So here we are again. Now I suppose that’s a little dramatic, but I’m human, so I tend to run with the drama trend, especially when it comes to my own emotions. I mean, it’s the question of the hour isn’t it? The question of the day, month, year, century: How do you feel? What are you feeling? How does that make you feel? How are you?It’s a set of questions I’d be willing to surmise that a grand total of possibly 97percent of Americans have become impervious to. These questions are similar to what I’m going to group up as the “Greeting Questions.”

Hey, what’s up? How are ya? How’s it going? Seriously, how many times a day do we utter some unintelligible response to these questions without any nerve impulses reaching our cerebrums? Try counting. Most of us have become entirely immune to these questions. We simply reply “Oh, fine,” as if on auto-pilot, and continue on with our meaningless lives.

Now pardon me if I sound bitter, but I am — a little.

For while I as well am guilty of parroting salutations, I am just as offending, if not more so, of leaning too far on the other end of the spectrum, which makes me kind of want to embrace the whole “auto-pilot” mode whole-heartedly, because I’m beginning to realize that my feelings keep instigating my actions, which, in turn, leaves me bitter.

And especially bitter when I knew better.

I should be more conscience-stricken. I shouldn’t paint pretty pictures in picture windows and then feel bad when I hand someone a rock and they happen to throw it and as a result my window gets all busted up. If you’ve got a good-feeling rock in your hand, chances are you’re going to toss it. Who wouldn’t?

It’s like playing with fire, too. It’s an experiment. Say I wanted to see if the invaluable wax sculpture I theoretically created (let’s say it’s an abstract of how I pictured our future) could withstand the heat of the fire. If it melted, which it would, I’d reasonably have no reason to be upset about it. But I would be, and that would leave me especially bitter because why would I purposely do something that I knew, really knew, would most likely end up in destruction?

Now let’s say I put myself in the fire. And I get burned. Which I knew would happen, because the sculpture already melted, so what was I thinking? Later on, I even try again to see if I can withstand the heat. And of course I can’t. So now I’m not only bitter and burnt, twice, I’m also an idiot thinking, Haven’t I been here before?

Yet it isn’t only my outlook on myself that’s humiliating, since realistically I can’t coop myself up and live a hermit lifestyle. At some point I’ll have to go out in public with the rest of the population, bearing my scars, and other people will look at me and say, “What happened to your face or your arm or your eyebrows?” and I’ll have to tell them and they’ll look at me and shake their heads and most will restrain themselves from uttering the “I told you so’s,” pushing against their eyeballs.

Some of them will though. Some will be more than willing to let me know how they were right all along, and then throw an accentuated “What were you thinking?” at me, as if that isn’t already the question that’s been running on the express train of thoughts through my head. No, these people will be more than happy to rub in how stupid I was, letting my misstep overshadow their own blunders of disillusionment following this simple rule: I was stupid more recently, so you don’t have to feel stupid anymore.

Sadly, this technique won’t really abolish anyone of their own stupidity, as we as a race will never cease to be stupid. As a whole, we will undoubtedly continue to let ardent emotions get the best of us because when it comes to feelings we will always do what we, ourselves, choose to do, regardless of all the advice and opinions we asked so kindly asked for and then immediately ignored.

We will always do what we want to do, and then when life doesn’t unravel the way it was dreamed up, we will challenge this. And then, all of the oh-so-solid arguments I’ve created in my head will slowly dissipate — and I’ll see it for what I suppose it is supposed to be — old Play-Doh that’s been left out too long and no longer can be molded into anything, and I’ll be overwhelmed by this … and bitter.