zzz

I don't really participate in a lot of the Christian rituals nowadays. Hell, I barely like associating with the overtly theological. But, there is definitely something of value that the religion still holds for me. Maybe it's just me being nostalgic for a time when life was less worrisome. I was able to spend a little time reflecting on religion and its role in my life as it is right now. And so, the question arose: how exactly do I fit in Christianity and its sometimes unwieldy theological notions into my life as it is right now? It's late and I don't have to consciousness required to write a very long post so I'll just write down what stuck out for me today. Well, without using overt theology, which I find has the risk of appearing and existing as lip service. God isn't as specific an entity as he "felt" back in the day. It's honestly hard for me to believe that God is a truly active being right now. But I do believe that he is at least a thread that connects my life together and it helps to direct me on a conceptual level. Anyway, what I realized in the midst of drowning in my growing pool of anxiety and regret, is that I shouldn't worry about tomorrow. Even if all those things that I'm striving towards fails tomorrow, I'll still wake up the next day, just to continue living a life where loving others matters. The rest of these details, while still important, shouldn't be allowed to drag me to hell. I should breathe a little more I guess ...

vesper placidus

My, my, being downtown first thing in the morning is nothing foreign to me but doing it on a Saturday, today might've actually been a first for me. Well, after a surprisingly enjoyable training session about how to stick someone with a needle (something I still can't legally do for a year despite the training) and a less enjoyable attempt at doing readings, I went for a walk around campus. Boy, was this Saturday evening different from the weekdays. On top of the peculiar paucity of people, they closed down a fair number of roads (for some sort of book festival). The sun had recently come out of hiding after a day that had been mostly characterized by rain (finally got to use that umbrella after, how long's it been, 3 months?).

So picture this: standing still, with the sun sandwiched between the cloud line and the horizon shining clearly to the right and with birds fervently jumping back and forth along a vine wall to the left, the normal university hubbub with its busy-bodies and integrated city traffic strangely absent replaced with the sounds of chirping and the muffled sounds of a piano playing in a closed room somewhere in the near distance, all bundled together with the smell of fresh, cool, moist air that follows after any long period of rain in the autumn (I guess technically it's late summer, given that autumn officially starts tomorrow). What a very welcome novelty.

I've never been a particularly experiential guy, but I would like to remember this moment.

Lost and found (well, maybe the opposite)

After what has probably been way too long, I feel like I finally understand. It's now that can see clearly how all those pieces are supposed to fit together: academia, extra-curriculars, socializing (the ordination of that list really shows me priorities don't they). And this conclusion comes after only ... let's see ... seven years, in my last 3 months of school no less. Ah, the things I would do differently if I could restart. I'm finally ready for university, after all!

I talk to people many years my junior and very often I just feel completely afunctional in comparison, a truly strange and completely disconcerting feeling. I always was a bit of a late bloomer though. It just doesn't feel like I'm all here a lot of the time, so maybe certain things just take longer to settle in that others. I don't really know though, maybe I will after another decade or so.

Very frequently, I still wander the streets aimlessly, desperately trying to find ... something ... to hold onto I guess. Prone to wander, sounds about right. I guess the method that I employ just isn't very efficient or direct. I just kind of drift around, amassing fragments all the while, and just seeing if they stick. A very haphazard means that I might regret utilizing later on. But, for now and for most of my life thus far, it feels the most natural.

Well, anyway, rambled a bit there at the end. I don't know. These are just words after all. They don't generally mean much to me nowadays ... just the same tired combinations recycled over and over again to describe the same prevailing emotions that flow through my veins everyday of this vapid ephemerality.

So, whatever, "Lost and found", but probably the opposite would be more true. Hahahaha.

(fuck you)

Rejuvenation

Oh look, the first Monday after Labour Day. Rejuvenation, a very fitting word actually (the root from the Latin "iuventus", in English "youth"). I wonder how many of these strange new faces are those of frosh. Filled with excitement in anticipation for their imminent journey, one that's just brimming with seemingly endless potential: academic challenge, new relationships, and possibly one of the first times they can really exercise authority in their lives.

To be honest, I'm kind of envious. I remember a time years ago when I was excited to start school, not with a cynical desire to complete my program, but with a sense of hope in engaging in a truly novel environment. Oh, back then, when all these new possibilities that I could take into the world had been laid bare before me. Even the air seemed fresher and more able to permeate even the remote (apical) regions of my lungs. A time when the green grass, the cool breeze, and all those imagined promises weren't mired by the tumults of tomorrow, a time when it was perfectly ok (well in my mind at the time anyway) to focus only on the present, both its joys and its stresses.

Not so today, when the present is only a waiting room for the hardships of the future guaranteed by the not-so-innocuous decisions made in the past. Well, at least I listen to cooler music nowadays...

Doppelganger

I have a doppelganger. I see him around campus. Like a well-oiled machine, he is always attentive in class, is always on task whenever preparing for tests and working on assignments, and is always the centre of attention of his social circles provoking the laughs and words of all those around him. Although we share all our classes, I still feel like I see him a bit too often. Sometimes, I even feel that he is, in fact, following me around, casually slipping into my field of vision whenever I poke my head up for air.

But I do find one thing strange, if he is truly following me, why is it that I always see him first? He always seems to be in the room before I am, already studying as I set up my laptop at the library, already engaged in some intricate conversation before I even see anyone I could even converse with. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given that our souls, myself and my clone, are inexorably linked. And, since he always ends up one step ahead, thanks to his limitless resourcefulness, it is only natural that only remnants and scraps await me when I finally reach the dinner table; the cosmic balance must be maintained, after all.

I bear no ill will towards him, of course. He is living his own life and does so seemingly well. But, I wonder, does he, from his glimpses of me when I am on the examining table, view me with the same acceptance?

I don't really know. Who can truly say what is in the hearts of others? But, for me, if I were in his position, I would have nothing but venomous disdain: for my lackadaisical work ethic, for my obstinate inattention, for my complete lack of social maneuverability. Should he find my imprint somehow lingering in his consciousness, that acute disdain would undoubtedly fester into a chronic frustration before transforming finally into a fulminate rage.

"What rubbish. Truly man can take an example from this poor chap as how one ought never live. Does he not know that what is lukewarm is completely unpalatable and immediately rejected? In a world such as ours, how can we permit such a lowly serf as him to impede our earnest efforts? Surely, for the sake of justice, the swift eradication of him and his ilk would be our only acceptable recourse. And, I, the quintessence of this world, would be happy to play the role of their reaper. With such noble purposes in mind, I would swoop in with my weapon of choice and inflict the requisite mortal wounds (and a bit extra for good measure as well as a statement of my own resolute conviction on the matter) to each and every one of those parasitic insects who think it somehow be ever tenable to live in such a squalid manner. Woe to them whom think it wise to hesitate and loiter. Society has no place for such vacuous entities."

Um, something like that, maybe?

"Be confident"

"Being confident", the age old mantra. Stand up straight, look people in the eyes, never stutter, and never look back. Thanks for the advice, really. I really do get the parts that make up confidence. But, why exactly am I supposed to exude this arbitrary attribute? Well, let's see, it is the key that's supposed to get me anywhere in life, right? Great. Well, I guess it makes sense to put on that facade and "be confident" whenever it serves my purposes, you know, so I can convince them that I am in fact a very well-adjusted individual.

I hear "be confident" thrown around a lot (not necessarily at me, I'm not that beta). Ok, don't get me wrong, it makes total sense as a means. But, somehow, I find that advice a bit hollow. It makes the notion of "being confident" seem like such an active process. Shouldn't we reach a state where we are confident as a natural extension of ourselves? Wouldn't it, then, be much better advice to start advocating for people to "feel confident"?

But, aye, there's the rub, isn't it? Now this advice requires us to deal with all those issues floating in our thoughts that weigh us down. So, then, why exactly should I feel confident? Am I not just some mite attached onto a chunk of rock, hurling at breakneck speeds through the vast emptiness that is the universe? Are we not just a set of biological processes, processes that each and every single one of us mites clings onto dearly and tries, almost desperately, to prolong for as long as possible.

Given all this, why should I feel any ounce of confidence? All those actions that I perform day after day, after day after day, are just not very significant anymore. The aggregate form that I have developed into today really isn't much of anything. And, all those little things I worry about, sometimes profusely so, really mean nothing when my eyes adopt an upward gaze.

But, at the same time, this harrowing condemnation seems also to be an avenue of salvation. If those things that are supposed to build me up become trivial once taken into perspective, then so must those things that weigh me down. And, those things that weigh me down are, definitely, legion. But with that meaning less, maybe, just maybe, I can actually walk through these crowded city streets unabated by those pestilent thoughts. Maybe it's ok that I don't have all my ducks in a row or that I'm still rife with rough edges. Because, really, are we not just mites, each and every one of us, firmly grounded on this chunk of rock, which itself is tethered to our giant fireball, flying through the great superunknown?

todo el mundo

After what seemed to be a generally therapeutic summer, I have returned to this same classroom, sitting in the same spot with the same people. It's hard to imagine that four months have already passed. Already my face has adopted its glazed configuration while some lecturer chatters about at the front. Soon, however, this will all be an artifact of the past. After three more months, I will finally be released from this self-imposed prison.

Surrounded by all those familiar, yet foreign, faces and idle chatter, I feel as if I am washed over by a suffocating wave. Just being here for such a short amount of time makes me want to get up and run away.

I didn't miss this part at all. These pestilent feelings of inadequacy, elicited almost instantaneously upon exposure to this stimulus.

Go away, mina-san ._.