person I want to be again. A common thread I’ve noticed in dealing with hostile outsiders is their absolute fixation on slavery. They see it as this great all-encompassing evil - no doubt encouraged by the dangerous rhetoric promoting unrestricted individual liberties espoused by the Federation - rather than a necessary part of a civilized hierarchy. Though I know more well-learned and intelligent capsuleers have debated the topic before, perhaps I could attempt to explain the validity of slavery as an institution in my entry. At the very least I could try to shed light on the shortcomings of other societies’ approaches to the natural need for hierarchy. Perhaps it won’t do much to silence those that hate us, but at least it’s better than nothing. If it stops even one person from treating me as though I’m—
[Several lines of scribbled-out sentences follow]
I don’t want to think about this any more.