Embracing insanity to avoid it

It’s no surprise to people that I am a quite unwell in the head. Or at least I try to make that fact as clear as possible. I also made it a point to fix myself the moment I am free for extended periods of time i.e. after I graduate and before I actually get a job, but I’m afraid the residual damage that’s been done is now beyond salvation. It’s something like cancer, really: when you discover it in its early stages, it is very much curable. Now that it has entered the equivalent of Stage 4, however, permanent damage has been done and the only thing left that can be done is to say goodbye ahead of time.

As a result, I like to shower at night with the lights off, among other things. I especially love doing this now because it reminds me of my childhood when the light bulb in the bathroom back home was still yellow and my parents still bathed me. Back then I liked to close my eyes and imagine I was at the beach and the yellowness of the light really helped set the mood, where I imagined I was looking at the golden evening sun. Then out at sea my childhood hero Ultraman would be doing battle of epic proportions with some monsters. It’s quite the same now, except that I try to add hot steaming rain into the whole atmosphere. This failed mainly for 2 reasons: the shower can only dispense so much water at a time, and the floor was too clean for it to feel sandy as a beach should, not that it’s a bad thing.

Like I said, I do that because it reminds me of my childhood, and I want to be reminded of it because that was a time when I had a mind too simple to understand the hell that is life; a mind that did not allow me to realize that I’m a nuisance to others, and thus allows be to continue being one. A mind that continued to anger others instead of getting angered by others, yet too immature to give a flying toss as to why they’re angry in the first place. A simple life that was not plagued by societal expectations and worries about the future. I miss that blissful, innocent ignorance.

It was also a time when I wasn’t such an angry person myself, and I really miss that. I really miss not breaking things when something stopped making sense. Then again, hammering away at a pillow back then seemed to work wonders while now the only things that work are things that actually put up some resistance, something solid that properly breaks, thus usually something expensive.

Of course, there are other things that have not specifically happened to me that have depressed me as well. First that I’ve noticed is the slow death of the blogging culture. Most of the personal blogs written by people who don’t own a multimillion and multinational business are not getting the amount of dedication and time that they used to get; all of this have gone to Facebook. This gives me less things to read, less things to get me off my own mind. This means that I have nowhere to go to when I want to look for inspiring writing, because no one writes descriptive essays for their Facebook status updates. And since most of the time a picture really does say a thousand words, that’s the medium people go for. And that is a medium that I will never use because no camera, not one, can capture an image as properly as the eye can see it. Pictures are either too blurry and not worth the attention it gets when taken by narcissist amateurs or overly glossed and edited by professionals, narcissist or not. Until the day the eye becomes a camera and the human memory can be transferred to digital format, words will still be my best friend if I have a story to tell.

And with that, the Gates of Destiny on the right shall be closed, leaving only one path left to be taken because one of the other destinations it leads to is dead, the other has become invite-only and those who are invited probably would go there straight rather than through here first and the final one is quite volatile, as it changes a little too frequently than I would like to adapt to it. It may come back once in a while, who knows? But the other two are gone for good.

As will the chat box because the ones running it decided that since they’re going bankrupt they might as well speed the process up.

Now on to something completely unrelated. My current taste in music has led me to think of a lot of potential plot ideas for a novel, but all of them will have the cliché of a love story somewhere in between. And thanks to my lack of proper creativity, especially in the ‘thinking up fictional names’ department, most of the key plot elements will have me end up in a copyright infringement suit of some sort or other. But draft after draft does not fail to race through my head recently, especially when I’m supposed to be studying for my finals. That and the fact that Yat hasn’t come up with his original story and I just continuously grow impatient of making use of the friend of his who knows a publisher. Maybe something soon; something that is completely original, or at least original enough that I won’t be involved in any legal nonsense.

As I attempt to end this post which has taken me 2 days to finish, I’m starting to like this bitter self of mine, for it is this self that actively seeks reminders of a really fantasy-filled childhood and that really calms the otherwise unwell mind. Perhaps it really is as I suspected long before; I actually have to stay as close on the verge of insanity as possible in order to not lose my mind.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Taking out the trash and sorting stuff out.

