Post-Mortem

I can see how spending even just 5 days away from the noise of the city has helped me recharge my batteries, the only problem is that I feel even more reluctant at the thought of going back to the daily grind… I feel much like a wild animal being forced back inside a cage. But like my mother always says these days: what will you do without money? As we were walking around the lakes over the weekend, she also said: “This is why I work so hard… to be able to enjoy this.”

She has a point, of course. The same as the older woman I met on my solo hiking trip to the top of a fell on Tuesday when she said that ‘we work most of our lives and then we get to finally enjoy ourselves.”

We need to work or do things that aren’t all that pleasant just so we can appreciate the times when we are ‘free’… but it seems that we should at least be able to choose the settings in which we must practice the unpleasant.

I also noticed how much more energy I suddenly regained by just getting away from the city for a few days. Having spent most of the last year working in the city, I ended up feeling so drained that I could barely get out of bed. That’s city life for you. Working for some career, the whole 9 to 5 routine stuck indoors inside some office under artificial lights… It almost makes me wish I was a farmer, or something. I’d rather be doing physical work exhausting my body than work involving draining my brain. That’s my painful conclusion, here.

When I learned that I was being paid exactly the same as the new girl - who had no experience whatsoever - it hit a nerve. I mean, really. It’s my own fault, in a way, because I didn’t ‘learn’ to sell myself and when you’re not obsessed with money like most people are out there, they will take advantage of you any chance they get. It’s a shame they don’t notice how I’m always wearing the exact same clothes and shoes - because I don’t have the luxury to buy more stuff, never had that luxury, and so I grew into someone who simply doesn’t feel the need to buy more than exactly what suffices for now. I realised more recently how people were actually seeing my lack of interest in money as meaning I 'obviously' didn’t need it.

They get it all wrong, of course. I need it just like anybody else, but I don’t let it obsess me. Since most people’s lives are regimented mostly by wanting or thinking they need more money, they perceive someone who isn’t obsessed by that craving as someone who must be ‘rich’. I am rich, for sure, but where they get it wrong is when they assume my wealth is stuffed inside a wallet or a bank account. My wealth is internal. But try and explain that to most people out there. You’ll be greeted with puzzled looks at best in a world increasingly obsessed with the material.

My boss is my biggest ‘teacher’ in those matters at the moment, in a way. He represents most middle aged people living a conventional middle class lifestyle. When I say conventional, I mean that he represents the type of people that married young, bought a house, had children, and searched for a stable job or career to maintain his lifestyle. Is there anything wrong with that picture? No, there shouldn’t be, but there is.

I look at him and he actually makes me appreciate my own condition. I’m not snowed under with endless commitments, responsibilities and bills to pay that include needing to pay for some overpriced mortgage and my kids' education, because our world today has created this new setting that people are just accepting without even blinking - the fact that so-called free education today is really an amalgam of deathly standards and if you want your kids to have a foot on the career ladder later in life, you now have to send them to the best possible schools, which are usually ones you have to pay for - and it’s a lot of money.

And what about the housing market and how the mere idea of owning a home has now become such a lucrative and overpriced business that the most basic thing in life - shelter - has become one of the biggest luxuries most of us will never be able to afford because society wants us to get into debt? What better way to enslave people into debt and artificial commitments than by making one of Man’s most basic needs - again, the need for shelter - a luxury he can no longer afford with the fruit of his labours?

See, there it is, the wrong in the picture. Everything is part of a distorted version of what life should be like. It shouldn’t be about having to send your kids to private school, thus getting stuck in a dead-end career that pays enough, or having to embrace a life of debt just to meet your basic needs. What’s worse is that we are made to get into debt while actually working more than ever before and for longer - so where is the value of that constant labour? Where is it, because I sure can’t see it.

So I look at my boss, who is a representation of all these things, and I wonder often how we got there as a society. He looks at me and probably finds me weird in the way he could so easily exploit me, how he was able to get away with offering me the lowest salary, and how I do the most work and don’t seem to rip any rewards. He wonders how come I don’t complain about lack of money or why I don’t chitchat about random, personal things. I look at him and I wonder how people like him get sucked into this artificial way of life that imprison you in a lifetime of social slavery, and I find him just as weird for different reasons.

Maybe if my life had turned out differently I would have been just like him by now. I had a different type of upbringing, though.

Growing up, if someone had said to me that some day I’d moved countries I’d have laughed in their faces, for my life started out on the very same path as many struggling, first generation immigrant families. We were more working class than anything in terms of ‘purchasing power’, the place we lived in and the school I went to. My primary school friends were from various origins - Chinese, African, Portuguese, from Mauritius, you name it. We all had one thing in common: we were all mostly first generations born in the country our parents had moved to. The bullying that kicked off when I was 8 set events in motion that changed my world upside down like a steam train gathering speed momentum.

