Tuesday 28 April 2009

Random thoughts on another midnight day

More and more, I feel not just like a drifter, but a ghost made of flesh and blood, wandering the Earth at random, never knowing where the next step will take me. I wonder what having friends ought to feel like, and then I wonder what the word itself means in reality. What is friendship but the safe illusion granted to lessen the weight of solitude, which in itself exists in every single one of us from the moment we are born?

We are, after all, always alone in our own heads. Only I experiences what is happening to the person, and though one might share it with others, it remains I’s experience and no one else’s.
We’re so alike in reality in so many ways and shapes, but the I within is always one and stands alone. People around us can make us forget for a time that there is that solitude of the person, for ever and ever, until perhaps the day we die and nothing matters anymore.

Thursday 23 April 2009

In the end

I stepped outside this cave of a place I live in and squinted under the glare of the sun.


The glare of the sun. That is such a pretty, yet common way to allude to the sun’s overwhelming light... I like it very much.


So, I went out, and my steps led me nowhere, for they had nowhere to lead me to in the first place: no pretty spot, or small park in which to wander about around here. Only streets, cars, blank faces, endless rows of identical houses. I’d have to take the overground to get anywhere remotely soothing and Holland Park is now closer than any other park by train.


I was born almost thinking that I was God - my own God- or so close to that notion. Maybe the lesson I must learn now is as basic as the notion of humility.


Learning to be simply human.


I don’t want to turn away from the world, but I don’t want to force it either way. I want to be able to keep an open mind, keep a remnant of hope that things can always change, and not always for the worst. And even if they do change for the worst, there is always hope that they will change for the better again. Maybe not tomorrow, the next week or year, but the hope is always there, lingering in the depths of my inner heart.




Wednesday 22 April 2009

I feel that sense of sorrow, that hazy pang of wistful appreciation of what once was which has now passed, never to be again.

The image of a trapped animal in a golden cage haunts me because it represents exactly the way I feel most of the time. The more I fight against the irons bars, the smaller the cage seems to get, hindering my every move until I can no longer do as much as breathe.


They say ‘go out more, meet more people’ and I ask them ‘where to and what people?’

They shake their heads and dismiss my questions as a sign of depression. They fail to see that I am no longer able to pretend that what I see before my eyes isn’t really what I see. My depression is not a case of a chemical imbalance in the brain, it is the product of that ability I have to see beyond the layers of illusions.


I need to remind myself that patience is the key, here. After all, waiting seems to have become a major factor in my daily existence.


Waiting. Waiting to live, waiting to die. Waiting to understand, waiting to grow.


Thursday 16 April 2009

"But my depression is my inability so far to process too deep a sense or feel of others’ pain and what I can see is going wrong around me. Unless I can find a way or ways to reconcile every discovery I make for myself with the ability to cope or shoulder the weight of such discoveries, I will not make it very far and will end up consumed by helplessness."

I wrote this in the very post I ever posted on this blog.
I cannot believe that I actually fell right into what I feared the most. It feels as though I knew from the start that I would be left reeling.

Monday 6 April 2009

The angry virus-like theory

What am I in this life, this whole world, but one pair of eyes to witness what lies before me?
My person in itself means very little, and in essence I am equal or of no more importance than any other person. My mind, on the other hand, is the wild card that can transform my own experience of life into something meaningful at least for my self. Everything else is superfluous. Remove the mind from the equation and we all become fancy monkeys. We would no longer be the virus of a planet, but another species among billions of others.

Because I am part of that virus, it is hard for me to see our kind as the destructive one, but no matter how I look at it, the pattern is there. We are merely the bigger version of the viruses we fight and can never truly destroy.

Adaptability: we are the champion of the field. We always adapt to survive, and we shape ourselves to the environment, while our reasoning ability allows us to learn how to slowly transform that same environment but always in a destructive way because it is in essence what defines us. Viruses that kill us adapt constantly to our tricks and they often make a come back more destructive than the last.

Propagation: We multiply in clusters and we spread. That is another constant or common trait we share with viruses.

