Liberty

Fresh from having just finished the fifth instalment of Herbert’s Dune novel, I am in a state of awe… what a magnificent body of work this is. How brilliant and truly vast this creation of his!


Sadness and that distinct feeling of queasy unease drowns me.

My life as it is now is almost a replica mirroring that of the book; just as the lives and the lines of lineage of the main antagonists have come to conclusion, so too the end chapter of chapters in reality.


Four and a half years of serial, unending academic semesters, stretched over what must be a gruelling five long years at the very least: that chapter of my life has now come to rest. Thousands of kilometres, back and forth. Back and forth.


For so many times now, I have begged for this moment. This the beginning of my life. Free to do what I want, free to go where I please, free from academic shackles and the curse of exams... the prospect of failure and repercussions, dangling dangerously close to the edge of sanity, is at last, no more.

Free at last!

Free! Free …to dive straight into the ever greater pressures and responsibilities that await in life.

The scary question now thus beckons: what now? What now, oh goodness what now?



Safely nestled in the warm protective folds of home, the lovely sense of comfort and security is truly intoxicating.

Ah such contentment you have bred for me to grow into!



So it is over.

So it is ended.

A frenzy of alcohol, a flurry of fine food, a small entourage of coursemates —comrades in battle, wonderful friends truly, a mutual struggle once shared—, and then a life packed into two large suitcases, a twin-engined triple seven and… Home, straight into the warm protective arms of home and the ones loved.

So it has.

So it must be.

Closing Time

June is upon us, and my hands really feel as though they have been tied to… well, something. Something heavy, something cumbersome.

Time is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its advance.

Slashing and ripping through all that is, like a cruel menace time comes for me.




More so than ever before, I am closer to one end of my journey than the other. You know, beginnings are so much less fraught with baggage the way endings are.

The heavy burden of memory and experience is not something universally cherished or embraced.

But without endings, I tell myself, how then can new beginnings sprout?



It was about this time two years ago that I had looked to Australia for hope, escape and new leaves. Today though, escape seems only feasible within the confines of my grey, gooey gunk —which is arguably the very item I need escaping from in first place.


I have started to wonder if my life is one too sane. Is it one too calculated or one too proper? The temptation to flick the switch, run amok, pursue senseless and irrational excursions... and satisfy whims and desires of any and every sort... oh how tempting the proposition!

But then again, when all is said and done, who else would be there to clean up the mess if it was not for me, my own little self?



"A child no longer" voices in my head.

Responsibilities, the piggy account and relationships beckon...


And so, whatever little is left of my youth is being further robbed away from under my feet; time the termite sure loves its wood.


I feel opportunities dissolving into thin air. It is said that youth is wasted on the young, but somehow I have always sensed that I had never wasted my youth. The past decade was spent trying to be as grown-up and as sensible as I could…

But oh the irony!

I laugh now, thinking how these very actions were tantamount to my youth being laid to waste: I have little memory of joy and experience from my younger days. What of the crazy things you did as a child? What of the ridiculous things you said? What of the absurd suggestions you had made, or the outrages desires that you had expressed liking to, and even more shockingly, were granted with? Oh how exciting it must have been.

But if only that …I was there too.



So, with what little is left of my salad days, my time here in this city and the luxury of being “youngish", must I really walk away like this? Walk away on this path of continued arrogant, self-serving righteousness and the delusions of an unsullied life?

Must I really walk away from this one chance, guided by ever more sane and reasoned laser systems? Is the grass really always greener on the other side? Is Lord Dreamer sleeping again, or is it Lady Rationale moving on to greener pastures?

Time and the bubble of a world around me is just screaming at me to act …but if only the solutions were not lost in the very jungle of noise that they created.



But then again, none of this ever seemed to matter to me before. I wonder, must it really now?

Legacies

You know there’s this one thing I have long known, but never previously shared with anyone, neither in public nor in private...

Not that this is a particularly secretive nougat that should only be kept within the confines of my skull; I just suppose the opportunity never presented itself…


Twenty four months: that really, is the longest period of time I could spend at any given place or institution.

This is the duration long enough to be marked by epochs and cataclysms; for history to be written, new standards to be set, achievements to be celebrated and looked back upon in times to come, meaningful relationships to be made —and detrimental ones to be killed.

And perhaps most importantly: critical life lessons to be experienced, absorbed, and learnt.


Dragged on for longer, and the burden of memory and familiarity becomes unbearable; the weighty baggage of experience and contempt start to swell up into a pool of trauma.

Twenty four months is the longest amount of time before I pass from being too comfortable to being too sick, and before I get stunt from growing and get encapsulated by the very spheres I set over myself.


As the sliver of realisation falls, comes a reality that liberty and release looms ever closer beyond the horizon.

I now liken myself to a four-engine winged-tubed craft at one end of a runway, waiting for four green lights to signal at the other, before putting thrusters to full for the imminent pressure-differentials to do their aerodynamic witchcraft.

And then, freedom.

Like When We Were Children.

I wished many things.