It pushed my mother to try and get me out of the school I was in, and it was solely because she was trying to protect me that I ended up in private school throughout most of my teens. The price to pay was her having to work day and night, almost non-stop, just to be able to pay all the bills, including the hefty school fee. And so, overnight, I ended up having to mingle with some of the richest kids around.

There I was taught manners I never liked to learn. They told me I had to go to church, but it served only to awaken a rebellious streak.

I became a ‘bad’ influence - the poor kid that somehow managed to get into that school but who was giving other kids ‘bad’ ideas, like questioning manners, rules and even God. I remember making friend with a girl once - I think we bonded over our common interest in the X Files TV series - and one day, as we were walking out of school at the end of the day and chatting, she said at some point: “I don’t know why my mum hates you, Aliska, but I like you a lot.”

That came as a shock to me, or ice cold water dropped over my head. I had met her mother several times and I’d always made the best efforts to be polite and friendly, and she’d always come across to me as smiling and kind. There had certainly been no hints of her disliking me. I understood much later on how it all worked. I was a nobody, and her daughter was wasting time with a nobody instead of making connections with kids from more ‘interesting’ families. It was that ‘simple’.

Funny how I was too busy rebelling against the norm back then and how it’s only as an adult that I can make sense of how school grounds really are like a microcosm of adult life, its dynamics as well as social rules. I didn’t or refused to learn the rules then - I probably failed to acknowledge their importance in surviving society - and I’m having to slowly learn them now, crash course style.

That’s what happens to (rebellious) idealists, I guess. We reach a stage where even the dreamers have to find a way to adapt their nature to their surroundings in a way that will never change them - ever - but that will allow them to rise above the challenges of a world that goes against everything their nature is. The mistake some of us make is to lose our ways and nature during that process, turning dreamers into late bloomers in terms of becoming just like the rest - blindly accepting. I can only hope that being acutely aware of this will be enough to help me avoid that fate.

Back to the Grim

The pain in my legs reminds me it wasn't just a dream after all.

Back to the grim of city life, the contrast has never felt so great.

On my last day I went to sit by the edge of a lake, and there I stayed, gazing into the horizon made hazy by the sunshine. I must have sat there a long time, for suddenly I could see that the light had faded... but I didn't want to tear my gaze away from the quiet beauty of my surroundings, yet I had a train to catch. But I didn't want to go, God only knows how hard it was inside to find the strength to get up and force my legs to the train station.

I had come to the lakes without expectations. I was hoping to get some inspiration, perhaps. Instead, I found out that I had way too much energy to stay still for long, and I found myself hiking miles after miles in the scorching sun, climbing, and climbing some more - unstoppable, I felt. I just couldn't stand still. I felt that tremendous surcharge of energy within me that pushed me to keep going, and far from getting tired the more I walked, the more I felt the need to walk some more.

As I walked and climbed, my thoughts took me to many different levels, but the recurring one was more like a realisation. The realisation that the main reason for my inner misery is the city life. It never really occurred to me before because I'd always lived in cities. I was born and bred in them - and I'm not talking any city, I'm talking big, busy capitals. I've spent my whole life feeling like a prisoner exactly because I was born and grew up in the midst of concrete.

I was thinking about all this when, on my journey back to the B&B, I happened to sit in a full bus with young teenagers going home. None of them was paying attention to the beautiful, serene landscape that passed us by in a daze. Just like the kids of the city, they were being noisy, chatty and busy talking to one another. I thought to myself: "Would I feel so drawn to the countryside if I had lived in one from the start or would I have been drawn to the city?"

In other words, is the fact that I've lived only in cities now making me long for it's almost opposite? I'm not sure. Though I went to the lakes without expectations, I didn't expect that instead of inspiring me to write, the experience would actually awaken or strengthen in me the strong desire to live away from crowded cities.

In the midst of nowhere? Yes, I feel it now. I feel it so much I want to cry.

When I got back to London, night had fallen over the city. I emerged from the train station and instantly switched back to my 'city' mode - which really means walking decisively from one point to the next as though you're wearing blinkers. Fail to do that and you'll find yourself attracting all sorts of weirdos in your wake. Case in point: I stopped for a few seconds on the street to light up a cigarette and before I knew it some old drunk or drug addict was stopping by my side with an awful smile, trying to chat me up. I kept a face made of stone and moved on at once. But the contrast... my God, the contrast. It was as though I could, for a split second, make out the intense decaying effect big cities have on their people in general. Not to say you won't find loonies and drunks in the countryside, of course. It's just that... in the city, the decaying effect on people is amplified. And there's nowhere to hide. You can't get away from it so easily because you're surrounded by concrete and all these people - the equivalent of a modern barnyard. There's all the latest comfort but everything about your life in the city is synthetic, if you like.

