I've come to the conclusion that there really isn't any point in trying to "succeed" in life. We don't have free will. Our actions don't matter.

A person can become respected and renowned for being dedicated and hardworking, but another can be punished and taken advantage of for the very same thing. A person can be compassionate, or quirky, or violent and find acceptance or exclusion for any of those reasons. A person can make a mistake and find people around them are forgiving and understanding, while the next person in line to do the same is made a pariah.

Because that is what it all comes down to: the people around you and their expectation of how you should be treated.

The people around you decide what you are. You can do whatever you want, but it is other people who either allow or prevent your actions. And what do they base this on? Your personality? Your skills? No. They base it on the opinions of the people around them. If everyone in the room agrees that the subject is deserving, then they are deserving , and who would speak against them? Even if they do, it's irrelevant because the fault then lays with the objector.

Power begets power. So much so that it's becomes shocking that a bad thing can happen to a "good" person. There is a news story at the moment about a woman who was shot by a policeman. There have been over 500 shootings of this type this year in America alone, but this one was special because the woman was a middleclass, blonde, attractive, white woman. Did she deserve to die like she did? Probably not. But, hypothetically speaking, does a teenage guy from a poor background deserve it any more? There might not be any difference in the actions, but that woman didn't deserve to die because bad things shouldn't happen to "good" people. It's like the Joker says in The Dark Night, "nobody panics at tragedy when it's a part of the plan. But step outside that and everyone loses their mind". [paraphrased]

Now take me. I became ill at the late sages of puberty. Depression, psychosis, mood disorder. It lasted for about two years and hit me at a critical time. I was coming up to the end of school and about to enter the adult world, but instead had to put that on hold while I recovered. Do you think that there was a place for me after that? Well, yes actually. My place was that of a mentally ill loser. It didn't matter that the hormonal imbalances had corrected themselves. I carried the stigma. The people around me decided my mental defects for me, forced it on me, created a new ones for me. From that point on, my every action was to be judged under that pretence. My word to be doubted by default. My works are approached and judged from a negative bias. I am alone in all things, because I am seen as being alone by all. I am told that I am wrong by every metric, by every person, down to my core.

This is my place.

This is who I am.

This is what people expect me to be and shape me to be. And that is why I hate them all.

Here's a quote from Frankenstein that says it better than I ever could:

"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth."