How living where I do has turned me sour

[Daniel]

I love New Zealand. I would happily die for this nation. I've been to one side of the planet and back again and seen more reasons than I'd like to love being a kiwi more and more with each passing day. The squalor of Asia, the limbless poor begging on the street and me being virtually the only one giving them some loose change. The astronomical lines at the local food market to buy a meal which made me sick with campilobacta so very frequently. The smell of pollution which assaulted my nose from the moment I opened the cracked and sunscorched wooden door to my apartment block there and had the breath in my lungs sucked out by the desert-dry heat.

When I woke up again, in a New Zealand hospital in 2005 and began my journey of rebuilding my life and sanity and health, I resented many people here in this country as I felt they were living blissfully aware of how things are abroad, but now I take this point of view back.

I take it back, not only because I've learned how bitter and angry I've become because of this illness, but also because I now see that such people here are normal, everyday individuals just trying to do what they need to in order to lead an enjoyable, full and healthy life. My former campaign advertising my miscalculation that I was wiser than so many has all been utter crap and I discovered this by coming to this site in late 2005.

So many people here brought out the welcome wagon and sent friend requests to me and I immediately felt accepted. I felt like it was the right path in life to have taken and that, while I had formerly searched for my way in life by travelling abroad, real comfort and friendship and belonging could be found online.

I was wrong. I discovered this in 2006 when these same people, predominantly from the US and England, stopped speaking to me at all after 1 or 2 replies. I tried to drop in and say hi to them, but they ignored me completely,
'Have I done something to offend them? Do I come across in a bad way?' I asked myself as the depression of being segregated online set in and I grew more and more disgruntled by the day.

I recall one member of this site saying I was, "Too far away" and that he was, "not interested in speaking with someone so distant". This was when I began to understand how some operate upon this site. They comfort themselves with the knowledge they can communicate with someone so far away until their ego has been satisfied enough to know that they just can. Then I become irrelevant, last weeks news and an insignificant footnote to their lives after providing them such gratification, even though I continue to eclipse their health levels. I know this because, unlike them, I still frequent the pages of these people and see their stagnation as I progress with a steady torrent of progress.

Saying that may sound arrogant, but I disagree. I've met one or two on this site who I respect unreservedly and look up to with admiration and aspire to emulate in their mindset and determination they project here.

I asked myself why such people felt superior to the way I did then, and I saw them as more active upon this site than most others. They added discussions and blogs and altered the appearance of their pages where I did little and achieved just as much despite my growing list of passing acquaintances.

So I began to grow my page, adding 100 songs, adding a new and colourful design to the look of the page, beginning to write my opinion and research how to improve every aspect of this recovery I possibly could. I became obsessed with the task as my page grew more and more until, one day, I grew sick of the one off comment-type of friends and deleted them from my list. It felt like all I'd done to improve my page and grow in stature upon this site was for completely nothing and no one cared.

I still think most don't actually care, and here's why : I'm from an obscure and small nation, yet my page and my progress and my proactive nature has eclipsed similar efforts of most of these people. Forget financial meltdown and economy-related stress : the segregation was apparent long before this.

Then, late last year, a female member of this site living in England asked me to read a fictional piece of writing she was, and presumably still is, working on. I agreed mostly because I craved the attention she gave for my doing so. I received it and began to read. It was lengthy and ate into my 6-8 hour/day rehab routine. It was average to read and lacked interesting dynamic - hinting at wanting to be good, yet falling short of the mark when all it needed was slightly more imagination added to it.

I got about a quarter of the way through before my health began to deteriorate with the associated fatigue. I told her this and apologised for discontinuing my reading what she had written. She took it well, I thought, until I tried to speak further to her and found she had lost interest in knowing me further,

"I thought you would like it, I thought you were like a little boy" she said, or something with similar intent. I despised that comment. I began to hate being seen in that light but, contrary to validating her statement, I took it on the chin and continued to improve, trying to alter myself and improve in order to not be seen in this way.

I began to finally realise that some on this site see/have seen me as being immature or irrelevant. I continue to progress and nail this diseases sorry ass to the wall and do things others simply cannot and likely will never be able to again do, yet none know this because they stopped speaking to me a long time ago and judged me based upon that one initial greeting and passing hello they afforded all that time ago. They don't know now that I'm about 90% healthy, after nearly dying in a Hong Kong hospital 4 years ago of a serious brain injury which they, themselves, come across as being less progressed than I in reversing because they say so little to me and think of nothing but their own issues.

I've gone from deaths door to, right now, verging on an extremely fortuitous turnaround of health. I know this because part of the reason for writing this discussion was to see if I could keep my train of thought and memory constant throughout. I believe I've achieved that, so allow me to make my final point.

(AIMED AT FUTURE NZ MEMBERS OF THIS SITE) :

You will be perceived as being irrelevant by many here. You will be taken for granted and belittled and made to feel insignificant even if you've been through more than many say of themselves on this site. Presumption will be fired your way and you will be made to feel less as a human simply because you're a New Zealander (I get the impression).

I've spent 4 years hating people who ignored me after I fell ill. I know now they regret having done so, yet feel too guilty about the past to try and change anything. It took 4 years to figure out that I've come to resent many upon this site simply because they think they're better than me when, in fact, they're just as laughable, if not moreso.

Online or in real life, the way I'm perceived by others is as a joke. Yet still I progress and still I eclipse and surpass other people in terms of progress. I no longer laugh at myself with vindictive intent when I look in the mirror each morning like I used to. I look with determination and knowledge that this same point next year will likely be one where I see the reflection of a fully recovered man staring back. I want that. I don't care how belittled I feel in order to achieve it. I will have the last laugh and achieve what others are too arrogant to open themselves to : being open to looking outside their little world and seeing that, sometimes, the smaller nations contain people who actually achieve what they strive for : health.

If you're a kiwi or just an open minded person, then know this : I am a loyal person and one who can be relied upon implicitly, but I don't tolerate being belittled. I surpass such arrogance.

Finally, to Siria : I do apologise for not finishing reading what you wrote, but your blatant arrogance with your reply sickened me and your refusal to reply after I tried to befriend you despite this is something I'll likely not forget soon and sadly see as somewhat synonimous with those English I've met in life.

I detested many in New Zealand who I knew before illness for how they excluded me, but I had to come here before I understood the true meaning of isolation.

To those like Stephen, Elizabeth, Hope, Faith and Tish - my wholehearted apologies if any offense is taken should you read this, but I've been tolerating such ignorance for years now, and I've nearly had enough.

I'll remain actively on this site, but I do so as a growing skeptic of human nature.

[Daniel]

I'm not sour, I'm just a confused, incredibly masculine and Greek god-like stallion trying to make his humble way through life during a time which is thoroughly testing his otherwise incredible character and making him create a new and seemless boundary of defiance by valiantly overcoming this stupid virus and reclaiming his health like the true stud he is as women gasp and faint as he passes them on the street and otherwise intimidating men run to the hills as the weak they normally prey upon begin to follow like mice parading after the pied piper of hamlin.....actually, I suck, but I'm in a good mood, so I'll click add reply....