The time has finally come when, even if I did not want to, I have to move on. Not saying that I don’t, though I must admit, I was unable to at some point. And for that I must apologize to a friend which I may soon forget for doubting the truth in her words.

Which reminds me of another friend I once had. I’m not sure if the person is even alive at this moment, but I remember him saying something along the lines of “the term ’friends forever’ is one of the greatest lies one can tell.” And he’s right, mainly because it will be one of the most repeated and overused ones despite not being heavy on its own. Of course there are exceptions, where one is so close with another that their bond becomes that of family instead of mere friends, though that is a privilege I grant to no one until the day before my death. Sorry if anyone’s feelings got hurt, but there are few things I despise more than sounding sure about something and then being proven wrong while I’m still alive. Then again, if you know me well enough to deserve such recognition, you would also understand this fact and thus not be hurt in the first place.

Like I was saying, the current phase in my life is coming to an end. This means that most of the people in it are likely to be forgotten, some more completely than others; some as if they never existed. Some you wish never actually did but you end up remembering them only because you cannot afford to allow what they did to you happen again, while some others you remember them so well because of something pleasant they done to/for you that you wish they’d constantly remind you of it, just not with the words ‘did you remember the time when…’. And I am glad that the end has come, because this phase sucked real bad.

Nowadays I rarely have enough time on my hands that I actually have any time used for overthinking things; most of my free time I now spend fantasizing about me being the main character of some epic ultimate illusion. Or Final Fantasy, if you will. The times I actually spend on thinking these days, however, have proved to be more fruitful than before. I’ve recently come to realize most of the big stuff in life are the ones that hurt me while it is the little things in life that makes, and keeps, me happy, like when a stranger says “thank you” for a deed you’re not even intentionally doing. This has then led me to realize that I was more juvenile than I’d like to think.

I also realize that I’m not as hurt as I thought I would/should be when I found out that I’m now a complete stranger to the person that I talked with the most (if not the only one) outside campus hours and regarding non-academic stuff during my foundation year. Sucks to have the fact that you’re getting old smack you in the face like that. 

And so, with that, young brother, seek not happiness; let it (or her, for that matter) seek you instead, for happiness is like a butterfly: actively seek it out and it flies away, but stay still where you are and it might just rest on your hand. Take pleasure in the small things in life, and make sure you don’t have even a single fuck to give to those who seek your ruin, people and situations alike.

And with that, adieu to y’all.

Don't grow up; just wise up will do.

Often, you see someone doing something silly and deep down inside your heart you’d wish they would grow up. Or when you see people doing something you find distasteful. I used to do that too; whenever I see people feeling proud about embarrassing themselves I’d think to myself “grow up, please,” or when someone does something stupid and thinks aloud that it’s the best possible course of action to solve whatever problem they are currently facing. Like when someone clasps their hands together getting all schizophrenic thinking that that, coupled with lounging around all day, is going to make their wishes come true. Now, though, I’d just tell them to ‘wise up’ as opposed to ‘grow up’.

You see, there is a major difference. To grow up is to stop doing funny things, be self-conscious, be less optimistic and of course, be wiser. To wise up, on the other hand, is just to be wiser. Of course when I say wiser, more often than not I mean just merely smarter, or at least less daft as opposed to the complete package of wisdom which includes being smarter and more understanding. What I am saying here is to wise up is to gain all the benefits of growing up with none of the drawbacks. It is possible to wise up and not grow up, though such a thing isn’t exactly common.

So what I’m saying now is that when people do silly or distasteful things, I’m merely asking that they know if what they are doing has a proper point to it. So when you’re being silly, if you have a point, then I guess to a certain extent it is fine, but if you’re being distasteful, then you should realize that it is not only that, but has no point to it at all other than making you seem like an arsehole.

