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To have the freedom to do as we please isn't freedom, but to do what we love is. I'd almost forgotten how peaceful and settling it was for me to structure my day fully around the arts. It always feels like home... immersing myself in music while painting, and then immersing myself in writing, without forgetting to lose myself in research - and that research can vary from reading the dictionary for hours in search of new words and turns of phrases, to analysing novels (paying careful attention to other writers' way with words, devices used and style) or simply getting stuck in random books according to what I need to describe in a story. I've been known to borrow books from the library on trees, flowers, architecture, clothing and even carpentry just to get the vocabulary and feel to it just 'right'.
And these things aren't chores, they're the most wonderful pastimes one could have - at least to me. By the time I'm done doing all this throughout the day, it's already night time. But I stopped doing all this years ago as life got in the way. Of course, Life always gets in the way. But the truth is that part of me, no matter how much I knew what I loved, always seemed intent on letting herself be distracted. It's like... knowing exactly where home and fulfilment is and yet like a revolted child choose to wander away in defiance. And that I have done so much that today I realised how much time had passed away from 'home'.

Hesitantly, I retrieved the dusty brushes and paints from their dark corner, sat down on the floor, took a deep breath and... I started painting again. I thought to myself: "I'm so rusty..." The fact is, I haven't painted in almost 8 years. I decided to try my hand with one of my unfinished copies of masters (which I never dutifully copied to the letter). Before I stopped painting completely, I had started on two very different styles: one was a Monet, the other a Van Gogh. I decided to get back in the swing of things with Van Gogh, and my... I'd forgotten how special it was to try and copy his works. You can't be gentle, and you certainly can't be shy when it comes to the amount of paint needed. I started off shy, though, and then slowly my hand loosened its stiffness and I began to feel the same way painting had always made me feel - free to feel the colours, almost like entering some sort of strange trance where the mixing of colours becomes a quest to find the exact one needed... a ritual in itself where the brush is dancing and twirling from the wooden palette to the canvas. And you can't see the result at once! Oh no, you can't. You have to keep at it with the utmost sense of raw passion awakening within but contained in the bursts of colours dancing for you.

I have to admit I am no 'real' painter, but the art itself has always tapped right into the core of my emotions - the colours.

After my frantic dance with colours, I went to wash away the paint on my fingers and sat back down to focus on the writing, just letting it flow and seeing where it'd take me. No need to rush, I am very rusty. Alone in the house, with only myself and the burning passion within no longer distracted by the outside world, I immerse myself in my own bubble and forget everything and everyone. And that is I.

Unfinished business... and far from complete!

I spent the day watching childhood cartoons - well, Japanese animé to be more precise. It's got to be better than watching the news. My head is still spinning from recent unfolding events and my emotions are still raw, and I feel mostly like curling into a ball in my bed.

"He who acquires his skills quickly is the first to perish."

(says villain in Japanese animé)

They always say at least we learn from our mistakes - but what happens when you never actually learn and are stuck in a never ending loop? I asked that question to a friend the other day after she said 'I'd learn from my mistakes' as though it were a fact, and she wasn't able to answer. "Learning from our mistakes" sounds like such great advice... until you personally realise that you're not learning at all, and then you realise that these so-called pearls of wisdom are but mere platitudes with no real substance to them.

The more I listen to people around me, the more I realise how much these platitudes fill the depths of their thoughts, like a life-long collection of what ought to sound good to the ear.

Well, falling free from the chains that bind you is painful.It's like punishment for refusing to play the game and right now I'm mostly busy licking my battle wounds. I can't indulge in that healing process for too long, unless I want to fall into a pointless cycle of depression and self-pity. The way events unfolded is what hurt me - not the outcome itself. The outcome is great. It's called the absolute unknown. It's the scariest but most exciting situation to find yourself in.

This song is for the world

I've burned my wings again. I don't know how many more pairs I get to have in this life, but I'll keep flying too close to the sun and burn them. Nothing else better to do. Try explaining that to 'people'.

I am just this little person, lost in the midst of billions - so why, oh why, do I always stand out? What is it about me that makes people obsessive (always in a bad way)? It's like they see this... novelty... and won't give up on it till they've broken it?