I was greeted back home with smiles and a cat circling frantically around me. It felt nice, and I knew that my life would never be complete without them. My family may be small, but they're all I really have. Deep down, my heart was aching at the same time. I knew that my trip was again just a glitch... I was back having to face the grim of my reality, but this time I think I'll find it even harder to put up with it knowing that there are ways to live in this world that don't involve feeling trapped in the city.

Standing on top of the fells, looking down at the misty valley, I felt it.

Musings on the fells

I started the day early and caught the bus that would take me to the first stage of today's journey. The area where I'm staying is full of mostly retired and/or elderly people. I didn't realise that until I went to wait for the bus yesterday morning. I can't blame them for choosing to live their old age in such a magnificant place in England, and I even found myself envying them because they got to spend their everyday in the midst of beauty, day in, day out. Of course, the sunny weather we've been experiencing is far from the average weather over here. After all, the deep green of hills and the moss-covered trees didn't come to look the way they do without the rain.

I got off next to a little cottage/pub with nothing else around for miles, so I thought it wise to have a coffee first. As I sat at a table in the little patio outside, I had a look at my tiny little map, which didn't really say much at all about the area I was about to explore. The sun was shinning so strong already, and I could hear the birds singing overhead in the branches... I drunk my coffee, crossed the road and started on the same trail I'd started yesterday - this time intent on going all around the most beautiful lake I've come across so far in the area.

As I walked on the pebbly path, skipping over the protruding tree roots - sometimes hopping from one bigger rock to another, just for fun - and gazed at the deep blue of the waters by my side surrounded by all these low mounts coming in all shades of brown, yellow and green, I could understand how such a place could inspire poets.

After a while spent walking merrily in the sun, I found myself at a fork: I could either continue my walk along the lake, or I could take a more daring path uphill that looked rather craggy and strenuous. I opted for the latter, of course.

That trail was a popular one. There were many people coming up and down along the way, and at some point I passed a woman who was resting midway in the climb. She must have been in her mid- to late 60's, and she said 'hi' to me as I passed her by. Next thing I knew, she was passing me as I took a rest myself from the stiff climb further up. We both laughed and then marvelled at the view from above, and before I knew it I was climbing in the company of a complete stranger who was telling me how she had now retired and came to the lakes often.

"Well, it's like this, you see," she said. "You spend most of your life working and then finally you get to rest and enjoy what's left."

Panting and gasping for air as we carried on with our climb, I could only nod pensively at her words. I glanced at her and thought: "There's a whole generation right now that's the only one to ever get to enjoy the idea of a 'pension' as society meant it." It's true. All the people who have been retiring and are retiring now are the 'lucky' ones because they get to rip what they sow and even some more. Meanwhile my generation has no idea what will happen next. Last time I checked, the government was getting the age for retirement up to 68, and it won't stop there. I wonder how much fun it would be to 'finally' be free to do anything by the time I'm 90 - that is if one even lives to be that old.

Anyway, we managed to climb to the top of one of the fells, and my... what a breathtaking view that was. I wasn't sure where to go from there, and after a little walk around, feeling on top of the world again, I asked the woman which way would be best to get back to the lake. She pointed at things on the map she was carrying and then pointed at a direction. I waved her goodbye as she was finishing a juicy pear - she was having lunch sitting against a rock while watching the valley down below. Her last words to me?

"You need to carry a map with you next time. This wonderful weather isn't the norm and you could easily get lost without a map because of the fog and whatnot," she said, shaking her head.

"Yes, Ma'm, I will," I smiled. And off I went, down the mountain and back to the lakes.

By the time I reached the village, it was late afternoon. I decided to take a stroll by the lake, where I would watch the sunset one last time before the end of my trip. As I sat on the grass near the water, gazing at the boats now so still and the low mounts running in the background, I noticed how everything around me was paired up. The freaking ducks were waddling in pairs, so were the birds, and even the frogs. Then I looked around and all I saw was people paired up or in groups. Very rarely would I see someone alone, except for the woman I met during my climb or the odd stranger passing me by. More often than not, I would only see couples or groups of people everywhere I looked. And now that I was sitting on the grass, waiting for that sunset, it was as though nature itself was showing me some more.

But then I remembered it's Spring time now, and so all the little creatures are getting paired up and I have to say it's a lovely sight. Almost. Watching frogs piggybacking each other isn't all that, I have to say.

Tomorrow is going to feel rather bittersweet. It will mark my last day before heading back to the city... I've grown increasingly aware of this notion of 'moments' in life. If anything, Life is only about them - moments. Whatever existence we may lead, the only thing that makes one's life worth living is the moments that end up filling that life. Yet moments are fleeting in essence. They can never last and are always bound to end at some point... just like my trip to the lakes. And no amount of pictures attempting to immortalise these fleeting moments in life can change that.