Why am I saying this? Because people who have the benefit of being humorous and optimistic should continue to be so. Sure, to grow up is also to accept the harshness of reality, which often results in a suffering level of optimism. Sometimes though, it is better to just be incapable to accept the harshness of reality and keep being optimistic. When I say optimistic I’m not saying that you be daftly hopeful that you get schizophrenic and laze around hoping for miracles to happen; I’m saying that to the things you do there will be something you look forward to at the end, while still being aware that in life what you look forward to and what you actually get don’t usually match.

I’m saying all this because I didn’t exactly have the stereotypical childhood everyone else experiences. Thanks to a paranoid father with paradoxical values, I don’t have the luxury of a social life as a kid and thus, as an adult, don’t have the many luxuries that come with it, like friends, or a sense of humour, or the benefit of being able to open up to people, to be able to know that there are others who are willing to share your burden when things get too heavy, and to allow them to do so. This gives me a lot of time to think, to reflect, to ponder and as a result, to wise up.

The problem is that for a boring person to wise up is the same as for the average person to grow up; in the end, both of them are boring and not optimistic. In other words, I’ve been denied the luxury of being a wise but interesting and optimistic person before I had the autonomy to make such a choice. But for others who do have the luxury of a choice, don’t let it go to waste because more often than not it is a one way thing; there’s no turning back once you’ve crossed the line.

Just yesterday, a close friend told me that he’s starting to get bitter about life and that he’s starting to be like me. That is a really major thing for him to be saying because as far as I can tell, he is a funny guy with optimism as far as the sky is blue on a clear morning. It really takes a lot for an optimist to lose their key defining feature. Sure, his childhood wasn’t much better than mine, as far as I’m aware of at least, but he has one thing that makes all the difference, especially at a young age: a social life. And with what little first-hand experience that I have, that really makes all the difference.

So to answer your question, no, it isn’t a good thing, because if you become like me, you’re not you anymore, are you? You’re just another me, and that’s never a good thing, no matter how you look at it.

To everyone else, no matter if you’re as daft as hell or if you’re just plain insensitive, just wise up, please. To the wannabe schizophrenics, I know telling them to wise up, and expecting it to happen, is as impossible telling the sun to freeze up, but I’ll do it anyway. So guys, wise up please.

And with that, adieu to y’all.

With none of the good that's supposed to come together.

This week, before the weekends, was a time where almost everything went wrong. Not so much for my personal well-being, but it worries me what these wrongs will do to those who have no mental immune systems.

University is such a beautiful place. A brilliant place where religious bigots who speak of out casting or exiling homosexuals for ‘spreading’ homosexuality are allowed to lecture students on community psychology. Probably sometime in the future we can expect to legally murder or commit suicide just to get away from such idiots, so that they don’t ‘spread’ such bigotry and idiocy to others.

Saying homosexuality is contagious is like saying, I don’t know, a penis (or a lack of one) for example, is contagious. Unfortunately, however, bigotry and idiocy IS contagious. No more than chicken pox, but still contagious nevertheless. Because there is a staggering number of people who have literally no mental immune system. These are people with no in born morals or virtues, only fear and fear-mongering, probably out of envy for not being capable of kindness at birth.

I used to say ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst’. I now realize I was wrong: you shouldn’t hope in the first place, because it will only get you disappointment. If, however, you are obligated by reasons unknown to mankind to hope, then hope for the worst as well, because the worst is infinitely more likely to happen than the best. This way, you have 100% chance of not being disappointed, as Jeremy Clarkson once wrote in his newspaper column, "Disappointment is a word for people who don't think ahead."

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: on a more cheerful note, bro Yat says he has a friend who knows a publisher, and has suggested that we both collaborate on a novel. And make millions overnight like Rowling, I hope.

It's like starting an old car without petrol.

Not writing a blog post for so long is probably showing its effects now, as I sit here for more than 10 minutes thinking of how to begin. Now that I have, things are that much easier.

I’ve just finished reading a self-help book that my mother bought for me. It has an interesting title, to say the least, but I’m afraid the contents do not reflect the same emotion as the title does.  The subtitle is ’10 simple truths that will set you free’, but honestly, after reading it I feel more confused than free. The fact that it was written by two professional therapists with Dr. tagged to their names makes it all the worse.

