Childhood's horizons are fairly simple, flat and uncluttered except for imagination; adulthood looms in the far, foggy distance like something you know is there but seems so alien to you that it might as well just be a trick of the light. It catches us off-guard and we discover that there are really only two types of people in this world: the grasshopper and the ant, to use one of Aesop and La Fontaine's sharp allegories.
I wanted to be smart and be like the ant but my nature trumped my fancy and to my dismay I discovered that I've been a lot more like the grasshopper so far in the sense that I didn't learn - and didn't understand until fairly recently - the importance and value of such things as long-term commitment, or sticking to something long enough to see one's efforts bear fruit. Yet what struck me more in this self-discovery affaire wasn't so much the revelation of who I was compared to who I thought I was or wished to be, it was the uncanny way in which I only seem able to find out more about my person in hindsight - looking back and assessing damage and successes alike.
These thoughts came to me as I was taking a long walk across town, sheltered under my umbrella as rain pelted the ground, a list of 'things-to-get' for my next hiking adventure tucked safely inside my handbag.
"After this, that's it. Time to get on with the long-term aspects of life," I told myself.
Then I rolled my eyes and thought: "Well, we'll see."
The Grasshopper and the Ant
The Grasshopper having sung
All the summer long,
Found herself lacking food
When the North Wind began its song.
Not a single little piece
Of fly or grub did she have to eat.
She went complaining of hunger
To the Ant's home, her neighbour,
Begging there for a loan
Of some grain to keep herself alive
Til the next season did arrive,
"I shall pay you," she said
"Before next August, on my word as an animal.
I'll pay both interest and pricipal."
The Ant was not so inclined:
this not being one of her faults.
"What did you do all summer?
Said she to the grasshopper.
"Night and day I sang,
I hope that does not displease you."
"You sang? I will not look askance.
But now my neighbour it's time to dance."
- English translation found online of La Cigale et la Fourmi by Jean de la Fontaine
Monday 13 June 2016
Monday 10 August 2015
Retrospection II
10/08/1996 (age: 13)
The academic year came to an end on 25 June. During the year I did my Profession of Faith; we went to another city with the class and I stayed in the same room as my best friend Lydia for the night. We stayed up late and with the other girls we made a lot of noise, running up and down the corridor at night like crazy! In the end most of the girls got caught by the teachers who gave them detention but Lydia and I escaped just in time. Luckily, we'd heard Mrs G's footsteps coming up in our direction and had time to run back to our room before she could catch us!
I wrote Lydia a long letter during the summer holidays but she still hasn't replied back. She called me earlier but only for 5 minutes because her mum was about to come home and she told me her parents didn't want her to contact me. I can''t believe it! She was my best friend last year but now I don't know.
10/08/1998 (Age: 15)
How can I express the way I feel? Ah, if I were a true poet I would know! I miss Annie dearly [ now that she's moved away]...
Slowly, I come to realise that I tend to dream my life instead of living it. I love passionately within the realm of my dreams and imagination but I feel nothing for the things of 'reality'.
I'd like to live more actively but all I do instead is sink deeper in reveries. Do I even want to escape them? I would like the best of both worlds, I guess.
I haven't received any letter from Annie for almost a month and I haven't heard from Alice either. This year school will impose choices on me that are certain to shape the direction of my life... I wish I could do and be everything! If only that was possible...
10/08/1999 (Age: 16)
It's 14:57 and I'm sitting at my desk. The cat is lying on the bed like a king, eyes wide open. He's so beautiful! They're playing "Jamais loin de toi" by Laam on the radio. That's all for now. See you later.
PS: it's 14:59.
[...]
10/08/2001 (Age: 18)
I could be good at painting, it might even be that I'm rather talented - if only I felt passionate enough, had the patience and strive to practice!
When people look at me they see a smiling girl who is somewhat playful and who travels a lot, and they come to the conclusion that I must be happy... and sometimes they even envy me! If they only knew what lies beneath the illusion of what they see...
Sometimes the pain I feel inside gets so strong that I feel like screaming in a vain attempt to expel all the anger, despair and fear that eat at me from within. I wish I could turn to someone and confide in them, tell them the truth of all that's been happening in my life, tell them how much it feels like a giant void now, but I can't. There is no one I can turn to.
I'm surrounded by people who have everything they need in their lives. My friend Annie (whom I met in high school back home and who is now away in a boarding school) has nothing to worry about except school and exams, then she'll just go straight to university. As for me, I haven't been able to go back to school since we moved away. I've been uprooted, torn away from everything and thrown in a thick fog with no compass to guide me. I live in a city I hate but I've been spending the summer at my aunt's in yet another country.
I don't know where I stand anymore... I feel so bad... so bad. So helpless... There's nothing I can do that could change anything and that hurts. Knowin that you're falling and being unable to prevent it as if your hands were tied behind your back...
Staying with my aunt has helped somewhat to feel again like a human being... they treat me like one over here, at least... they treat me like a young person. But at night I'm haunted by the reminder that it can't last, that this is only a brief respite before the storm hits again. I feel like something inside me has died.
10/08/2005 (Age: 22)
If all goes well I'll be going back to university to study literature... I also got my degree in law.
I saw Annie last Sunday; we went to the pub and got a bit drunk before going to one of her friends' place where they were throwing a party but since it was almost midnight by the time we got there there wasn't a lot of people left. We ended up sitting on a sofa, watching The Simpsons on a giant screen (the guy was rich and his place looked the part) while eating pretzels and drinking beer.
Zara's left London to stay with her parents up north. I might visit her next week. I met up with Annie again on Tuesday night and we went to watch "The wedding crashers" at the cinema, which was fun. We then went to her place and we watched movies until 3am. She mentioned that I looked thin, which only means one thing: I was quite big before and now the difference is obvious!
Ah, the therapist at the hospital prescribed me stronger medication.
10/08/2007
The academic year came to an end on 25 June. During the year I did my Profession of Faith; we went to another city with the class and I stayed in the same room as my best friend Lydia for the night. We stayed up late and with the other girls we made a lot of noise, running up and down the corridor at night like crazy! In the end most of the girls got caught by the teachers who gave them detention but Lydia and I escaped just in time. Luckily, we'd heard Mrs G's footsteps coming up in our direction and had time to run back to our room before she could catch us!
I wrote Lydia a long letter during the summer holidays but she still hasn't replied back. She called me earlier but only for 5 minutes because her mum was about to come home and she told me her parents didn't want her to contact me. I can''t believe it! She was my best friend last year but now I don't know.
_________________________________________
10/08/1998 (Age: 15)
How can I express the way I feel? Ah, if I were a true poet I would know! I miss Annie dearly [ now that she's moved away]...
Slowly, I come to realise that I tend to dream my life instead of living it. I love passionately within the realm of my dreams and imagination but I feel nothing for the things of 'reality'.
I'd like to live more actively but all I do instead is sink deeper in reveries. Do I even want to escape them? I would like the best of both worlds, I guess.
I haven't received any letter from Annie for almost a month and I haven't heard from Alice either. This year school will impose choices on me that are certain to shape the direction of my life... I wish I could do and be everything! If only that was possible...
_________________________________________
10/08/1999 (Age: 16)
It's 14:57 and I'm sitting at my desk. The cat is lying on the bed like a king, eyes wide open. He's so beautiful! They're playing "Jamais loin de toi" by Laam on the radio. That's all for now. See you later.
PS: it's 14:59.
[...]
Annie's mother finally called... one month late. Mum unplugged the phone so we wouldn't have to listen to her lies. I feel like crying. I won't be going to visit my friend in Boston after all. Alice and Annie are probably there together by now...
[...]
It's not working at all. I can't do anything under such conditions; the intensity of my boredom oppresses me, destroys any willpower I have left and I feel like drowning in inertia despite my best intentions. This boredom is poison to my creativity, it stunts me, angers me, exasperates me. I'm just wasting my time. I need activities, I can't just focus on one thing all the time, it drives me nuts! I need to be kept busy constantly, I need hyperactivity to motivate me... Boredom eats at me from within, suffocating me slowly, turning me into a useless vegetable. Having too much time on my hands only serves one purpose: to drive me to ask myself what all that time is for.