I wished for —believe it or not— a better life.

One much less swarmed by academic hardship and pressure and the simmering prospect of failure and retribution.

And more cash. I wished for more cash to spend daily, to live more comfortably, to splurge a little, to enjoy life with, to be more carefree.

I need more time; time for my own personal self-development… the D80 and the weights beckon, the creative little child in me needs escape, and the world isn’t waiting for me.

I truly wished for more space, more time, and more cash to stretch my legs and spread my wings.

Flight.

Freedom.

Fantasy.

They've been too far and too few of late.

12

No news is, as they say, good news.

And this is especially true of me, and this half-arsed blog of mine.

The days and the weeks preceding my return from Sydney has been marked by a distinct lack of posts, with as many as one in thirteen weeks.

This is not because I have found another source for an outlet, not because I started a ‘secret’ blog with a corny, melancholic URL, and not because I found someone to talk to —if you seriously thought of me as that sad a sod, well then, it’s you who needs someone to talk to =)

The simple truth be told, life really has been good to me lately.

I’d like to go on about the warmth of home, of family and friends, the company, the coffee, the car, the speakers and the DAC, me having gained 8kg from the weights and the whey, and hundreds and hundreds of other such details, but I shall digress and leave it as such.

I have had no realisation so deep nor revelation so profound that I needed to ponder or write out in words. I have lost the necessity to use the word processor and subsequently visit this place post-completion.

So with things the way they are, this trend will set to continue into the foreseeable future; and seeing how I will not be around (that is, won’t be around and can’t be bothered enough) to write something that sums up the past twelve months in reflective reminisce, but as is tradition to do so, this will serve as the rojak post that will accomplish that sub-task as well.

I am reminded to the lyrics of a song that goes:

But before I learned to listen
And if indeed someone said it
Then I guess I must have lost it on the wind

Still, all in my own time is all in good time I suppose.

As per the short, succinct (or possibly shadowy) theme of this post, it is to end here without much ado, or glossy detail. Perhaps indifference would best characterise my current attitude, and if so, would anyone blame me? =)

Equilibrium

 
Spring.

Spring has come, and brought along with it baggages from the past. The hot, suffocating dry air is a constant reminder of how things used to be twelve months ago.

So what better way to revisit past moments than with songs from the period?


I thought to myself what it was like. I thought to myself all that had happened. I thought to myself, and nodded.

I have come a long way. I have grown, and let many, many baddies go. I am also stronger, and much more seasoned than I was before —the crises of life have made me more hardy for sure. So many things in the world can hurt me no longer. I am not a mess with my emotions. I don’t easily fall into fits of depression. Or bouts of hate.


Life at the moment isn’t half as good as it can be, but neither is it half as bad as it would seem. With only a tiny bank account and a somewhat busy academic semester, life has been lived pretty much without the frills or the excesses of greed and desire.

It’s just me, my family, a few lifelong friends, the books, the weights and the whey. And of course, the sporadic excursions with my ageing d-eighty, which is still rolling out them day-lit scenes wonderfully well.

Really, I wouldn't want anything other than this simple, lean and drama-free existence.


Now, if only I can find an answer to the age-old “meaning of life” question.

Spheres

 
I find myself drowning in a sea of mediocrity.
 
An endless continuum of boring people.

Pathetic ones who cannot for the life of them stand up to their own judgements. Pathetic ones who cannot for a moment see beyond the facts and figures that lie before them. Pathetic ones who cannot overcome their ridiculous little prejudices that reside deep within themselves, even though it is ironic that, for the most part, these are the very same people who’s very existence has been the subject of such prejudice and discrimination.

In this huge chasm of differing values and idealism that separates me from everyone else, I feel the four walls closing in.

I feel alienated; trapped in a reality I cannot un-clutch myself from. 

Suffocating in these vile waters, I so hope and wish I could be home where love and warmth and material wealth and time run abundant.


Tonight I again write by the yellow lamp, not unlike how I did all those posts from this time last year.

Tonight I wished I had huge concentrations of alcohol gushing down my bloodstream.

Tonight, those two bottles of Budweiser left in the fridge from my past habits cannot seem more appealing.

But such is not to be.

My Fascist regiment of four-hourly meals of carefully choreographed pro:carb:fat amounts in perfect ratios and the weights and the jogs would all make alcohol the most blasphemous of things I could ingest.

Such then, is life.

No Place Like...

 

I close my eyes.

The images start to flash.

Bright, dull lights hanging high atop the brown pyramidal shell that is the roof. The cold, harsh architecture, the concrete, the grey plastic, the pale marble flooring, the electric mini-train.

Images of my parents, my hands on the thick steering wheel, the odometer, the xenon-lit highway, the hint of palm trees, the valley at night, my cats.

And as if the relentless attacks on my consciousness was not enough, the dreams I dream each night too, are beyond escape.

One wonders if I’d go insane before I manage to even step onto that scheduled -400 jet.

A New Start

 
This is my ninth draft, and is one that I intend to publish, instead of putting to the bin like all the others before. 