I remember once upon a time where I mentioned psychology was a subject full of lies, in the sense that it tells us to lie to ourselves and to help others lie to themselves; and got into a pretty petty argument with two of my friend’s friends who were fellow psychology students themselves. Now though, I realize that I was wrong, but not in a way that makes them right. I still maintain that the subject is all about lying to the self to live a better life, but that description was not meant for psychology. Rather, it was counseling/psychotherapy. Especially so now that I’m done with that book.

Why am I so enraged by a mere book? Good question; I wish to know the answer myself. I mean, it’s just a bloody book, right? The authors probably have bollocks for brains and they can put down whatever junk they feel works and then publish it as some self-help book with the impression that whatever works for them would work for the rest of the world too, right?

WRONG

Okay, maybe not wrong after all. But what makes it wrong is that the fact that the authors are in a position of knowledge, and is supposed to impart stuff that, at least, isn’t complete cattle crap if it can’t be 100% correct. They do have the ‘Doctor’ title for a reason, and that at least proves that their head is somewhere we can look for signs of intelligence and not mere instinct-based bestiality.  Or at least I hope so.

Firstly, it says that, and I quote directly from the book, “The fool is the one who deceives, not the one who is deceived. Your kindly grandmother who falls for the insurance scam is not a fool; she trusted that the scam artist would do exactly as he said he would do. She is a person of her word, and she expected him to be also. That makes her vulnerable to deception, but this does not make her a fool. To choose to trust another does not imply naiveté or foolishness, but a choice to take another person at his or her word.”

I’m sorry, but isn’t that the perfect description of a fool? I don’t know what kind of English is being taught to American people but as far as I can work out, a fool is a silly, weak-minded, stupid or possibly even idiotic person who lacks judgment or sense. So how on Earth is someone who falls for a scam NOT a fool? Someone who is vulnerable to deception is someone who is probably simple-minded and cannot tell if something is too good to be true, therefore a fool. The scammer, on the other hand, is a genius because he knows what he’s doing and is good at it. It may not be morally right, but that’s beside the point. I really couldn’t for the life of me work this out and I doubt anyone who speaks the kind of English I do can. If you beg to differ, please enlighten me, but throughout the duration of your attempt please make sense. I doubt I have any qualms with splattering your brain matter on the floor literally if you do the same with mine metaphorically.

Next. There is a sentence in the book that mentions “to avoid the responsibility that comes with happiness and success, to protect themselves from the scariness of loving someone, and so on.”
What sort of responsibility ever comes with happiness and success besides keeping it up? I’ve yet to hear of anyone being told that once they are happy, they will have to remain happy or else some politician will be assassinated or if they are successful they have to remain successful or the World Bank will go bankrupt. And who the fuck would, in their right mind, be scared of loving someone? And why turn something as beautiful as love into something so morbid that it’s worth being afraid of? It’s not love that people are afraid of; it’s the heartbreak that comes after it. Heck, people love love. So much so, in fact, that people don’t give a flying toss about the possibility of the heartbreak. Saying that people are afraid of love is like saying people are afraid of money; the only two things in the world that people would commit all sorts of vices and atrocities for.

Finally, there’s this. Near the end of the book, it tells people to use guided imagery, imagining a traumatic event, to let go of it. In other words, we must recreate our greatest nightmare to get rid of it. To me, that is along the lines of saying “kill yourself so that you won’t die.” Sure, how are you going to die (again) if you are already dead? Isn’t that defeating the purpose? It’s bloody hilarious now that I put it this way, I must admit, but I digress. Point is, if you’re trying to let go of something, why do you need to get to it first? Sure, if you want to throw away, say, a bottle you need to pick it up first, but this is ridiculous in the sense that if it is already lost or gone missing, do you still need to go looking for it and then personally put it in the rubbish bin just to make sure it is gone?