Solitude of the Loner

My first couple of days in the middle of nowhere have been rather wonderful. The second part of my journey begins tonight as I'll be spending the next 3 days all on my own. Staying in a little village means that it's not exactly lost in the middle of nowhere, nor does it mean that there's hardly anybody around - on the contrary, the unusually good and sunny weather has brought even more people and tourists around than usual.

It's all the same to me, no matter where I go; why? Because I've grown into a loner. I like to stand a few feet away from you, lost in my thoughts, but if you come any closer I might bite or run away. Just like the lone female deer I saw today out of the blue - one of the most beautiful sights so far... that of a deer jumping over a mossy brickwall only to stop a few feet away and stare back at me for a short while. By her feet was a rabbit hopping away into the wilderness and cover of the woods. I was alone then, climbing my way to the top of a low peak, and for a moment it felt like magic; me alone in the woods with the deer staring straight back at me.

When I finally reached the top of the low peak, the view was breathtaking - so much so that my mind seemed to go blank at once. I just sat there, my gaze lost in the vast greenness, waiting for the sunset in the foggy distance. I tried to write in my notebook, but my thoughts were as stuck as ever, or at least as they have been, creatively speaking, for the last 2 years or so. All I managed to jot down are these lines:

"Here I am, as though on top of the world, gazing down at the lake in the misty distance... the hills are rolling away before my eyes, sheets of lush green unfolding into the foggy skies, and here I sit, cross-legged on a bench in the heart of nowhere, perched as a bird would on the very tip of a tree. This feels like the whole world I'm staring at. I could sit here for the rest of times, simply gazing at its eternity."

If not now, then when?

I feel like Life itself has been teaching me tough lessons for a while... It's a bit of an oxymoron to say that, of course. At the same time, maybe it isn't. I'm always tempted to say 'we learn everyday we get to live' but the truth is... do we?

More often than not I personally ignore the 'lessons' I don't feel ready to learn, and so I'll find myself repeating the same kind of mistake over and over again. Sometimes it's a conscious decision, sometimes it's much more insidious than that.

A particular 'lesson' I'd like to share today is that of 'self-confidence'. I started off as a child full of self-confidence. The whole world was my oyster, so to speak. I was a bubbly, inquisitive little kid always up to no good. And then I started getting bullied at school, and from then on my self-confidence was shattered into billions of pieces.

That shattered confidence stayed with me and I sort of grew into an adult feeling as though half of my own self was missing. More and more, I'd cut myself off people and the world at large. The fear just kept growing, and growing... constantly intensifying no matter how much I tried to rationalise it. I became a doubter of everything, but especially a doubter of my own self. This in turn made me awkward in the presence of others, and then it turned me into a strange breed - some kind of naive pushover who would invariably let the good things pass her by because, well, if I don't believe in myself, if I'm constantly putting my own self down, then why should I act in my own best interest, eh?

A few weeks before Christmas, I met with my music composer friend of mine around a few drinks in some pub. We shared our struggles, our angst, our everything about life, really. And then she said something that struck me. At the time, what she said bothered me to the point where I wished I hadn't met her that day. She'd started talking about her own observations of the world, and it had struck a chord because she was spot on.

She said something along the lines of: "Aliska... Look around you, look at all these people who actually know nothing, but they get to the highest places - they succeed - by acting so confident... and there we are, you and I, actually capable in our own field, and we are going nowhere because we don't act like them. Because we are not confident."

She was right. Everywhere places are filled not by people who know what they're doing, not by the 'best' in their field, but by opportunists who are only good at showing off. Showing off, or being over-confident, has become the main selling point. Forget actual abilities - if you won't show off those abilities, someone else will jump to take your place - and that someone else will be a person that knows how to show off and it will rarely matter that they're actually just bullshitting their way through.

All these thoughts I've just shared now have been dancing in my head since that conversation with my friend, except it's felt more like acid on my brain than anything else... but then Life seemed intent on making me face the issue.

In other words, my friend's observation was just a trigger. I should have seen it coming. It was the 'lesson' coming my way, and this time there was no avoiding it the way I used to when I was younger.

That lesson came through my job, funnily enough. This job so far has forced me to face a lot of my weaknesses, the worst of all being a complete lack of self-confidence. And I know I have to learn the lesson, because it's getting ridiculously repetitive now...

I'm learning, and I can feel the 'missing' part of I coming back. I'm sort of scared of 'her', in a way... because me and her haven't been in touch for a long time... she disappeared when I was 8 and she's coming home now... And she's something else entirely.

So... if not now, then when? It has to be now, otherwise don't bother.

Stuck in a crowded train this morning, I looked up to have a read of the adverts placarded right above my head. It's not that I like reading adverts, I just often find them to be a source of worry because, let's face it, advertisers are all about tapping into the human psyche and make people want what they don't know they want - yet.