I'M SO BORED!
_________________________________________
10/08/2001 (Age: 18)
I could be good at painting, it might even be that I'm rather talented - if only I felt passionate enough, had the patience and strive to practice!
When people look at me they see a smiling girl who is somewhat playful and who travels a lot, and they come to the conclusion that I must be happy... and sometimes they even envy me! If they only knew what lies beneath the illusion of what they see...
Sometimes the pain I feel inside gets so strong that I feel like screaming in a vain attempt to expel all the anger, despair and fear that eat at me from within. I wish I could turn to someone and confide in them, tell them the truth of all that's been happening in my life, tell them how much it feels like a giant void now, but I can't. There is no one I can turn to.
I'm surrounded by people who have everything they need in their lives. My friend Annie (whom I met in high school back home and who is now away in a boarding school) has nothing to worry about except school and exams, then she'll just go straight to university. As for me, I haven't been able to go back to school since we moved away. I've been uprooted, torn away from everything and thrown in a thick fog with no compass to guide me. I live in a city I hate but I've been spending the summer at my aunt's in yet another country.
I don't know where I stand anymore... I feel so bad... so bad. So helpless... There's nothing I can do that could change anything and that hurts. Knowin that you're falling and being unable to prevent it as if your hands were tied behind your back...
Staying with my aunt has helped somewhat to feel again like a human being... they treat me like one over here, at least... they treat me like a young person. But at night I'm haunted by the reminder that it can't last, that this is only a brief respite before the storm hits again. I feel like something inside me has died.
_________________________________________
10/08/2005 (Age: 22)
If all goes well I'll be going back to university to study literature... I also got my degree in law.
I saw Annie last Sunday; we went to the pub and got a bit drunk before going to one of her friends' place where they were throwing a party but since it was almost midnight by the time we got there there wasn't a lot of people left. We ended up sitting on a sofa, watching The Simpsons on a giant screen (the guy was rich and his place looked the part) while eating pretzels and drinking beer.
Zara's left London to stay with her parents up north. I might visit her next week. I met up with Annie again on Tuesday night and we went to watch "The wedding crashers" at the cinema, which was fun. We then went to her place and we watched movies until 3am. She mentioned that I looked thin, which only means one thing: I was quite big before and now the difference is obvious!
Ah, the therapist at the hospital prescribed me stronger medication.
_________________________________________
10/08/2007
Today I have to go to the dentist...It’s needle day... believe me, I’m absolutely shitting myself!
It’s at 2.30pm and I’m dreading it SO much, the injections and all... Has to be done, though... no more running away from it this time and it will cost a massive 300 quid just to sort ONE tooth out... So yeah, it might be sunny outside but I’m not enjoying it. I feel so anxious I had a lot of cereals this morning, munching away my stress...Then I went for a little run, it lasted maybe 5 minutes but it did make me feel slightly better.
I smoke FAR too much and it’s starting to have an effect on my lungs and throat. Baaad.
I’ve been off work since tuesday night and haven’t heard anything from any of my “friends” from work. Nice, isn’t it? I guess it can only make it easier for me to leave incognito, which is what I plan to do. I’m not going into work tomorrow but will go to my sunday, tuesday and wednesday shifts and on Wednesday at 10pm exactly it will be OVER for good with this job. Of course, I’m not being naive in the least, a lot of things can happen in the meantime, especially when sleezball Sam comes back on Tuesday....
Oh well, we’ll have to wait and see, I just don’t want any more nasty surprises...
_________________________________________
10/08/2008
The trouble with too much imagination is that it is bound to take you further than reality and therefore there is always a painful crashing down period.
There is something about feeling too much or being so sensitive that every simple beauty or glimpse of what is hardly ever noticed becomes an epiphany of some sort, yet pain is as much emplified for no logical reason. As feelings keep burning lungs and spirit the mind grows weary and a mental torpor slowly eases its way through the body itself until the light is so faint that you stagger down the deep well you knew was there all along, but you can no longer avoid it.
There is so much beauty through the pain of living that it is bound to kill a spirit in its bud if one dares to gaze at such spendor for too long. Written words are a painter’s brush forming infinite combinations of colors to mirror hues of rain and sunlight. Alone they are little more than shadows of what they ought to become. Together suddenly the world is set alight and there are no limits.
These days words seem to flow out of my hands and I watch the threads of thought slide along those lines without even knowing whether it is really me who is writing or something beyond my own self already. When one achieves greatness of any kind, does it mean the soul must have gone to other shores where only splendor and perfection prevail? Like a vessel the body translates or conveys what little can be from those unfathomable shores and withers slowly under the strain, much like the one who one day built wings so he could reach the sun.
But what do I know? What am I? If there is but one thing I am aware of it is how tiny my body is amidst the ocean of life. But my mind? How far does it stretch? How far can one venture and be certain that it is not in fact an illusion of infinity? What if what I took for infinity was only a trick of the light too bright and I kept flying in circles? Who would warn me? Who would even notice?
Sorrow tires me yet my mind feeds off it. The contradiction is again sublime.
If I were made of words I would want to be a poem.
10/08/2009
My computer is finally back home where it belongs. My one possession. A week ago, it had to go, and I wondered why - I still wonder why. Things happen, things break.
I had much time on my hands. I looked at the pile of books waiting to be read in a corner, collecting dust on their clean covers. I picked one up and I've almost finished reading it. As always, I’m left with the feeling that I haven’t had enough time yet to digest what I think I may have understood for myself.
Am I here to make friends? Am I here to matter in reality? I think not. Am I here to make an impact? Maybe. What would frighten me most would be to have an impact that was more negative than anything else... because I know now that I have a conscience, and that unfathomable notion is crutial, or so I feel. I never want for one split second to forget humanity, and the intricate meaning that it holds. Perspective is perhaps another crutial element needed when one attempts to make sense of the world. Without it, it isn’t long before one is caught putting that world into boxes that are flawed in some ways. Without it, we might as well be blind, or become so in the long run.
Perspective, patience and... Something else... These two are part of the key to true understanding, and they complete each other.
_________________________________________
10/08/2009
My computer is finally back home where it belongs. My one possession. A week ago, it had to go, and I wondered why - I still wonder why. Things happen, things break.
I had much time on my hands. I looked at the pile of books waiting to be read in a corner, collecting dust on their clean covers. I picked one up and I've almost finished reading it. As always, I’m left with the feeling that I haven’t had enough time yet to digest what I think I may have understood for myself.
Am I here to make friends? Am I here to matter in reality? I think not. Am I here to make an impact? Maybe. What would frighten me most would be to have an impact that was more negative than anything else... because I know now that I have a conscience, and that unfathomable notion is crutial, or so I feel. I never want for one split second to forget humanity, and the intricate meaning that it holds. Perspective is perhaps another crutial element needed when one attempts to make sense of the world. Without it, it isn’t long before one is caught putting that world into boxes that are flawed in some ways. Without it, we might as well be blind, or become so in the long run.
Perspective, patience and... Something else... These two are part of the key to true understanding, and they complete each other.
_________________________________________
10/08/2010
… Still feeling very empty… drained?
Shattered.
These last few weeks, these past two months… they were all pointless, all just another illusion. Wow. That really, really hurts. Nobody has any idea how much I’ve been hurt and tortured from within in the space of a few weeks. Nobody cares, of course. Words, as always, are worse than the wind. I’ll always feel and think too much for my own good, it seems. And still I need to move on, taking it one day at a time until I can finally wake up one morning without feeling that heavy weight on my chest.
How long is it going to take before I stop pointlessly checking my mail, eh? I made some tiny progress, mind you: I haven’t messaged or emailed him over one full day… Go me. I feel so wounded, it’s unbelievable. I don’t think I’ll ever come close to understanding what was actually going on. I’ll never understand this one glitch in my otherwise very empty life. It was just another sick joke from Life, wasn’t it? It knows too well how to get me by now. It can play with my imagination, and from there everything goes literally to hell.
I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t think I ever knew a damn thing in the end.