Everywhere I fucking go, everything I fucking do - everything... People, society... it's like a leech on your leg, or a rabid dog refusing to let go no matter how much you shake that leg. Sucking out the life, the energy, the enthusiasm for life, out of you.

Why is it I should have a 'plan'? Why should I quit a job just to have another? Why should I be obsessed over the notion of a career? I never gave a crap about all this. I don't want ANYTHING. I don't want ANYTHING.

I do not strive towards ANYTHING except my own self. And truth. Genuine emotions, genuine exchanges, genuine action. Yes, that I understand - everything else is false.

People need a direction, they need a reason, they need a purpose. I don't. I never will. I am free.

You think you need to have a job, a title, a place somewhere... Good for you. I am happy simply being 'aware'. Everything else to me is just bullshit.

Ask me questions, you're more likely to get crap out of me. I have nothing to say. I think, I try, I do my best. What else does this crazy world want for me? If it's my soul, I'm sorry to say: NO.

Rising Skies

When the free fall is in sight, it may be better to look up and see that the red skies are rising.

I haven’t woken up before dawn in a long while, when the skies are still dark and the air so fresh with this unmistakable taste of human quietness overwhelming the senses. No other time of day has that scent. It's Tuesday morning in the world.

I feel in a contemplative mood today, with a tinge of wariness. Already the skies are waking, and with them comes the return of a renewed sense of reality that cannot be escaped.

I am not sure why I constantly strive towards what frightens me the most. The unknown factor is certainly up there on the list. I'll be spending my last days at work listening to Beethoven's 9th symphony.



People are always surprised when you choose to throw away the illusory comfort of social entrapment. But what I regard as social entrapment may be the only thing that makes sense for them. I have learned over the years that my outlook can never be the same as that of all others, for the main reason that if everyone else did, then we wouldn't go very far. Variety in paths, outlooks and callings is what leads to the richness of minds. But this can only come if we accept it and stop striving to be 'like' everyone else, forever mourning what we don't have instead of cherishing what we do have, envying others or wishing things were different. And at the same time be ready to lose it all, because nothing was ever really ours to begin with.

"What have I done?" is the type of thought that has been haunting me. Today, the strange limbo in which I seemed to have fallen into in recent weeks finally cut me loose. And what a drop it was. I got to realise in insight that the likely reason why my job's HR department refused to acknowledge my resignation for so long was because they thought I might change my mind. I felt it, these past couple weeks - I felt that strange option hanging over me like a ghost. It drove me nuts with doubt, too. Whatever reasons and rationale I had for leaving, it was all put into question to the point where I no longer knew why I really wanted to leave in the first place.

You know me, always analysing every thought and feeling, trying so hard to make the 'right' choice according to the best odds and most likely outcomes. I ended up doing this so much with my decision to leave that yes, it blurred absolutely everything. It also led me to realise that no matter how much I try to compute all the 'data' available, and no matter how much I try to stick to reason, it just never leads to the perfect solution. Or perhaps it does, but while you're making it you can never be sure.

I'm not sure what I've just thrown away in the wind, but it does feel like I've put myself in a position of major turning point. What I mean by that is simple: it's a choice I've made major enough to have me wonder sometime down the line how 'different' things would have been if I had made the opposite choice (ie. stick with the job). What I'll only be able to know in time is whether I'll look back in wonder in a positive or negative light. With relief, or with regret.

I just couldn't go back on my decision... It is so hard for my person to make ANY decision at all in the first place... to go back on it would be like defeating the whole point, as strange as that may sound. And it's not like I'm sure of the rationale of that decision anymore... the more I think about it, the more I feel like slapping myself, in a way. But only part of me feels like that. The other is embracing the unknown factor. It keeps telling me that I have to learn to live with the decisions I make and that in the grand scheme of things it is truly nothing. It is only society pushing the false belief that one must strive for a career - yet a career means entrapment. There would never be a 'right' time to get out. There would never be enough. It would feel safe for sure, and it would give me the impression of 'going somewhere' - but it would require my whole focus... and I cannot give that. Not if I have a choice.

Perhaps I'm pulling off a Santiago. Leaving behind what felt like good enough to stubbornly continue my quest towards the real treasure. In any case, nobody ever stressed enough how hard that was.