The one I got to read this morning in that packed train infuriated me, yet I knew at the same time that I was supposed to find it 'funny' (actually, I shouldn't even have 'paid attention' so much and moved on to the next thing fighting for my attention... right?) Most people reading it would laugh. I can't laugh because the irony of such adverts is a direct mirror image of exactly what we've become. Incidentally, it was an advert for advertisers, and maybe that's why the 'humour' probably depressed me even more, offering advertisers the opportunity "to connect with urban audiences roaming the great outdoors." Followed by "And this is where we get your attention - when you're out and about in your city habitat, and in need of something a little more wild [sic] than a blank wall to take your mind off your wait for the train...."

Talk about word games. Apparently advertising is all about humouring your audience and poor writing. Is that a way to adapt to the masses or in other words to avoid the risk of having too many people not actually understanding the advert if there are too many 'sophisticated' words? What's wrong with WILDER, why does it have to be 'more wild', for instance?

It's all about being snappy, funny, swift and striking... I wonder if that's a direct reflection of the fact that our society is becoming increasingly attention deficient? There's certainly a correlation to be found there.

But this particular advert is spot on in its 'humour', isn't it? It tells us exactly what we are, or what we've become, but instead of being shocked of feeling insulted... here's the trick: we laugh. I guess in the worst cases of mental apathy there isn't much more than a blank gaze already itchy for its next fix of useless information overload. Some of us might just shrug; after all, it's all around us 24/7 and even the internet is fast becoming the number one advertising breeding ground to 'catch' us all - we, consumers.

By the time I got to the office and found myself sitting at my desk, I did indeed feel like nothing but some fancy monkey typing on a keyboard. Just like my hamster, going through the motions, over and over.

We are mammals, and we like having routines - we often even need routines, or habits, to remain healthy. So maybe there's nothing wrong with being reminded of the fact that despite our best efforts at acting 'human' that's really all we are when we scratch the surface. But here's the thing, if I'm going to be nothing more than a sophisticated mammal in this world, I'd find it less disturbing if the world stopped thinking of me as a consumer. Why? Because it's even worse. A 'consumer' is neither human nor animal - it's not even a 'thing'. A world that brands me a consumer makes me nothing while my wallet is given importance... even worse, while I become nothing, my wallet becomes I in the eyes of a consumption-ruled society.

About Music

When I was around 12 years of age, I had my first encounter with instrumentals (other than pure classical music) and for some reason it was through Vangelis. It marked me in a way that can hardly be described. It was as though my heart had been awakened. It marked me because suddenly I was aware of music being created that tapped right into the heart. More precisely, it could stir one's imagination and in turn evoke feelings within one's heart.

I have a composer friend who has told me all about modern ways of creating music, and how the most famous soundtrack composers now can compose emotional instrumentals at the touch of a keyboard that has all the main 'sounds' registered... and how only a few repetitive keys suffice to bring out emotions through sound, etc...

Though I was disappointed to learn that even music today as we hear it is a form of emotional exploitation (especially through movies and mainstream music), I just can't forget that music, in the end, was what always transported me so well into my own world. My universe.

I remember how, as a small child, I used to dream of escape from reality. Yet at the time I couldn't even understand what 'reality' was. It was just this 'thing' that would happen later in life and that I wanted to escape.

I remember... and then at some point I had to wake up and realise that I had to grow up and become a part of this reality I'd always wanted to escape so much even before I became immersed in it.

But music... music is still a vessel to one's own universe. It can form a seemingly eternal bridge between what we have to accept as 'real' and what feels more real within.

Choices

If there's anything one comes to realise over time it's how tough it can be to be a creature whose one core characteristic is the ability to make choices, to such an extent at times that the choices we have the ability to make can even transcend the natural order.

Religion calls is 'free will', others call it simply 'choice'. I was never good at making choices, perhaps because I grew up getting used to having others making choices for me and expecting those choices made for me to be good ones. In my early 20s, I realised that more often than not, if I didn't make the choice for myself the best I could hope for was to end up with a decision by default - that's not always so good, is it, when you dither so much that in the end you're forced into the only choice left.

At the same time, it would be true to say that today's world has never been more saturated with choices, or at least the illusion of a lot of choices out there. Of course, with a closer look at what seems like a multitude of choices, one often comes to realise that the ramifications departing from each choice actually lead to a swift narrowing down of said choices.

Not all choices are the same in terms of importance, or perhaps I should say in terms of repercussions for the future chain of events that will depart from that choice. Choosing what to have for lunch pales in comparison to, say, a life-changing decision to move countries. Deciding not to choose is another choice in itself, yet its repercussion can be far worse than actually choosing to make a choice for the simple fact that we are choosing to be passive or in denial in the face of having to choose, in a way.