Everything has again taken the colour of stupid these days. In my reality, I still need to carry on ‘as normal’… People smile at me and I smile back at them. Inside I’m bleeding, but I know they can never see it.
Everything has again taken the colour of stupid these days. In my reality, I still need to carry on ‘as normal’… People smile at me and I smile back at them. Inside I’m bleeding, but I know they can never see it.
I tell myself "it will pass. Yes, it has to. This emptiness eating at me, it will pass at some point. When, I do not know. But eventually…”
Like a ghost, I carry on, smiling and nodding, perfecting my social mask so no one can see in how much inner pain I am. So no one can see how much I hate everything right now. How much I want to climb atop the highest mountain in the world and scream till I lose my voice.
Isn’t that what we all do? Isn’t that what we all have to do?…
One thing is for sure: identity is an illusion. There is no ‘I’ within, only a constellation of masks we create throughout existence, which are then worn according to a situation or the people we need to adapt to. That’s why trying to figure out the true self is a waste of time. If I stayed completely isolated for a long enough period of time, maybe I would only get to wear one mask, but still, it would only be one version of my self.
There is… no self. Only selves. The key, I suppose, is really to take control over what selves one wants to keep, and what selves one wants to bin. If I keep only those that make absolute sense and the ones that help me get to a perfected reasoning, then maybe there is hope that my person as a whole will begin to make sense in reality as well.
[The nickname] Aliska is just another role I play. The role of the deep, wounded thinker in a world that will never listen to reason.
I have played so many roles in my life. One once told me that humans were really role-playing animals, and I can’t agree more with that point in the end. This whole world is like an ancient Venitian ball where people used to dress up and wear those colourful feathered-covered masks.
Wearing those many feathered-covered masks, people keep dancing at random with one another, and it doesn’t matter where the steps lead them, because they can never see beyond each step. Above them stands the ‘authority’ that pretends it knows better, but everything in reality is based on illusions and flawed perceptions.
_________________________________________
10/08/2011
I’m in deep shit… I haven’t started yet on the feature, and my deadline was supposed to be today… yeah. I don’t even know where to start. It’s going to be a big MESS. Shit.
Beside that I have so much work I could cry…
To make things worse, I did no extra work over the weekend, just couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Then there were those riots erupting in London and it made for compelling viewing, I guess. It’s hard to believe your eyes when you see hordes of teenagers and young adults running down the street setting buildings on fire to break into stores and steal trolleys full of goods. The police did nothing to stop it except trying to contain the situation and deal with the fires. Even in the early hours of morning thugs remained free to carry on looting the stores they’d broken into during the night.
Beside that I have so much work I could cry…
To make things worse, I did no extra work over the weekend, just couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Then there were those riots erupting in London and it made for compelling viewing, I guess. It’s hard to believe your eyes when you see hordes of teenagers and young adults running down the street setting buildings on fire to break into stores and steal trolleys full of goods. The police did nothing to stop it except trying to contain the situation and deal with the fires. Even in the early hours of morning thugs remained free to carry on looting the stores they’d broken into during the night.
_________________________________________
10/08/2012
I only have a few minutes to spare before I need to get dressed… I woke up late. Well, I want to go to work early so I can finish early. I don’t know what they’re playing at in that office, but it’s starting to piss me off. I gave my notice last week and I’m still waiting to hear back from HR about it. The guy keeps saying he’ll get back to me. Either he’s the most incompetent HR person I’ve ever met, or he’s up to something. I just want TO GO. I’m tired, fed up, you name it… I just want to get away from the place. I’m stuck with a feature I’m not sure I can actually write, and I can no longer stand the stress levels I'm put under.
_________________________________________
10/08/2013
I’m failing again, but this time I have to face my failings full on. I’m SO tired of fucking up with people, especially in work situations… I’ve again managed to stir up some drama… it must really be that I’m not suited for office life. It drives me nuts, having to sense and endure all the conflicting energies around me, day in, day out… Going to work yesterday was horrendously difficult, but it’s only going to get harder.
I’ve single-handedly managed to alienate myself by sending a complaint by email to the main manager, and the woman then happily proceeded to blow it out of proportion… I shouldn’t have sent this… but then now at least it’s showing people’s true colours in full daylight… and it’s like watching nice little dolls turn into monsters, or little squirrels turn into snakes in front of your very eyes… it’s incredible… and frightening.
Having said that, I’m taking it all WAY too personally – and that’s why it’s driving me insane. It’s made me crack up like an egg for all to see, but the worst part of all is that it’s making me make mistakes at work… There seemed to be no issue in the end yesterday, but I fear I really fucked up on my calculations last night… and this time it shows because the percentage differential day on day is HUGE on a set of quarters… I have to face the consequences of my errors… and I must face my failures. Even if it means having a correction – I have to face it, and face them.
I need to stop taking it personally and focus on doing my job. That’s all that matters now… I don’t know what happened this week… it all feels more like an unfolding nightmare and the stress and lack of proper rest make it impossible for me to look back on the last few days and make any sense of what happened… it’s like a big bad blur… It’s scary how exhaustion can affect you, and when you become an emotional wreck, well, all hell breaks loose… I am at my worst and at my weakest when my emotions get out of control… which is exactly what happened. I become this paranoid, self-pity party that acts like wild fire burning everything around her.
It's all taken such a horrendous turn for the worst that I still can’t believe this past week even happened. I just can’t wrap my head around the chain of events that unfolded… what’s certain is that it has left me with a strong, unshakable sense of finality when it comes to where I now stand at work. The only sense I get now is that it’s all over - whatever that means. Any thought or hope of ever fitting in has been dashed, and there is a deep sense of certainty about it that I can feel inside that also adds to a strange hint of sadness weighing on my chest…
After all, I did really want to be part of a team there… I liked most of the people there and tried my best… but everything is shattered now. Everything lies before me in tatters and there is no going back from here. That’s the finality I sense so strongly. It’s really over.
Remember how I wished for a sense of closure in the aftermath of the whole Jamesgate affair?... well, I never thought the one I would get would involve the workplace itself.
_________________________________________
10/08/2014
I’ve been meeting up with an Italian woman I met on a hike at the start of the month and we go out for walks around London together. Last night I took her to see Wicked, which I hadn’t seen either. It was pretty good… but the whole theme of looking at evil and twisting events to make it look like evil was in fact good disturbs me… It’s certainly interesting to look into what makes people do evil things, trying to figure out what makes them turn into monsters at times, but it’s something else to write it all over again to say that what we thought was evil was in fact good. That’s what they did with this musical, making it look like the wicked witch was in fact good and it was the way the story had been reported by the wizard that made it look as if she was bad… Hmmm.
I also went to hairdresser – finally… I hadn’t been in more than a year, I think! Nothing much is changed, though. It was more of a trim than anything.
Oh, what am I supposed to do?! It's already August and my life is like a giant void at the moment. There is no direction… Sure, I’m writing but it’s a slow process and at this point I don’t expect at all that I will ever make it in anyway in this world.
I like being alive, I like being human and experiencing Life in general, growing and learning, appreciating moments and laughter but other people – society – make me feel as if I don’t deserve to exist. Ah, but when people want to take from me then there’s no issue at all.
I guess there is no point in anything except God.
I’m reminded that these days I’m caught in some kind of ‘temps mort’ that can’t last… It would be terrible to reach September and having nothing lined up… I’ve been working on this stupid e-commerce website but I honestly can’t see how it could work. It’s a mess. It kills me to have to see that I’m a loser, and that I come from a family of losers. Nothing we do ever works. We’re like social retards.
I’ve been enjoying spending time with Mara the Italian tourist but she’s leaving at the end of the week… and then I will be left alone to face my fucked up life. Everyone else around me seems to be getting on in some direction while I remain stuck in limbo.
_________________________________________
10/08/2015
Nothing can stay great forever.
Empires are raised high and then they collapse. On the individual level, it's easier to recognise the same pattern in the way beauty, or at the very least youth, is invariably lost at some point. Nothing was meant to last forever in this plane of existence.