Work is becoming unbearable these days... I have to say I'm left reeling, in a way, courtesy of the fact that as soon as I handed in my notice, everyone seemed to suddenly experience some sort of personality transplant. I literally can't go anywhere without one of my colleagues cheerfully wanting to 'go with me'. I get up for a cigarette break - my only chance to get away for five minutes and actually stretch my legs - and someone will go: "Oh, can I come with you?". I keep a dead face about me,  but then crack a painful smile and say: "Sure..."

But it's also my own doing, and this is fascinating to me. See, shortly before I made the clear-cut decision to leave, I felt this intense wave of liberation, and with it came a loosening up of my own person. Suddenly I didn't care so much, and I wasn't so distant or afraid to chat people up randomly. And as soon as I started doing that, that's exactly when people started to be friendly towards me. It just happened to coincide with my decision to leave, and it leaves me in the most awkward position... though I have - again - learned an important lesson about myself.

Are we doomed to only be ourselves when we have or feel like we have nothing left to lose?

According to a few tests online, I'm the INTP type, meaning an Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving type. In other words, I'm the analytical type. This could have been written to describe me:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to almost anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions. ( Source: http://typelogic.com/intp.html)

The last part is the story of my life - literally. People constantly tout opinions to all and sundry, and I always have a hard time expressing any exactly because every time I do get an opinion forming inside my head it is almost instantly neutralised by my mind coming up with a flurry of other arguments that are actually just as valid. The consequence of this is that I have a deep-rooted sense that pretty much everything, except perhaps equations, bears no black and white answer...

I am not sure why, but the older I get the more attracted to numbers I find myself, which is ironic considering the trauma I went through at school when it comes to mathematics. But I said it before: "A leopard can't change its spots." And then let's not forget that I do have theories swimming within the darkest recesses of my mind which I know can only be expressed with numbers - equations - and which I am simply not able to produce yet.

In the end, I can only conclude that everything in Life always comes back full circle. One way or another.

I can't help feeling like I've somehow failed a 'test'. You know, one of those thrown at you in life that feels just like a test even if in the end it may all be random.

The worst part is that I'm growing increasingly aware of it - or rather daily occurrences are increasingly pushing my self-awareness buttons.

You know what I've come to realise? Pretty much nothing, except that it doesn't matter how long I spend trying to decide or make choices, and it doesn't matter how much time I spend agonising over it before I make that choice - in the end, that choice has as much of a chance of being wrong as it could be right. And this, my friends, is a realisation of the most depressing kind for me.

I have grown aware of two parts of me always battling for attention within me on the conscious side of things. One side is brave, addicted to challenge, resilient and smart - it possesses all the right qualities, if you like. The other side, however, represents the total sum of all my negative experiences in life, and you could almost liken it to a little devil resting on one shoulder, whispering things I now know I should try harder to ignore. But sometimes it's hard because the two 'voices' can get blurred into one, especially if emotions are running high. In fact, if emotions are triggered, I'll always be found listening to the little devil voice. That little devil voice is really nothing more than the product society made of me through bad experiences - it is whiny, weak, scared... so weak. And so easy to listen to. I fucking hate that part of me.

So it's hard to emerge from an earlier sense of certainty about a decision when you start realising that in fact you've been listening to the 'wrong' voice all along. And when the 'universe' seems intent on making you pick up on that fact, it feels even worse.

Here I stand, realising all that... not knowing what to do. Now I just feel mostly paralysed in place, more unsure than ever. If I have listened to all the wrong reasons to get to the current decision then how can I ever trust myself again to make decisions?

It's not like I'm all alone in this in some sort of blind guessing game, here. I've been experiencing the weirdest kinds of 'signs'  with such intensity recently that I know I'm supposed to take heed and LEARN. But what do you do when no matter how much you want to learn... you just can't?

It reminds me of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, funnily enough. In the story, the sisters happen to be incapable of 'reading' or picking up on social clues when it comes to society. Sure, it's all about the subtle code passed on between men and women that they're oblivious to, but the theme is the same. I find myself unable to read social clues around me. All these subtle signs and codes, the whole hierarchy bullshit... I just read it all wrong all the time, or I just don't pick up on it on time. And the only reason I'm aware of that is because life has been intent on bringing examples of those who can in my path - creating a contrast so shocking that I had no choice but to notice it.