I've once again reached a stage where major decision must be made. The last time I decided to make a choice of that magnitude, it ended in disaster - so of course there is that little voice at the back of my mind scaring me away from trying that again. But then I know that if I don't actively make a choice, this time I will regret it.

This could change everything. And maybe that's why I'm so scared and have spent the whole week trying to bury my head in the sand.

It's not so much about choosing, but more about having the guts to try. I know that if I don't try, I'll regret it. Strangely enough, the knowledge that I'll regret not even trying to go for an active choice in my life is the only thing I feel certain about for the first time in my life.

Allergy to Modern Times

There are days like today when I really wish I'd stayed in bed. It all started a bit odd from the moment I stepped out of the house, if you ask me. I made my way to the tube station as I invariably do each day and went to the ticket counter to get my travelcard renewed. The man behind the glass screen beamed at me at my approach, and as he proceeded to renew my travelcard, he started telling me about how he'd just come back from Dubai and how he'd loved it. I was still half-asleep but I managed a polite smile, which then prompted him to randomly say: "You should go there, you know." I laughed, and replied: "Yeah, in my dreams."

"No, really, you look like you need to go to a nice, sunny place," he insisted.

"Ah, don't tempt me... I have to go to work..." I sighed, and off I went down the hole that would lead me to my train platform.

As it happens, I didn't really have 'work' today as I had to attend one of those workshops that are supposed to make you better at your job. This one was about teaching us how to write better web-friendly content. I slumped on a chair at the back of the room, switched on the computer and listened to the droning voice explaining how people's attention span is now so low that we had to adapt our writing to it.

It was all about 'short' sentences, and God forbid you even think about writing paragraphs longer than 25 words. Sentences should be as short and to the point as possible, the man said, otherwise it became too complex for people's brains and they'd just leave your page.

I looked around me at that point, thinking surely I couldn't be the only one to find that absolutely shocking and laughable. But as I glanced around, everyone was just nodding their head approvingly. I wanted to say: "Why should we have to lower standards of writing to adapt to people's degenerative brains? Surely if the media kept a higher standard in the first place, it wouldn't have added to the trend of shorter attention span." But for some reason as soon as I opened my mouth, the man just ignored me and moved on from the subject at once before I could even utter a word.

Everything about today's 'teaching' was about adapting to mass stupidity. By the end of the day I felt so depressed and frustrated I just wanted to go home and cry my eyes out.

I just find it incredible that mainstream's logic could be so backward and actually quite inflexible. Its logic is reactive, not pre-emptive at all. Does anyone - anyone at all in this big universe - know what I mean, here? Reactive logic is that of following the following train of thoughts:

"Everyone is getting dumber, let's just dumb our own stuff down to meet their dumbness."

Pre-emptive logic, if followed from the beginning, would never need to rectify anything. But even if things go wrong at some point, pre-emptive logic would require sticking to the standards and expect the degenerative brains to move their asses and start making efforts again.

Of course, a profit-driven society could follow nothing but the former example - that of dumbing yourself down to meet the mass degeneration. Why? because profit is all about what you can achieve now, what you can earn the most right now. And so it is that we find ourselves immersed in an environment dumbing itself down for profit, because taking any other course of action would at first take a loss.

I sat there all day, having to listen to the man telling me how to write 'better' content, and all I could think of was how depressing it was. Unsurprisingly, he had the pleasure to let me know that my attempts at an exercise he gave us was the worst one. But if the aim was to write in the most dumb-friendly way, then I suppose that coming out as the worst performer in that instance should actually tell me something far more positive in the end.

I have nothing against dumbness itself. I just can't stand having to sit there and watch dumbness be heralded as the next step in human intelligence.

I will not change my style, and I will not accommodate anyone because they have a 'short attention span'.

Mirrors

I emerged from the train station tonight looking around me as though I had suddenly been caught in a daze. King's Cross was standing tall in the night, its red brick gown detached from the night sky unfolding behind it. I blinked, uncertain. Had I really been anywhere at all? It was only yesterday that I was standing at right about the same spot, with the same red brick façade greeting me. So yes, for a split second I wondered: had I really been anywhere at all?

Old feelings and thoughts continued their stirring inside me, untamed waves crashing against my head and heart over and over again. In spite of my best efforts, I had been dragged back into the past through no fault of my own... or was it? It's hard to say. I remember feeling sad in the wake of my silent cousin's departure, and then I remember the sadness morphing into nostalgia, and before I knew it I found myself frantically looking for old journals and diaries. The next thing I remember doing is sit at my desk to read these relics of mine written so many years ago. Shortly after I started reading, I found myself throwing them away from me, feeling deeply unsettled.

Who was this girl whose thoughts I was reading? What scared me wasn't a feeling of detachment from who I was back then - in many ways I wish it were the case, that what spooked me was not being able to relate anymore... but that wasn't the case at all, on the contrary. Reading myself back felt like... staring at unfolding patterns that remain with me to this very day... making me who I am today.

I had received a text from an old friend who has moved away from London a long time ago. We met when I had just turned 21 and she had just turned 19. She had just started her first year at university and I was finishing my last year, but we hadn't met at university. We'd met on a forum for people who suffered from various mental afflictions, from depression to food issues to wanting to commit suicide. On that forum were people from all ages, although teenagers and young adults seemed to form a majority, as did the female ratio versus male. What we all liked about it was the freedom to express as much of our dark thoughts as we felt the need to, and no one was going to judge or lecture you. We were all 'in the same boat', so to speak, and we could relate. Beyond the differing circumstances, ages and stories lay the same common afflictions. And one day this girl and I decided to meet. We both lived in the same city, so we met up in a Starbucks near her halls and we just instantly 'clicked'.

It wasn't long before she got worse and had to leave the city, though, and I remember feeling that same old, painful twitch in the heart when she announced she had to leave - why did people I met in life and allowed myself to care about, always had to leave prematurely? It was always Distance. They always had to 'move'. I've lost count of how many people have entered my life and disappeared out of it the moment I started caring.

Anyway... we met up again this weekend, and it was as though we'd never left each other's side. I wondered some more about why it was that people I cared about were invariably taken away from me by distance, and I felt like concluding that maybe, just maybe, it was better that way - even if it rarely feels better.

Is there such a thing as only being able to be friends with people from a distance? Is there such a thing as better preservation of friendship, perhaps even love, so long as it is kept away from us for the most part?

I couldn't say.

I spent last night sitting on her bed listening to her singing as she played the guitar and then I asked her to play the violin for me. She got up, picked up the violin case, opened it before me and spent some time tuning it. And then she started playing... giggling and wincing every time she missed the odd note. We'd been sipping wine and we'd also been smoking. She then reverted back to playing the guitar and singing... and there I was, nodding my head in rhythm with the wonderful acoustic sound, wishing so much it would never stop.

Later on, her boyfriend came home and I discovered that he was a painter. They showed me pictures of his paintings and I was struck by how talented the man was... I'd never cared about abstract painting before, but suddenly the fusion of colours, the odd patterns and forms drowning in pools of colours... all of it was speaking to me now. At that point I wasn't sure if it was the smoking that had affected me as I could have sworn I didn't feel any 'different'.

But then, as we sat at the table eating dinner and I was trying out vegan curry for the first time, we somehow ended up on the topic of 'mirrors', asking one another whether we'd noticed how our reflection never seems to look quite the same as our person 'seen' in real life. And suddenly the thought that we never actually get to see ourselves but only a mirror image or reflection at best struck me... or perhaps what really struck me was the fact that we ultimately get to see others better than we could ever see our own self...

When we stare at our own reflection - the only way we have to 'see' ourselves even through pictures - what we're really staring at is a distorted version of ourselves, leaving only other people with the ability to see the original version, if you like. And so it is that we probably have more of a shot at making sense of others rather than our own selves.

Nothing seems to matter anymore, nothing has a point, all is futile. The sky is dark and dull even at its bluest. The wind is harsh, cold, venimous, even when scarse. Time is bloody, rutheless, even when ignored. Food is poison, evil, even when avoided. People are hurtful savages, even when caring and trying to be kind. Dreams are torture even though I chase after them relentlessly. (18/09/2006)

Work has been more draining than usual in the past couple of weeks, and then the other day as I sat at my desk wishing so much for the hours to tick by faster, I remembered that the one good thing about that job is that we're allowed to use earphones all the time... and so I started listening to what I can only call settling music to my ears... People around me were chatting, bothering me with questions, trying to distract me, but I was losing myself in Beethoven over and over again. What a blissful escape from the almost constant dreariness of the modern workplace.

Without music, truly Life would be a mistake.

Traveling down the river Styx, hopeless shadow of what I once was, I remember a little girl who would have been good. I remember the one that should have been and stare at the fraud that took her place, reflected in the dark waters of Nowhere.

(18/08/2006)

Jotted down so many years ago, but I'm moving away from it now. Well, that's the aim. Breaking (old) patterns seems like the next logical step.

Glimpses

My cousin left yesterday afternoon, and since then I've had the time to fully experience this strange and eerie 'empty' atmosphere left after someone's departure from a place. Everything always has to end at some point.

Every part of life seems to belong to a cycle of some sort - even mere moments are like short cycles bound to end at some point. I won’t miss the stranger that lived in our flat for about 6 months, the silent stranger who never spoke to me beyond the ‘hi’ word. It’s just that as always, the disappearance of a ‘presence’ can be felt strongly. The room next door will be once again empty, hollowed out from a human presence. After a few days, the strange ‘emptiness’ will fade away, of course, but still, the present moment to be experienced is that of this strange disappearance of human presence no matter how silent that presence was.

It must have something to do with energy, surely. We humans have an energy about us that travels around with our body, wherever we go, and when we leave, that energy or ‘presence’ leaves with us. The same must be true with death to a far larger extent because with death, the body is simply left behind while that energy vanishes at once and for good.

Right now, I find myself stopping in my tracks often to stare at the room's closed door. He was always keeping the door closed, so I find myself imagining that he could still be in there, watching TV or whatever else it was that he would spend his time doing. Last night, as I found myself stopping in my tracks in the corridor to stare at the closed door, I could see that there was no more light filtering through from underneath the door. I felt this strange pinch in the heart and I wondered how it was possible to feel such deep sadness for a silent stranger who got on my nerves more often than not while he was here.

I guess my sorrow has a lot to do with being too sensitive. No matter how strange he could be, I knew that he'd had a very tough life. His inability to cope with daily life - to be responsible - and the reason why he was so lost and unable to even try to help himself while he was here was directly linked to a terrible childhood filled mostly with abuse. I got a glimpse of someone whose life had been so devoid of love and care that it left him deeply handicapped. I realise that whatever we end up being as adults, it all depends mostly on childhood, and since we don't get to choose where we're born, it pretty much leaves a lot of who we become up to chance.

And maybe the reason I feel so sorrowful right now is because that silent stranger was showing me this all along. Or maybe the way I feel is merely a reflection of my inability to accept change without feeling pain.

Fractal attraction

To love or not to love,

To feel or not to feel...

In my many attempts at diving into the heart of all things - any thing, really - I grew more aware of certain recurring themes that seemed to apply not just to my person, but to the world at large... sometimes it felt like staring at something close to fractals - fragmented geometric shapes that can be split into parts, each of which being a reduced-size copy of the whole over and over again as you zoom in closer and closer. Some call it 'self-similarity', but one only needs to have a look around and start zooming in on a mere leaf fallen from a tree to see it. And we, as people, seem no different from that 'norm'. Even logical thought, that very capacity to think rationally, is an echo of that notion of fractals. The more one thinks about a particular thing, the more they find they can derive not just many roots shooting up from the base, but also repetitive patterns that could simply be juxtaposed and where the only difference remains 'size'. Individual versus whole, basically - same exact patterns in essence repeating themselves in the exact same way whether one looks at the individual level or from a 'bird's eye view'.

And so here's the world. The whole of this world at its most basic. My whole person or being is but a fractal-like embodiment or manifestation of the whole universe at once - in a fractal sense. We just get distracted by the seemingly random elements of the environment, which end up shaping our 'differences'. That distraction is at the core of the reality-based illusion of difference.

What drives the human world? Repetition, it seems - through competition. Everything about living screams replication... through competition, meaning 'the best' in a very basic way rather than a sophisticated one as the human intellect would love to portray. Of course, over the centuries we managed to dress that basic notion driving our very existence into something fancier. We dressed up something basically 'ugly' to have it look more... palatable to the more sophisticated mind.

Women do it all the time. They wake up in the morning and then dart into the bathroom to apply a mask of make-up to conceal flaws. Here again comes the notion of fractals, for the only reason they conceal flaws is part of the same way the world of humans at large tries hard to sugar-coat reality all the time. Building sand castles everywhere. Over, and over, and over again. Trying so hard to conceal the true nature of Reality by applying layers upon layers of mind make-up - through the use of imagination.

Everything we can look at now is a direct result of competition - through, again, replication - of some sort. Every single second of my life is defined by a competition of some sort. Even my mere breathing is dictated by one component fighting against another to make it. We die because, ultimately, we lose out against some other component(s). Medicine is just a field that aims to fight such components harder.

Social entanglements are as much part of the competitive, replicative 'norms' as any. They repeat themselves over and over again, and though they might appear random to the undiscerning mind, the ones that get to be repeated over time are the ones that win over others in the constant competition battle. One only needs to look at how the world is built on opposites... nothing seems to exist on a stand-alone basis. If something is, then its opposite is surely there, too. Male and female, spring and winter, thin and large, black and white, hot and cold, dry and wet, etc, etc... What are opposites but the embodiment of competition at its apex? Opposites are like the perfect middle ground of the 'balance' of competition, and everything in between is forever torn in a tug of war as they all compete to make it over all others, from the tiniest atom to the biggest elements.

Nature is so 'perfect' because it makes everything rest on chains of events - on top of the replicative competition process. There is that element to be taken into account, too. The fact that from the very beginning everything that unfolded was the equivalent of a game of replicative dominoes falling one after the other according to how they were placed along the way. And I would bet my socks off that even as the last domino drops dead on the floor, it will happen to contain the fractal-like similarities of the whole universe - space/time - at once.