I feel the restlessness of unsettled youth, having recently entered its twilight. I'm on the verge of reaching the equinox of life when youth and old age are almost exactly of the same (average) length whether I look back in time or ahead of me. What I feel mostly is a growing desire to be fruitful in some way. To some this desire doesn't manifest itself in quite the same intellectual way but it is there, manifesting itself instead in more concrete terms through the longing of getting married and having children. These children are the fruit and respond directly to that desire to be fruitful. To others, the fruitfulness might find better completion in the work they accomplish, or the art they create.
Whatever form it takes, the desire needs to find a way to be fulfilled... and so I find myself getting increasingly restless as time continues to eat away at my youth. I realise that one way or another I will need to make a drastic choice, a drastic commitment in order to bear fruit in my life.
Apart from that, I went to the dentist this morning and for the first time in my life I didn't mind... The thing is that now that I understand in depth that everything about this life is transitory in essence - good or bad - it seems to make it easier to brave whatever comes (because all things come to pass).
I seem intent on chasing the most constant. The eternal. The most perfect.
_________________________________________
Sunday 2 August 2015
Retrospection
An exercise in retrospection...
29/07/1994 (aged 11)
Chipie (my hamster) is dead.
Primary school is now over and in only one month I'll be going to 'high school'. I'm going to a good school and I should be proud but I'm scared. I'm scared nobody will like me... I would like to have a lot of girl friends but also male friends and maybe even a boyfriend!
29/07/1997 (aged 14)
(Away on a beach holiday)
I went to a night club for the first time. It was at the "Macao" with Jane, F and Ann. We stayed until 4:30am and by the time we got back to the caravan park it was 5 in the morning and the sun was rising. Ann and I were hungry when we arrived so we snacked on some chocolate. Her mum and her little brothers were fast asleep...
29/07/1998 (aged 15)
I was woken up by the sound of the washing machine at 6:30am. Mum's been washing the sheets my aunt, uncle and cousins had been using during their stay with us. They left while I was sleeping, at around 5am. I actually had a strange dream... I dreamed that I had gone with mum down to the garage to say good bye and had suddenly decided to go outside to wave good bye as their car left but as I emerged into the streets everything looked different from the reality, as if I was in an alternate version, another Earth.
Chipie (my hamster) is dead.
Primary school is now over and in only one month I'll be going to 'high school'. I'm going to a good school and I should be proud but I'm scared. I'm scared nobody will like me... I would like to have a lot of girl friends but also male friends and maybe even a boyfriend!
29/07/1997 (aged 14)
(Away on a beach holiday)
I went to a night club for the first time. It was at the "Macao" with Jane, F and Ann. We stayed until 4:30am and by the time we got back to the caravan park it was 5 in the morning and the sun was rising. Ann and I were hungry when we arrived so we snacked on some chocolate. Her mum and her little brothers were fast asleep...
29/07/1998 (aged 15)
I was woken up by the sound of the washing machine at 6:30am. Mum's been washing the sheets my aunt, uncle and cousins had been using during their stay with us. They left while I was sleeping, at around 5am. I actually had a strange dream... I dreamed that I had gone with mum down to the garage to say good bye and had suddenly decided to go outside to wave good bye as their car left but as I emerged into the streets everything looked different from the reality, as if I was in an alternate version, another Earth.
07/1999 (age:16)
The new school term starts in September already! I was reading my old diary from 1995 and was reminded of all the fleeting friendships I've had since then. It feels like I'm growing up so fast at times that I'm thrown in a daze. There's this everyday feeling that tricks you into thinking that nothing's really changing at all and then one morning you wake up and suddenly it's all changed. I'm listening to the Titanic soundtrack. I still feel this lingering sense of melancholia but it's not as strong these days.
Sometimes I feel like embracing the whole of humanity's misery and hold this aching world tight against my heart - but not like some people who take pity of misery in general as an abstract concept that's far removed from their own little realities and who are easily disgusted by the poor man on their very front step. Not me... I would like to take the poor man's hand, feel and share his profound distress, and love him.
But I don't always feel that way. Sometimes society as a whole angers me so much that I forget everything about my good intentions and I tell myself that suffering is what we deserve as punishment.
I realised recently that I was really someone who was easily scared. I'm scared of the dark, of ghosts, of being alone in my bedroom or alone in the house at night... yet I'm not scared of jumping from a seven-meter high cliff into the freezing waters of a swift-running river. Quite the paradox, isn't it?
29/07/2000 (aged 17)
It's my last summer as a minor!!! Yes, it's the last one before the fatal entry into 'adulthood'...
This story is turning into madness... my mum is apparently ready to leave everything to start over abroad, and never mind the fact that I still have another year of high school to finish! I really don't know what to think... I'm getting scared and I've no idea where all this is going to lead us...
The new school term starts in September already! I was reading my old diary from 1995 and was reminded of all the fleeting friendships I've had since then. It feels like I'm growing up so fast at times that I'm thrown in a daze. There's this everyday feeling that tricks you into thinking that nothing's really changing at all and then one morning you wake up and suddenly it's all changed. I'm listening to the Titanic soundtrack. I still feel this lingering sense of melancholia but it's not as strong these days.
Sometimes I feel like embracing the whole of humanity's misery and hold this aching world tight against my heart - but not like some people who take pity of misery in general as an abstract concept that's far removed from their own little realities and who are easily disgusted by the poor man on their very front step. Not me... I would like to take the poor man's hand, feel and share his profound distress, and love him.
But I don't always feel that way. Sometimes society as a whole angers me so much that I forget everything about my good intentions and I tell myself that suffering is what we deserve as punishment.
I realised recently that I was really someone who was easily scared. I'm scared of the dark, of ghosts, of being alone in my bedroom or alone in the house at night... yet I'm not scared of jumping from a seven-meter high cliff into the freezing waters of a swift-running river. Quite the paradox, isn't it?
29/07/2000 (aged 17)
It's my last summer as a minor!!! Yes, it's the last one before the fatal entry into 'adulthood'...
This story is turning into madness... my mum is apparently ready to leave everything to start over abroad, and never mind the fact that I still have another year of high school to finish! I really don't know what to think... I'm getting scared and I've no idea where all this is going to lead us...
_____________________________________________
29/07/2001 (aged 18)
The school year 2000/20001 has come to an end. I'm listening to the song "Where I'm headed" and it plunges me in the pit of nostalgia and memories... I remember last September, it was the 4th or the 5th September 2000, the first day back at school but I knew I was about to leave everything instead. I confess I was a little excited at the time but the overwhelming emotion was fear overall... thinking about what my school friend would be thinking and saying when they realised I would never return and be gone, just like that. I wasn't disappointed by their reaction. Our phone's voicemail was full of messages that I wasn't allowed or didn't feel like answering to. And now I see myself as a 16 year old again, crazy and dreaming of doing only stupid things. I was bored a lot, I remember. I was never happy, I was dreaming of adventure... now that my old life has been shattered nothing will ever be the same again. I don't know what to think anymore. I still have that deluded feeling that I'll go back 'home' at some point... as if everything was just a glitch, a 'holiday', a break or parenthesis that's not supposed to last and that 'everything' will go back to the way things used to be. It's not the case, of course. It's all over, I know that. And yet... it's hard to accept it. But I have to accept the change because changes are what allows us to evolve.... it's like going from childhood to adolescence and then from adolescence to adulthood. I'm almost an adult now and I wonder what kind of adult I'll be. I simply hope I'll be a happy one.
But what's an adult? I think I'm starting to understand what my mum means when she says "we're always like kids inside our heads, it's only the body that grows old"...
I guess we mature and we understand things better over time, that's all. And then we grow old and one day we close our eyes and never open them again.
