I just understood. *Please read this, though y'all might hate me for this*

I get a lot of time to think when I'm cutting sales dockets. Normally, I just come up with new stories, but today, my mind wandered to Jade Curtiss's many quotes.

"You're all still young." was something I never did understand. Everybody was angry at Luke then because he was being arrogant and selfish. In fact, he deserves that anger. I was also on the verge of yelling at Luke when Jade just pops out and said that phrase. My thoughts were the exact same as Guy's statement. "How did the guy pull out something like that at a time like this?"

Much later in the story, Elder McGovern said, "When people are as old as Jade and myself, we don't have the time to get angry at people we don't care about."

I understood what that meant, but only in my head. Until today, I finally gave it some more thought and learned how young and immature I really am, and it's not just me, but a whole lot of people out there too. My friends, my enemies... Heck, almost everyone I know.

Looking back at the entire history of my life, especially the majority of last year, I've hated many people. I'm angry about what they do, how they behave, that I met them, that I knew about them, that they even exist. I couldn't care less if they were holding onto a branch on a 1000-foot cliff. I'd be glad if they would just fall and disappear from this world.

Today, I just realised how immature that thought really is. I hate them so much, enough to wish for their extinction, so why should I care about them? I don't approve of their actions and their character, so why not just walk past them like they're just shadows? Why kill my own nerve cells for people who likely won't change any time soon or even in their lifetime? My time would have been better spent doing something I can accept or making friends with people whom I can like.

Look at my parents, look at your own parents, how often do they get angry that their neighbours throw rubbish into their backyard? How often do they get mad at someone who laughs at the sight of other people suffering? And for how long, really? Dump rubbish into our backyard and we just build our fence/wall higher. Laugh at other people's misery? We'll just help the suffering while you make yourself an enemy of their friends and relatives. They don't waste much time or brain cells.

Look at us, we shout at a guy for accidentally dropping crumpled paper on our heads. We punch someone for smacking our heads with a wooden pole because they didn't see us when they turned around. Just to name a few extreme yet true examples, of course.

We teens and young adults keep screaming that we want to grow up or already have, but we don't even understand this. "Getting angry is hurting yourself because of someone you hate." Haha, I thought I understood it, but it seems like I just did.

Now, I feel like I understand why parents always want their kids to apologise whenever they hit someone or yell at someone else even if their kids weren't wrong. It's not because they think that their kids are wrong, it's because they don't want their kids to torture themselves over someone they hate. Perhaps even the parents don't even realise it, but their message was probably something like this, "Don't go troubling yourself over someone like him. He can go ahead and grow up to be a bad person if he wants, but we don't want you to do the same thing."

During the spammer incident last year, I joined Winger and the others to bash both the spammer for being an asshole and also Wai Kit because he falsely accused Winger. Now that I think about it, it's just stupid. The spammer was bashing Wai Kit, so why did we get ourselves involved with him? And Wai Kit was blaming Winger, so why didn't we just calmly demand proof and make him eat his own words? Instead, we hated him, badmouthed him and completely tore our chances of an alliance against the real spammer. I never realised it then, but Niresh was smart to have realised that much sooner by apologising to Winger and working to find the real culprit. I feel like a total idiot now compared to him.

Now, there's the Henry Koay incident. Almost everybody in the Fellowship are already bashing the guy even if they don't know him. I, myself, feel the urge of joining the fray just because Winger is my friend. Realising what Jade meant made me reconsider that thought and seriously, that just doesn't sound like my style at all. I'm supposed to be calm and collected, choosing the side that IS right from an outsider's point of view.

(This is where you people might start hating me for.)

My opinion now: Winger was wrong for bashing the guy for no reason other than dislike. That is just plain cari pasal. Henry was also wrong to have responded in such an extreme manner. Quoting Anonymous, "People say you one sentence and you bash people with a whole post."

My verdict: Neither side is worth helping. I gain false pride and a new enemy for helping my friend and I'd be a total backstabber if I sided Henry.
Perhaps I don't sound mature pointing out only your flaws and I'm sure you can see a lot of mine, but I am working on growing up. My first goal would be to stop holding contempt against people whom I dislike but can't do anything to change. If I don't like the guy, I either make him change or just pretend he doesn't exist. Since the former would be almost impossible considering my current self, I'll build up on the latter. It sounds simple, it may even BE simple to do, but will I really be able to completely eliminate the guy from my mind? I'll just have to wait and see.

I kind of envy the old me. Back in high school, I used to be able to tolerate my classmates' lack of discipline. I'm referring to acts of wrestling in class, littering in class, avoiding the duty roster and throwing the responsibility to other etc. Heck, I'd just ignore them and study or something. But that seriously changed in college. I always feel like wanting to yell anyone who does something disapproving, especially when it comes to defending my friends, even if neither side were actually right. People grow up, but I became less mature. I really, really feel like an idiot.

To think Jade actually taught me something. I guess Luke wasn't the only one who benefited from the guy. Jade, you may hate teaching, you may not take apprentices and you may not impart knowledge, but, as Luke has said, I'll just steal them from you.

Winger, I'm going to hurt you one more time, but that's because I care. Grow up. You hold more contempt against others than any other people I know and care about. I'm not asking you to change your personality (That's mostly the reason I'm friends with you), but you REALLY should stop picking a fight with your enemies. If you've made enemies, fine. That's natural, but don't go starting the fight. Someday, you may not have us to help you.

P.S. The first half of the post was planned, but the second half, starting from the spammer incident part was written as they came to mind. I did doubt typing the final paragraph but I figured I should give Winger my first piece of beneficial advice to him since we've met.