On a side note, I am reminded of the nonsense people say to their youngers involving the words ‘now is not the time to’, ‘this is just the beginning’ and ‘you’re still young’. From experience, my father used to tell me “UPSR is nothing; it is PMR that will determine your future.” Then three years later “PMR is nothing; it is SPM that will determine your future.” And just before I entered university, I got “SPM was nothing; your results in university will determine your future.” Yeah, I’m sure now he’d just say when I graduate that it is my job that will determine my future. I’m just wondering what would determine my future when I retire. My death probably, though that idea is as hilariously impossible as committing suicide to be immortal. Then there’s my mom who told me “high school is not the time to be looking for love; wait ‘till university,” and is now telling me “don’t look for love when you’re still studying; wait until you’re working.” Yeah, sure, when I’m working I should wait until I retire before looking for love, right?

I’m sure I’m not the only one getting this sort of bullshit, so to those who share the same problem, here’s a tip: they’re always going to tell you that either you’re being one step too far ahead or that it is just beginning; the next step is the important one. I say, “Fuck You” because according to that logic, there is never the right time for anything because either it’s too early or what you do now does not matter since the big one is only just coming up.

And now I don’t know how to end this episode of ranting because I can’t think of anything interesting to say.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Biting the settling dust.

I see others take the path I once treaded,
The path which destination I've since dreaded,
A place of absolute extremes,
Where one is either in cookies and creams,
Or in anguish beyond expressible screams.

I would forsake my happiness,
If it means freedom from sorrow,
I would embody eternal coldness,
If it means a tearless tomorrow.

The flames have died and the ambers have cooled,
A dead passion that can never be refuelled,
The path less travelled I no longer choose,
Instead I'll be a hermitic recluse.

The eternal flame now eternally dead,
I realize I was in over my head,
As another cycle has just begun,
The tangled web of fate has again been spun,
After all that has been said and done,
It all amounts to absolutely none,

When all hope was lost.

Here I am once again in Kampar, where I am to spend the next 14 weeks in the purest form of suffering known to humanity.

It’s a Monday today as I am typing this, but I have no idea when I will be able to publish this online as the new place I am staying at has no internet connectivity. Hell, I don’t even know the other tenants (if there are any at all) to discuss with them the solution to this problem. I realize I was in a rush when I got this place and didn’t think several things over before I decided that I wanted to spend one more semester here. Fortunately, Plan B is easily available. Of course, like all back up plans, it isn’t as ideal and there will be extra complications to deal with, but in this case I’m quite grateful that it isn’t totally unreasonable of a plan.

I still remember the Saturday that I arrived here. The moment I set foot on the familiar streets, I was immediately filled with this overwhelming surge of sadness and sorrow. I was instantly depressed and felt intense weight around my eyes. But, as always, letting those tears out is the hardest possible thing for me to do. It was so bad that I actually decided that for once I might actually benefit from spending the night with my parents at Grand Kampar Hotel.

Fortunately for me, Sunday was a much better day. The morning spent with mother and father was actually quite enjoyable. Again, never thought I’d say this, but that’s how it turned out to be. Ironically, I might actually have that bout of depression to thank for getting my father back to talking terms with myself, after almost half a year of deliberately not talking to him. Lunch with the family actually did not feel irritating, even with father’s usual blatant self-embarrassing. After they left for home, I killed the entire afternoon at the local cyber café, Fecca. Got a damn good friend (probably the best I have over here) to help me kill the evening. We went to the local McDonalds and talked about the good old times during our first year, how the second year became the point that tore everything apart, for both his course and mine, what were we planning to do after graduation and so on. Then just when we were about to leave, our Tae Kwon Do instructor showed up with his assistant, and we decided we should get some other fellow students to come over and talk crap until midnight.

So thank you Vingent for being a friend in need, a friend indeed.

I was about to talk about what happened during my semester break as well, which was actually spent very meaningfully, but I guess I’ll just leave that for another time. All in all, those 4 weeks were the time where I potentially fixed some broken bonds with my ‘19’ family, made a small number of friends halfway across the globe and otherwise having a jolly good time on PSN with said friends, as well as chilling with another brother of bonds.

And to close, to every one of my friends out there with a PSP, please pick up a not-too-old game called Phantasy Star Portable 2 and join us, The Grey Army, online.

With that, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: This is finally published on 17th