The school year 2000/20001 has come to an end. I'm listening to the song "Where I'm headed" and it plunges me in the pit of nostalgia and memories... I remember last September, it was the 4th or the 5th September 2000, the first day back at school but I knew I was about to leave everything instead. I confess I was a little excited at the time but the overwhelming emotion was fear overall... thinking about what my school friend would be thinking and saying when they realised I would never return and be gone, just like that. I wasn't disappointed by their reaction. Our phone's voicemail was full of messages that I wasn't allowed or didn't feel like answering to. And now I see myself as a 16 year old again, crazy and dreaming of doing only stupid things. I was bored a lot, I remember. I was never happy, I was dreaming of adventure... now that my old life has been shattered nothing will ever be the same again. I don't know what to think anymore. I still have that deluded feeling that I'll go back 'home' at some point... as if everything was just a glitch, a 'holiday', a break or parenthesis that's not supposed to last and that 'everything' will go back to the way things used to be. It's not the case, of course. It's all over, I know that. And yet... it's hard to accept it. But I have to accept the change because changes are what allows us to evolve.... it's like going from childhood to adolescence and then from adolescence to adulthood. I'm almost an adult now and I wonder what kind of adult I'll be. I simply hope I'll be a happy one.
But what's an adult? I think I'm starting to understand what my mum means when she says "we're always like kids inside our heads, it's only the body that grows old"...
I guess we mature and we understand things better over time, that's all. And then we grow old and one day we close our eyes and never open them again.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2002 (aged 19)
I'm listening to the new Eminem CD - it's brilliant and I love it! I'm sitting in that tiny shack we live in, back in London and more lost than ever in this life. I can see the bunch of roses and tulips on the table in front of me and I feel sick. I hate this place, I hate this town, I hate this person who has become more like a ghost in my life. I don't feel good here. I feel lost, I feel like dying. It's not a joke this time, I think about it more and more often. I want to fall asleep and dream and never have to wake up in this disgusting world that has no heart and no morals. I want to escape, I don't want to be part of this society, all these vicious people who are so cruel... I want to escape far, beyond this horrible reality, this chaos of materialism that burns the soul and poisons my veins, torturing me...
My cat is gone forever and I'll never see him again. He's gone like my hamster when I was 10, like Billy the dog we had when I was 4... he's gone.
I'm listening to the new Eminem CD - it's brilliant and I love it! I'm sitting in that tiny shack we live in, back in London and more lost than ever in this life. I can see the bunch of roses and tulips on the table in front of me and I feel sick. I hate this place, I hate this town, I hate this person who has become more like a ghost in my life. I don't feel good here. I feel lost, I feel like dying. It's not a joke this time, I think about it more and more often. I want to fall asleep and dream and never have to wake up in this disgusting world that has no heart and no morals. I want to escape, I don't want to be part of this society, all these vicious people who are so cruel... I want to escape far, beyond this horrible reality, this chaos of materialism that burns the soul and poisons my veins, torturing me...
My cat is gone forever and I'll never see him again. He's gone like my hamster when I was 10, like Billy the dog we had when I was 4... he's gone.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2005 (aged 22)
I haven't written anything in a long time. My head feels completely empty and it's scary to think how quickly I've started to lose my French. I met a girl in group therapy called Zara, and we went to the pub with 3 of her guy friends before ending the night back at her place to play 'spin the bottle'... [...]
I've spent the day smoking and having my 'moments' as I call them.
It's a nice day outside and the sun is shining.... the new cat is lying on his back like a big teddy bear. I'm on the maximum happy pills dosage at the moment. That might be why I feel rather 'content'.
I saw Annie last week. I almost ended up going to Paris with her but the Eurostar ticket was too expensive for me.
I haven't written anything in a long time. My head feels completely empty and it's scary to think how quickly I've started to lose my French. I met a girl in group therapy called Zara, and we went to the pub with 3 of her guy friends before ending the night back at her place to play 'spin the bottle'... [...]
I've spent the day smoking and having my 'moments' as I call them.
It's a nice day outside and the sun is shining.... the new cat is lying on his back like a big teddy bear. I'm on the maximum happy pills dosage at the moment. That might be why I feel rather 'content'.
I saw Annie last week. I almost ended up going to Paris with her but the Eurostar ticket was too expensive for me.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2007 (aged 24)
Today I have to go to work , no choice! I got in touch with another girl from my old high school through Facebook... She told me she lives in Chile, of all places!!! She was kinda vague, though, so I’m not too sure what she does there. She bluntly asked me why I disapeared overnight all those many years ago andI just told her that I had moved away and was too sad to keep in touch, some rubbish like that, which after all is not so far from the truth!
So many little things, good and bad, have happpened in the space of less than 2 weeks, my head is spinning and my thoughts are all over the place. I feel hopeful, something I haven’t been able to feel in a long time but I don’t want to kid myself into thinking I’m safe now, that I’m “better”. I’m trying to remind myself to keep strong no matter what happens and now that I’ve heard from people from my old life I really don’t want to be a loser. I need to take all the little things that happened as a sign from wherever it came from, from above, from God, from destiny or luck, it doesn’t really matter, as long as I take strength from it and ready myself for whatever comes next...
I just want to be me, nothing less and always more. All the emotions that have overcome me these last few days have awaken and unveiled a little window in the darkest corners of my mind. There has been Anger, Excitement, Fear, Hope, Pride, Envy, Desire, Disapointement, Surprise...It feels as though I have suddenly been awakened from deep sleep, as if I had been sleepwalking through my own life. Now, I need to stay awake and this IS the real challenge. Signs can help you wake up but the real hurdle lays in being able to stay awake for good. Too many times I have seen myself falling back into the mind-coma that led to my self-destruction, wasting away along with every day that passes me by...So, can I do this, can I stay awake and LIVE?
[...]
Today I have to go to work , no choice! I got in touch with another girl from my old high school through Facebook... She told me she lives in Chile, of all places!!! She was kinda vague, though, so I’m not too sure what she does there. She bluntly asked me why I disapeared overnight all those many years ago andI just told her that I had moved away and was too sad to keep in touch, some rubbish like that, which after all is not so far from the truth!
So many little things, good and bad, have happpened in the space of less than 2 weeks, my head is spinning and my thoughts are all over the place. I feel hopeful, something I haven’t been able to feel in a long time but I don’t want to kid myself into thinking I’m safe now, that I’m “better”. I’m trying to remind myself to keep strong no matter what happens and now that I’ve heard from people from my old life I really don’t want to be a loser. I need to take all the little things that happened as a sign from wherever it came from, from above, from God, from destiny or luck, it doesn’t really matter, as long as I take strength from it and ready myself for whatever comes next...
I just want to be me, nothing less and always more. All the emotions that have overcome me these last few days have awaken and unveiled a little window in the darkest corners of my mind. There has been Anger, Excitement, Fear, Hope, Pride, Envy, Desire, Disapointement, Surprise...It feels as though I have suddenly been awakened from deep sleep, as if I had been sleepwalking through my own life. Now, I need to stay awake and this IS the real challenge. Signs can help you wake up but the real hurdle lays in being able to stay awake for good. Too many times I have seen myself falling back into the mind-coma that led to my self-destruction, wasting away along with every day that passes me by...So, can I do this, can I stay awake and LIVE?
[...]
_____________________________________________
29/07/2008 (aged 25)
I don’t feel great these days. It’s been sunnier and warmer and yet I have a sore throat- how typical. I also feel tired and lacking the willpower to write much...
I’m a walking contradiction and I don’t even know why. I have no strong principle or belief, only ideals I can’t even follow myself. I’m one of those annoying fingers that always point at what is wrong but do nothing to change things for the better. Right now the story I’m writing seems like a massive load of garbage and it might be good that I don’t work on it for a while or I might just delete the whole pile of stupidity.
I like the way I think, it makes sense to me. I feel that I am right, just as others think they are. Then I listen more intently and I realise that no reasoning is ever perfect and that mine is most certainly plagued with superficiality or prejudice and that breaks my heart. I remember that I used to be good at philosophy when I thought twice before I spoke and I always needed a teacher to challenge what seemed obvious in my mind so that I eventually found the logical thread amidst the pre-conceived ideas. Now that I am alone and writing with no one to help me I can’t help but think that most of my work is a pile of rubbish. How could it not be? I must be wrong if I write straight from the mind. Any thought I throw on paper without challenging it is bound to be weak. It’s such a sad realisation...I have the yearnings of a thinker yet I lack the tools and the mentor. What is the point? Not only am I doomed to a life as a weido but I can’t even hope to achieve anything more meaningful to make up for the isolation and sense of loneliness.
