16y, male, sydney. there are not many people in my life close to me. if i'm with somebody during the day it's my friend, if it's night then it's my father. my friend (no plural) constantly runs into the same difficult situations over and over again. on a weekly basis, aware of his circumstances, he makes a given decision, later creates turmoil for himself and more often than not for the people around him including myself. he knows he is at fault for his mistakes and admits that, but he does not analyse his decisions, he does not pursue an answer that would of spared him the turmoil, and then he does the same thing over again. we all do this, it's convenient, he does it more than any integrated person should be expected to. in the past leading up until now i have remained relatively quiet but very vocal when it came to instances where anyone would agree a lesson HAD to be learnt, situations that could put someone in danger if not tended to carefully, recently these have occurred more often than ever and the danger has been his finance. i get cursed at for raising ideas. i don't like being cursed at but i understand he's frustrated - only now he's frustrated but still won't take the time to reflect on the situation. i value our friendship immensely but this has made me less and less excited about the idea of seeing him. i also don't want him to destroy himself.

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i love my father. my father is the reason i can study, he sacrificed so much for his 3 kids, he continues to do so and his only pay off is knowing that i have financial stability. and of that i am forever thankful and happily in his debt. aside from that, in a certain context, he disappoints me. i do not like saying my father is not a smart man but my father is not a smart man. like my friend, he constantly lets temptation get the best of him causing him to get himself in trouble (but in this case the temptation is anger not convenience). when he says something he does not mean to me out of anger, i understand he's not in a thinking state and i don't interrogate it. but when he does that same thing to the wrong people, he gets fucked in the end. legally. physically. whatever. but i am in my teen years so i know almost nothing. and what i do know is wrong. and he taught me everything i know. right? right? right? last night a conversation turned into me saying that what i believe is people from all different parts of the world share a defined average size and level of functionality of parts in the brain that are responsible for logical reasoning and anything beyond that is a product of upbringing and cultural values. he said i am wrong. i asked why. it was because it was coming from me, a teenager, his words. i changed approach. "say you read that same statement drawn on a piece of paper, you do not who wrote it, so all you can use to debate it is the statement itself, and why it's wrong. i spent the rest of the night listening to insults, i did not say anything because i knew he was in that state again.

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i may come across as a know-it-all, i don't know it all, but i know what i know, you'd have to know it after seeing them get into these situations time after time. i don't like feeling invalidated by those close to me. i sacrificed a lot to know what i know, going through my own turmoils and still running into the inevitables. let's say i'm wrong, i don't mind being wrong, but they don't give me a reason. a reason that isn't about me but rather what i'm saying - the thing that's supposed to be wrong. i'm not asking for praise but i'm not asking for spit in my eye either.