Hedgehog's Dilemma

I'll open up to the fact that, in countless ways, my past is not squeaky clean. The damn thing would probably have a rather disturbing checkered pattern on it, with the occasional blood stain and burn mark as added accent. In simpler terms, I've done a lot of awful things, and usually to people who didn't deserve any of it. Awful things, simply because they seemed like good ideas at the time. I usually knew there would be consequences, but I couldn't be bothered to, as my friend Alicia once put it, "look at the victims."

The contrast she would later point out intrigued me. I don't think about the consequences of my actions, and rarely consider the impact my decisions and my statements might have on the people around me. I never consider anything when I do a lot of things, really. Well, so long as they don't really involve whatever my mind pushes as a priority at the time the decision needed to be made. Which brings up the contrast.

I hate hurting people, and like most people, I don't enjoy getting hurt. However, the best means of avoiding both is to go against general human nature.

Which then leads us to the Hedgehog's Dilemma, which inspired the title of this post.

Hedgehogs, for the unaware, are little critters that have lots and lots of spines on them. Lots. These spines are very painful to touch, such that anything that gets too close is guaranteed to get hurt. However, being mildly social creatures (and let's not forget the need to reproduce), the hedgehogs will eventually need to get physically close. However, this poses a dilemma. By getting close to another hedgehog, one is setting one's self up for being hurt, while also risking hurting the other one. So, given the desire to avoid pain and the conflict it poses to the situation at hand, what does one do?

Human beings, as pointed out in Neon Genesis Evangelion, are in much the same situation. Human relationships are fraught with the risk of hurting someone and being hurt - frightfully, they usually go hand in hand with one another. Which leaves people seeking relationships that mean something, that result in something close, but still slightly pull away because they're afraid of committing everything and then being burned by what they've given up.

Human relationships are things that are, by nature, very dangerous. There is an inherent amount of pain in being in a relationship, and for some people, that pain outweighs whatever benefits there might be to being in one.

What does this all have to do with my past, you might ask? Plenty.

I've come to understand the nature of the hedgehog's dilemma. I've managed to somehow have an instinctive understanding of it for many, many years. Which has resulted in me simultaneously seeking out relationships with people, but also working to push them away and attempting to sabotage them from the inside. And that has result in me being hurt, but also in a lot of other people I've come to care about (even a little) to be hurt. A lot, in some cases.

I sort of feel sad thinking about that.

So what has that gotten me? Not a whole lot. I'm solidly against getting too close to people, but I tend to seek out ways to get closer to people too. I guess, in a way, I'm a perfect example of someone trapped in the hedgehog's dilemma.