I don’t feel great these days. It’s been sunnier and warmer and yet I have a sore throat- how typical. I also feel tired and lacking the willpower to write much...
I’m a walking contradiction and I don’t even know why. I have no strong principle or belief, only ideals I can’t even follow myself. I’m one of those annoying fingers that always point at what is wrong but do nothing to change things for the better. Right now the story I’m writing seems like a massive load of garbage and it might be good that I don’t work on it for a while or I might just delete the whole pile of stupidity.
I like the way I think, it makes sense to me. I feel that I am right, just as others think they are. Then I listen more intently and I realise that no reasoning is ever perfect and that mine is most certainly plagued with superficiality or prejudice and that breaks my heart. I remember that I used to be good at philosophy when I thought twice before I spoke and I always needed a teacher to challenge what seemed obvious in my mind so that I eventually found the logical thread amidst the pre-conceived ideas. Now that I am alone and writing with no one to help me I can’t help but think that most of my work is a pile of rubbish. How could it not be? I must be wrong if I write straight from the mind. Any thought I throw on paper without challenging it is bound to be weak. It’s such a sad realisation...I have the yearnings of a thinker yet I lack the tools and the mentor. What is the point? Not only am I doomed to a life as a weido but I can’t even hope to achieve anything more meaningful to make up for the isolation and sense of loneliness.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2009 (aged 26)
Well, it is night time again. Almost time to go to bed, I suppose. My hands just look awful, as usual. It was a little better for a few days, but there is a new flare-up on its way...
What can I do?...
[...]
What am I? A drop in the ocean, like so many others out there. Truth is out of reach and all that remains in logic and a thirst to know yourself. Trying to know myself becomes the only sound way to recover a remnant of truth that is part of this world, no matter how small the understanding might be. One thing is for sure: we live in a golden cage and what we take for reality is mirred with illusions. Peeling layers after layers only unveils more layers and I’m tired.
I don’t have the strength to carry on fighting within my own brain. There are too many missing pieces, too many interwoven lies, too much pretence and manipulation to hope of ever making sense of the world as a whole in a more truthful way. I can only go as far as recovering my sight on my self, but the rest seems out of reach.
I’m not alone, though. I know others feel the same, or a slightly different version of what I called being able to see beyond the illusions. It’s a world of great darkness, it really is, but in the shroud of night the beam of light is always there, shining from a corner. It is weak and easily dismissed, but I would never willingly want to choose the darkness over the faint beam. Beyond the notion of God, I choose to try and be good because I believe in goodness rather than any other way. I suppose I could sum up the notion of goodness as Harmony.
To me, the politics of Harmony are everything this world isn’t but ought to be. I’m an idealist, of course, and I’m slowly learning to let go of the dream of perfection.
[...]
Money is the new God, which makes me a victim from the start because I won’t give in, or so I try. I won’t give in even if it means I must suffer. I won’t give in because it goes against everything I stand for, it goes against my own ethics, what I came to understand and believe for myself.
These days, it’s hard to overlook the sense of impending doom, I suppose. There is something heavy in the air, so to speak, though I couldn’t define it more thoroughly at this point.
I’m not a happy bunny, I must say, tonight. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep soundly... I’m full of vague fears and my imagination is on hyper mode...
I need to remind myself that I have to overcome Fear. It’s no easy task for a chicken like me.
Anyway, I’m too tired now and my writing is all so confused and... blah. I can’t even think of the words.
Well, it is night time again. Almost time to go to bed, I suppose. My hands just look awful, as usual. It was a little better for a few days, but there is a new flare-up on its way...
What can I do?...
[...]
What am I? A drop in the ocean, like so many others out there. Truth is out of reach and all that remains in logic and a thirst to know yourself. Trying to know myself becomes the only sound way to recover a remnant of truth that is part of this world, no matter how small the understanding might be. One thing is for sure: we live in a golden cage and what we take for reality is mirred with illusions. Peeling layers after layers only unveils more layers and I’m tired.
I don’t have the strength to carry on fighting within my own brain. There are too many missing pieces, too many interwoven lies, too much pretence and manipulation to hope of ever making sense of the world as a whole in a more truthful way. I can only go as far as recovering my sight on my self, but the rest seems out of reach.
I’m not alone, though. I know others feel the same, or a slightly different version of what I called being able to see beyond the illusions. It’s a world of great darkness, it really is, but in the shroud of night the beam of light is always there, shining from a corner. It is weak and easily dismissed, but I would never willingly want to choose the darkness over the faint beam. Beyond the notion of God, I choose to try and be good because I believe in goodness rather than any other way. I suppose I could sum up the notion of goodness as Harmony.
To me, the politics of Harmony are everything this world isn’t but ought to be. I’m an idealist, of course, and I’m slowly learning to let go of the dream of perfection.
[...]
Money is the new God, which makes me a victim from the start because I won’t give in, or so I try. I won’t give in even if it means I must suffer. I won’t give in because it goes against everything I stand for, it goes against my own ethics, what I came to understand and believe for myself.
These days, it’s hard to overlook the sense of impending doom, I suppose. There is something heavy in the air, so to speak, though I couldn’t define it more thoroughly at this point.
I’m not a happy bunny, I must say, tonight. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep soundly... I’m full of vague fears and my imagination is on hyper mode...
I need to remind myself that I have to overcome Fear. It’s no easy task for a chicken like me.
Anyway, I’m too tired now and my writing is all so confused and... blah. I can’t even think of the words.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2010 (aged 27)
[...] How can I even attempt to describe what is happening in me? I don’t have the words... Language as we know it is meant to be transcended. I’m growing ever so tired of having to constantly use vacant expressions such as “for lack of better words’, “I’m not sure if that makes sense”, “this is not the right word for what I try to convey”, etc... I want to transcend reality as we know it.
I thought that maybe if I let myself be immersed by the intense delusion I am under I would be able to cope with the waves of emotions better... but the hold only seems to be growing stronger. I look around me, at this lovely place in which I now live, and I wonder how come my mind is already else where?... He took a part of me... He has it with him! I wish so strongly that I had a part of him too, that I took it from him... But isn’t that delusional? I just want to be with him. I just... I want to be with him. There, I’ve said it. In fact, I think that I need to be with him. It would be the only way for me to feel whole again.
The strongest of all feelings in the world is Love. There can no longer be any doubt on this. Coupled with true passion, it becomes an extraordinary waterfall of the purest emotions and strength. Pure, unrestrained love means that one is suddenly capable of anything and there is just no telling how far a person can go.
I just don’t understand why I, of all people, needed to be reminded of this one ultimate truth... Just as I was shutting down my heart and turning from the world... Aren’t I broken? So very broken... Why is life so intent on torturing me so ruthlessly? Suddenly I wish so much that I could unbreak myself... Because if I wasn’t so broken then I wouldn’t feel so desperate and in pain. I would be able to allow myself to hope...
Just... hope.
1:48pm: Sometimes I really come to believe that one thing more than anything is needed for perfected reasoning: a clean-up excercise that finally removes all the social rubbish. To allow clarity in... Beyond all the preconceptions and lies, deceit and self-deception... To get back to the source where the base can be as sound as humanly possible from which all reasoning can depart.
Tabula rasa. These two words haunt me often... I find myself wishing that I could get back to that blank stage so that everything that goes back in is only what makes absolute sense... absolute perfection in reasoning and meaning.
I should find the incentive to impose on myself a very harsh experiment: to only use a very limited number of words in one day so that I am forced to only use the ones I truly mean. Like, say... Only allowing myself to speak 500 words in one day. I would have to record myself, or if in writing I would have to check the wordcount. This would seem to be the only way to finally learn to not only be concise, but as close to true meaning as possible. Then again, languages as they stand today are weak and prevent the mind from trully expressing itself.
I wonder... will he talk to me today? I have a nagging feeling that he won’t. He’ll say something like ‘oh sorry, today is no good actually, maybe next time.”
[...]