What else is there to add? Nothing, really, because at this point I just don't know anything anymore.

Then again, was there anything I ever knew in the first place?

Free falling... That is how I feel these days, like I'm free falling into the unknown. Yet no matter how scary it may feel, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I called myself a drifter in this life a long time ago, but I only got to realise more fully what it meant in reality recently. In fact, forcing myself to face reality has had a sobering effect on me. I just confused that state of sobriety within with the death of my idealism and passion, I suppose.

Diving into the Void

Florence + the Machine, Seven Devils

I found it hard to sleep last night, and when I finally did I slipped into a dreamless slumber.

So many questions twirling inside my head... so many conflicting thoughts and emotions... 'Tis my good old ego moulded by society fighting like a wounded, rabid dog against the other side of I. The dreamer... no, the idealist.

Shit. I'd been under the impression that my idealism had died under the sheer weight of becoming a 'realist'. I got that very wrong. It's just as they say: a leopard can't change its spots.

The trouble with having to give notice before you quit a job is just that: having to give notice, meaning that you have to stay and endure the very place you decided to quit. You're already half-way gone and yet you have to continue being fully there for another period of time. That period of time is proving a real brain killer in terms of how much it leaves you at the mercy of questioning your resolve. You're just not allowed a 'clean' break. It has to be a slow, painful death of the relationship, if you like, leaving oozing pus to shoot free from the wounds. Except you can hardly let that be noticed by others, unless you don't mind 'burning a few bridges'.

I've quit a few jobs in my life before but what's different this time is the degree of repercussions my decision could have in the long run. Quitting my part-time, student job was definitely not the same as quitting my current job because the latter was a first step on the career ladder. And my ego liked it. It felt safe, strange, 'normal' - because that's what society tells you is the right thing to do. I better understand now why social status plays such a big role in human life, and I experienced for myself the power it can hold over us. Even just to have a freaking title.  To have things sort of planned out right in front of you, a sense of direction that aims to go upward in terms of social status. These things can have a powerful grip on us all.

And because I know my ego liked it, I could have stayed there and continued on the career path. I know I would have. I know my ego too much now to even doubt it. The fact that I happened to have a natural talent for the job made it all the more exciting - the sky was my limit, I would go far. But then Life always butts in and puts in my way a certain type of people - always the same - that I never learned to deal with the right way.

As I started taking over some of what my boss used to do himself, he felt increasingly threatened and literally started undermining me every time he got an occasion. I may be naturally talented, but I don't have the experience nor the 'political' clout he has gained in the many years he has worked in the industry. And I'm not  a married, middle-aged man with a mortgage to pay who can so easily relate to so many contacts in the business who just happen to be mostly mature men. I'm just this unattached young woman with a brain.

I actually realised all this during a trip my boss's boss sent me to - in place of my boss. The man really went out of his way to sabotage the opportunity I was given, but what really became a deal-breaker was when I was made aware by contacts that he was talking behind my back. To contacts. He was no longer just an asshole in the office, he was taking it to the next stage - slowly cutting me off the very source of what my job is all about: contacts.

I could have applied for another position within the company. That was an option I'd considered for the last 6 months. But he'd also been hard at work destroying my person among colleagues. And between his ability to joke all the time and play Mr Nice Guy and my awkward social skills it's no wonder everyone should believe his word over mine no matter how much I tried to open up to others and 'make friends'.

Around 10 days ago I just thought: "Fuck it, I'm leaving." And so I did. It was the most satisfying and relief-loaded feeling in a long time... but it was short-lived. As soon as the dust set in I was left with all the endless questioning as I stared at the shattered pieces of my 'career'.

My ego is reeling, but the other side of I is jumping for joy, yet I'm afraid, very afraid, of that other side. That side is just too rough, messy, disorganised, lost in a fantasy world... and I keep trying to reassure myself that the key is to merge what my ego has learned with that other side of I... to make it something better than anything I've ever been so far.

All in all, I've taken a leap of faith and I have no idea where it'll lead me. I know only one thing: I can't revert back to the way I was before I had this job. I just can't. If I did, it would be a catastrophe.

Taking a leap of faith is the scariest thing... staring deep into the unknown... and trusting that your steps will take you where you ought to be going.