In the midst of a virus-like population there are what we will call mutations, or exceptions to the rule, but those are few and far in between. Those who happen to lack the destructive trait are the ones we see as ‘good’ people in general. They are never the norm among the human race, but the exception. Thus, they are the degenerative group of the whole. In that light it therefore makes sense that the ‘good’ are often the ones perishing or destroyed in some way by others of the same race. That is because our main dominating trait is to spread and destroy. Those who don’t are left behind or anhilated.
Many can disagree with this view, but I doubt anyone could argue logically against it.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

There is no truth out there, only convenient versions of it.

Themes of reality

Reality is just as it presents itself. Its people, objects and landscapes are the intricate parts of a living sphere, and just like the ticking hands of a watch they obey a certain order with a certain predefined margin for error. There is no escaping beyond that margin.

The mind creates windows of opportunity one can choose to follow, all the while remembering that it must fit in with the laws of reality and its margins. Expect too much, ignore the laws such as gravity and human limitations, and you’re in for a harsh awakening. Most lives, even that of humans, are more akin to a game of chess, where only a certain number of moves are allowed or possible, the rest is pointless or doomed to fail. The more random the moves, the more random the outcomes.

Probabilities can then go either way: complete chaos or return to order by evening out the effects of random outcomes. Just as two negatives turn into a positive.

Gravity defines our perception of reality. It is the mother-law of all other laws that ensue. The falling apple example represents the epitome of reality.

Time... It seems that time does not exist in itself. It ‘exists’ only in so far as there is a living being conscious enough to feel it or experience it. There is no past, present or future, only a continuum on which people and other living beings evolve much like vectors along it. Remove all vectors and the continuum has no more existence, it is nothing and everything at once.

A being conscious of its own existence gives substance to the notion of time passing. Therefore the notion of ‘time passing’ is relative to each individual but can be more or less experienced within the same spectrum. It might even be that gravity plays a crucial factor in our ability to create such a notion as time which is linked to our own sense of existence: the closer to Earth, the stronger the impression that time is going slowly. Thus the time throughout childhood is probably the one that felt closer to an eternity that could never end. And then growth spur suddenly seems to speed up time passing for good. The rest of existence is spent with little height changes and thus the being is immersed in the same time experience for a lengthy period of time that only seems to run like water between fingers.

the tailoring of Freedom

I am forever torn between the need for individual freedom and fairness.

Individual freedom in its true form would require a deep set of morals from each person but that can never happen, can it? Unless every single individual possessed and respected a code of ethics, the notion of individual freedom can only remain a sham. The thief, the murderer, the scammer, the power-hungry sod and all the rest would have to be capable to restrain themselves from stealing, killing, ripping others off and so on.

Then, and only then, would freedom truly have a chance to exist or allowed to be. Failing a general consensus where everyone agrees to truly follow a strict code of ethics, people will always need to be watched and somewhat controlled. A system like capitalism only serves to feed people’s greed while giving off the false impression of freedom.

In reality you’re only free according to how much money you have in your pocket. Therefore the more money you have, the freer you might feel. That is not true freedom.

Sometimes it’s hard not to wonder how long this life is going to go on for. It feels like a silly game where all the players keep running like headless chickens in all directions according to their wants and wishes. Everywhere you look people are rushing past you to get something better in life; a position, social ascension, a job, a house... It feels like one big race each individual is forced to enter and those who trip or are confused are ruthlessly left behind. The only safety net one can hope to find is the one society provides by granting you a little money each week or so to allow you to survive, not really live.

In the end, the harsh really of life is that the meaner you are the more likely you are to succeed. the more ruthless, the more rewarded. It makes sense: survival of the fittest. I’m just me, wanting a peaceful life where I feel loved and can learn to love others. That wish is turned into a cliche, sounding so cheesy that most people will smirk at it. They already know that to lead a comfortable life one must be calculating and focused on best-value actions or decisions that will get more money.

Money is the ultimate purpose of life for many. Life in itself becomes meaningless unless you have money to give it some value. People mean nothing and are all interchangeable because money is the key. It defines your worth in society and buys you all the features you need to succeed. It can buy you friends, connections, comfort and even a family in the long run. Those who are poor must have a fiery fighting spirit that will push them to become more cunning so that they can one day get enough money to enter the same old arena where money buys everything else.