[...] How can I even attempt to describe what is happening in me? I don’t have the words... Language as we know it is meant to be transcended. I’m growing ever so tired of having to constantly use vacant expressions such as “for lack of better words’, “I’m not sure if that makes sense”, “this is not the right word for what I try to convey”, etc... I want to transcend reality as we know it.
I thought that maybe if I let myself be immersed by the intense delusion I am under I would be able to cope with the waves of emotions better... but the hold only seems to be growing stronger. I look around me, at this lovely place in which I now live, and I wonder how come my mind is already else where?... He took a part of me... He has it with him! I wish so strongly that I had a part of him too, that I took it from him... But isn’t that delusional? I just want to be with him. I just... I want to be with him. There, I’ve said it. In fact, I think that I need to be with him. It would be the only way for me to feel whole again.
The strongest of all feelings in the world is Love. There can no longer be any doubt on this. Coupled with true passion, it becomes an extraordinary waterfall of the purest emotions and strength. Pure, unrestrained love means that one is suddenly capable of anything and there is just no telling how far a person can go.
I just don’t understand why I, of all people, needed to be reminded of this one ultimate truth... Just as I was shutting down my heart and turning from the world... Aren’t I broken? So very broken... Why is life so intent on torturing me so ruthlessly? Suddenly I wish so much that I could unbreak myself... Because if I wasn’t so broken then I wouldn’t feel so desperate and in pain. I would be able to allow myself to hope...
Just... hope.
1:48pm: Sometimes I really come to believe that one thing more than anything is needed for perfected reasoning: a clean-up excercise that finally removes all the social rubbish. To allow clarity in... Beyond all the preconceptions and lies, deceit and self-deception... To get back to the source where the base can be as sound as humanly possible from which all reasoning can depart.
Tabula rasa. These two words haunt me often... I find myself wishing that I could get back to that blank stage so that everything that goes back in is only what makes absolute sense... absolute perfection in reasoning and meaning.
I should find the incentive to impose on myself a very harsh experiment: to only use a very limited number of words in one day so that I am forced to only use the ones I truly mean. Like, say... Only allowing myself to speak 500 words in one day. I would have to record myself, or if in writing I would have to check the wordcount. This would seem to be the only way to finally learn to not only be concise, but as close to true meaning as possible. Then again, languages as they stand today are weak and prevent the mind from trully expressing itself.
I wonder... will he talk to me today? I have a nagging feeling that he won’t. He’ll say something like ‘oh sorry, today is no good actually, maybe next time.”
[...]
_____________________________________________
29/07/2011 (aged 28)
I’m so tired… and I have so much work… I don’t even know where to start anymore. I guess I’ll need to spend the weekend writing articles for Monday. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t also have a feature to get done soon.
Apart from that, I went to meet K when he came back to London. He claimed he never received my Facebook message, hence his silence. Last Saturday, I went to watch the last Harry Potter in the cinema and then made my way slowly to Victoria Station where I had a Mc Donald’s as I was waiting for him to arrive from the airport by coach. By the time we finally saw each other again, all was forgiven, I guess… The next day we went to a rock festival in Victoria Park in the afternoon, and I have to say that was great. For once the sun was shinning, and we could sit on the grass while listening to bands playing live… The whole thing finished late, so I told him he could come back to mine for the night since I lived closer to that park. On Monday morning, he left the house with me and we parted in central London as I went to work and he went back home.
We met again on Tuesday evening after I finished work. We went to sit in a pub for a beer and started talking about society and somehow he started telling me about how him and his friend G used to imagine they would create an alternate society and such things. Then he said he needed to call his mother briefly and I just listened to him speaking in Hungarian. It’s impossible to understand a word from that language, seriously. It doesn’t help that when he speaks it he never really articulate and it’s as though he’s constantly speaking with his mouth closed, or something. Most of his words end up sounding like “Cheubeucheubeucheu….” He hung up and I chuckled, saying I really couldn’t understand a word of Hungarian, and I asked him how come he didn’t seem to articulate much when he speaks it. He laughed along with me, but then said something like “everybody tells me I have a good accent in that language”. That was an odd thing to say, truly. I replied almost instantly “well, that’s your first language, right, so you better have a ‘good’ accent in it.”
He loves knifes, sharp Japanese-style knives, which is what I first noticed when I stayed at his place. He's now started kung fu training as a pastime and no longer talks about English tutoring lessons.
Anyway. Yesterday I met with Tom after a good two years or so. That was nice, we talked about society as a whole, how rotten it is, had pizza and a couple of drinks and then parted. I already know I won’t be seeing him again for some time but it was nice to catch up, I guess.
And now I soon need to get ready for work… just thinking about the huge amount of work I have makes me want to crawl back to bed and pretend none of it is real. Good thing it’s Friday, eh… yeah, the shame is that comes Monday morning, it all kicks off again. Weeks are passing like days when one is made to live mostly in expectation and actual need of the weekend… Welcome to the modern world, I should say.
I’m so tired… and I have so much work… I don’t even know where to start anymore. I guess I’ll need to spend the weekend writing articles for Monday. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t also have a feature to get done soon.
Apart from that, I went to meet K when he came back to London. He claimed he never received my Facebook message, hence his silence. Last Saturday, I went to watch the last Harry Potter in the cinema and then made my way slowly to Victoria Station where I had a Mc Donald’s as I was waiting for him to arrive from the airport by coach. By the time we finally saw each other again, all was forgiven, I guess… The next day we went to a rock festival in Victoria Park in the afternoon, and I have to say that was great. For once the sun was shinning, and we could sit on the grass while listening to bands playing live… The whole thing finished late, so I told him he could come back to mine for the night since I lived closer to that park. On Monday morning, he left the house with me and we parted in central London as I went to work and he went back home.
We met again on Tuesday evening after I finished work. We went to sit in a pub for a beer and started talking about society and somehow he started telling me about how him and his friend G used to imagine they would create an alternate society and such things. Then he said he needed to call his mother briefly and I just listened to him speaking in Hungarian. It’s impossible to understand a word from that language, seriously. It doesn’t help that when he speaks it he never really articulate and it’s as though he’s constantly speaking with his mouth closed, or something. Most of his words end up sounding like “Cheubeucheubeucheu….” He hung up and I chuckled, saying I really couldn’t understand a word of Hungarian, and I asked him how come he didn’t seem to articulate much when he speaks it. He laughed along with me, but then said something like “everybody tells me I have a good accent in that language”. That was an odd thing to say, truly. I replied almost instantly “well, that’s your first language, right, so you better have a ‘good’ accent in it.”
He loves knifes, sharp Japanese-style knives, which is what I first noticed when I stayed at his place. He's now started kung fu training as a pastime and no longer talks about English tutoring lessons.
Anyway. Yesterday I met with Tom after a good two years or so. That was nice, we talked about society as a whole, how rotten it is, had pizza and a couple of drinks and then parted. I already know I won’t be seeing him again for some time but it was nice to catch up, I guess.
And now I soon need to get ready for work… just thinking about the huge amount of work I have makes me want to crawl back to bed and pretend none of it is real. Good thing it’s Friday, eh… yeah, the shame is that comes Monday morning, it all kicks off again. Weeks are passing like days when one is made to live mostly in expectation and actual need of the weekend… Welcome to the modern world, I should say.
_____________________________________________
29/07/2012 (aged 29)
Work is getting harder to bear with each day that passes. The worst part is probably the fact that I’m having to see my boss's true colours increasingly often - it’s like watching a secret play unravelling before your eyes. Apparently it’s not enough that I’m freaking leaving… The slightly unnerving thing about these days is that I’ve been feeling a lot more at ‘ease’ in the office, so of course it’s had the magical effect of making people a little nicer - but I know there is too much he has done against me and the ONLY reason I’m able to play it so confident is because I know I’m leaving. This afternoon’s meeting was the cherry on top.
We were supposed to have an editorial catch up and as we entered the room - the same one in which I gave him my resignation letter - he said something like: “So now you’re going to tell me you’ve changed your mind…” I just looked at him with impassive eyes and, pretending not to understand he was hinting at my quitting, I said: “Yeah, I wish I didn’t have so many articles to deal with.” He then replied: “You know what I mean…” and I just ignored it. We spent an hour on the editorial and after that, just as we were about to make our way back to the desks he had to ask again. “So, you’re really not going to tell me where you’re going?”
I was so incredibly tired by then - seriously exhausted - that I could only shake my head, my face made of stone. “yes, I have to wait 2 weeks,” he went on, quoting me from what I’d told him when he tried to quiz me the day I quit - on Tuesday.
“Yeah, I can’t say anything now,” I said, still impassive. He leaned closer over the table and, trying to be funny, he said something like: “you know I want to find out…”
And as he spoke I finished the sentence for him, still impassive: “yes, you like to poke your nose where it’s none of your business.”
And because I said that as he was trying to joke, he didn’t get the seriousness in which I said that straight away, but come on. The gloves have been off for a while. But the thing is… for a split second, as he leaned over that table trying to play it nice I SAW it. I SAW the venom right across his face. There was so much nastiness at that moment engraved in it that it spooked me.
And I have to survive another MONTH in that snake pit….
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29/07/2013 (aged 30)
To build and destroy...
until I can be honest with myself I will never be able to write.
It’s very strange… I went to a pub event that Annie invited me to, and it was lovely. It was culturally enriching, with people talking about the history of the area I live in and all its influences, along with lovely songs and poems inside a charming little pub. I really liked it, and yet it left me wanting to burst into tears by the time Annie and her boyfriend dropped me home by car… It was, perhaps, the realisation that I am not an artist, and I am not a writer. I’m just this weird collection of random things, some good, some ok, some just crap.
If I were a writer, surely life would unfold in some ways that would encourage that streak in me, but that is not the case… if anything, it’s just me hanging onto something that is not real.
Nothing I feel or believe is real… I’m lost in a constant delusion. It’s all bullshit and I’m cracking up like an egg now.
No orietur.
To build and destroy.
I just want to burn it all.
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29/07/2014 (aged 31)
I wonder sometimes: is it better to have become a consumer rather than a peasant? What is the different except for the word itself? The status is the same. Maybe the standards are higher now than they were before in some respects, but the trade-off was a heavy one. We let go of the soil, of the fields and many other tangibles that had a concrete value to embrace the realm of make-belief so that we could enjoy a higher standard of living in some ways. Here, you get hospitals, doctors, dentists, and when you’re bored you can go to the movies, or the theatre, or simply down the park or the pub. You can stay at home and watch the TV, or play video games. You can sit back and read a book. That is if you find the time because if you are a consumer then you are the new peasant, meaning that you’re mostly likely found working your ass off to make ends meet and while you can afford to pretend to feel rich (by going on holiday using the crowd-cramming likes of easyjet or buying the latest I Pad) you can only sustain your lifestyle by continually working your ass off in what is most likely a soul-numbing job. Maybe you’re lucky and you found an enjoyable job that pays well enough to allow you to save and live well, but the hours put into the work are forever increasing rather than declining, and even when we find ourselves with time to enjoy life via many exciting modern activities most of us still feel empty in some way, as if we still haven’t found completion, or whatever it is that feels missing...
I don’t know myself!
I’ve spent the last few months in relative retreat from the world. I tried to put my time to good use by learning some programming, but that has led nowhere so far.
[...] Nothing worth having comes easily… It’s like the writing… at this point I don’t know why I bother. I have spent SO much time working on that fantasy story… it is still so far from finished! It’s scary how much time I’ve spent and am still spending on it… and yet I’m nowhere near completion. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me, here. I don’t get why I’m still at it. Is it me being stubborn? Is it me just refusing to let go? No matter how much I try to reason with myself, staring coldly at the fact that it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere after all these years, I just can’t stop… I keep working on it, crying and screaming over it inside my poor head.
Earlier, I came across some old music, including some Harry Potter music from the film I watched when I was still working in the cinema, and suddenly I was transported back in time… It was so long ago now! I find it hard to believe that the last 10 years have flown by already… that the first 10 years of the new millennium are already gone. That we have already lived through them… that we’re almost at the half-way point to 2020. Can you believe this madness?!
It makes me wonder… did people back in 1914 think that way, too? Surely some people sat in the same way I do now, writing on paper rather than typing, telling themselves: “It’s already 1914! I remember the 1890s so clearly, still… and where did the first few years of the new century go?!”
Ah the infinite loop of life… People die while humanity goes on. I’ve started reading Sophie’s World again, having realised that I’d never actually finished it and that I could do with a bit of a classic philosophy refresher. I got to the Plato and Socrates part and was reminded of how much I liked these guys’ way of thinking. Plato’s realm of ideas… the cave allegory….
The idea occurred to me last night that I should carefully go through all my belongings and ruthlessly part from all that I really don’t need. I don’t know why, but I’d like to see how much I can get rid of and therefore ensure that I know exactly what stuff I would like to keep with me while I can dispense of the rest without much of a look back. I have accumulated too much crap over the years. There’s too much that just sits there, collecting dust. I want to get back to what matters, to the essentials of life so that I am not distracted by what brings nothing but illusions.
I wonder sometimes: is it better to have become a consumer rather than a peasant? What is the different except for the word itself? The status is the same. Maybe the standards are higher now than they were before in some respects, but the trade-off was a heavy one. We let go of the soil, of the fields and many other tangibles that had a concrete value to embrace the realm of make-belief so that we could enjoy a higher standard of living in some ways. Here, you get hospitals, doctors, dentists, and when you’re bored you can go to the movies, or the theatre, or simply down the park or the pub. You can stay at home and watch the TV, or play video games. You can sit back and read a book. That is if you find the time because if you are a consumer then you are the new peasant, meaning that you’re mostly likely found working your ass off to make ends meet and while you can afford to pretend to feel rich (by going on holiday using the crowd-cramming likes of easyjet or buying the latest I Pad) you can only sustain your lifestyle by continually working your ass off in what is most likely a soul-numbing job. Maybe you’re lucky and you found an enjoyable job that pays well enough to allow you to save and live well, but the hours put into the work are forever increasing rather than declining, and even when we find ourselves with time to enjoy life via many exciting modern activities most of us still feel empty in some way, as if we still haven’t found completion, or whatever it is that feels missing...
I don’t know myself!
I’ve spent the last few months in relative retreat from the world. I tried to put my time to good use by learning some programming, but that has led nowhere so far.
[...] Nothing worth having comes easily… It’s like the writing… at this point I don’t know why I bother. I have spent SO much time working on that fantasy story… it is still so far from finished! It’s scary how much time I’ve spent and am still spending on it… and yet I’m nowhere near completion. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me, here. I don’t get why I’m still at it. Is it me being stubborn? Is it me just refusing to let go? No matter how much I try to reason with myself, staring coldly at the fact that it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere after all these years, I just can’t stop… I keep working on it, crying and screaming over it inside my poor head.
Earlier, I came across some old music, including some Harry Potter music from the film I watched when I was still working in the cinema, and suddenly I was transported back in time… It was so long ago now! I find it hard to believe that the last 10 years have flown by already… that the first 10 years of the new millennium are already gone. That we have already lived through them… that we’re almost at the half-way point to 2020. Can you believe this madness?!
It makes me wonder… did people back in 1914 think that way, too? Surely some people sat in the same way I do now, writing on paper rather than typing, telling themselves: “It’s already 1914! I remember the 1890s so clearly, still… and where did the first few years of the new century go?!”
Ah the infinite loop of life… People die while humanity goes on. I’ve started reading Sophie’s World again, having realised that I’d never actually finished it and that I could do with a bit of a classic philosophy refresher. I got to the Plato and Socrates part and was reminded of how much I liked these guys’ way of thinking. Plato’s realm of ideas… the cave allegory….
The idea occurred to me last night that I should carefully go through all my belongings and ruthlessly part from all that I really don’t need. I don’t know why, but I’d like to see how much I can get rid of and therefore ensure that I know exactly what stuff I would like to keep with me while I can dispense of the rest without much of a look back. I have accumulated too much crap over the years. There’s too much that just sits there, collecting dust. I want to get back to what matters, to the essentials of life so that I am not distracted by what brings nothing but illusions.
_____________________________________________
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