I have so much to write about; me being sick of almost any and every one around me, and almost any and every thing.

But nothing I write would be fit for reading.

In between the weights and the jogs, the whey and the Quarter Pounders, the studies and sleep, I have neither the time nor energy for anything else.

I couldn’t for the life of me muster even a coherent post, despite the repeated attempts.



I miss home so much.

I miss my family. I miss the valley. I miss alcohol. I miss drinking with my dad. I miss driving that wonderful car. I miss my closest and best friends.

A few more months to go, and another four subjects to pass.

Life, for now, seems unbearably arduous, and impossibly long.

 

I Made It.

Honestly, I feel like deleting every single post I wrote for the past five months.



Success is sweet, though watching your closest, truest friends and comrades fall most definitely isn’t.

Theirs is a solemn reminder of the grave consequences of not having made it through.

Theirs is a bitter reminder of the human costs behind the thick cold faces of ruthless academicians who trump the “standards” flag.



Where most expected —especially coming from me, of all people— is the relentless gloating and praise of all the wonders and joys of life, there shall be none. 

This seriously isn’t at all funny, or worth celebrating for.



I am lucky to have just scraped through, to have saved a brand new Gen.2 and twelve additional months to repeat two subjects.

These were perhaps the two most expensive marks in my life.

Beginnings

   
Children. They are everywhere around me, lurking beneath ever so thinly veiled membranes, but just peer through the words, the conduct, and right in the depths of those shallow souls is that malicious, malevolent child reigning supreme in them full-grown adults.

They say pain is what we need to grow —that without trauma, or other extraordinary life-changing crises, we’d never learn, or progress above and beyond that which we are.

In recent months, the overarching thought has perhaps been that of immaturity, the (fortunate, unfortunate) need to grow up, not losing one's humanity, and compassion.

Lessons in life... that life is not a fairytale, a romantic illusion, or a fanciful novel, that life is not a house full of comfy beds and giant sofas with an eternal cash tree in the backyard that bears fruit rain or shine, that the world is not a fabulous land of joy and wonder where good and just is always triumphant, or that things will always work out for you.

Life indeed is short —definitely short enough not to be spent over the little things or the little people that bring you displeasure and discontent. And also too short in fact, to be wasted away over the inconsequential, the irrelevant, and the obsolete.

Times have changed.

It's time to grow up.

I’m moving on, and I’m definitely not sorry that a few of you won’t be coming along.

 

Branches

 
Facebook. Wedding. Pictures. And metallic-silver 5 Series’.

I start to picture myself at 35, a rather successful well-to-do engineer, a bachelor pad perched high atop the skyline with spectacular views of the city, and a 5 Series of my own —this the mid-sized executive saloon that has been the unrivalled gold-standard of it’s class for almost three decades, this the model that has made the Bavarian company famous, this the car that has fascinated me since childhood.

A pair of monumental KLIMAX floor-standers with an equally impressive front-end to match, huge portions of glass offering panoramic views in a small, cosy apartment, and an even smaller bedroom.

Dreams, I snap out of my mind-wandering to tell myself.

Dreams that may full well not come true.

Which is also equally fine, I think to myself. Having nothing to do with the flamboyance, the glamour, and all the gay, living a “small” life of bare minimums rid of all excess.

I figure I’d appreciate life —and everything else— more this way; living lean, living clean, and living simple.


But moving a decade backwards to the here and now is July the 14th with which I wait with indifference. As the days draw closer and closer, hope still seems to spring eternal.

Hope that I will pass the two particularly troublesome subjects, hope that a normalised curve will be employed and that it will favour me, hope that things will turn out alright.

But then again, a fool’s hope it may very well be too.

If indeed I fail any of the two papers, my graduation day will be pushed further into the future, the completion of my degree prove to be lengthier and far more costly a battle than what I had hoped or wished for.

But if there is any consolation, it is that the reduced workload of three subjects per semester would make life easier, and give me more time to do the things I want, as well as the life I would rather live.

And if I do manage scrape through without any failures —and heavens do I not hope and wish that I do— then that too, would be a wonderful outcome.

There’s the dream thesis topic I get to do, there’s the huge sum of cash not needing to be used, there’s the whole year I’d not need to spend in university, and let’s face it: who likes the idea (and the consequences) of failing?

 

Days and Nights

   
Despite what the unending stream of dark and solemn posts would suggest, life has been… fairly good to be honest.

Haven’t had the want/urge/need to drink for what must be close to one and a half months now —so much so that I have decided to use my allocated allowance for alcohol for a tub of protein instead!

I have been eating well, sleeping well, working out, drinking litres and litres of water a day though definitely not studying as well. Strange as it may seem, for the entire past three years, this has got to be THE least stressful and/or pressured pre-exam period I have ever experienced, despite the coming three papers being perhaps the most instrumental in my life.

I feel little, if anything.

Perhaps one day —and one real soon at that if I may add— I will look back at this, and deeply regret my being more concerned with my health/physique than the impending exams, but oh well.

Now I wonder what new is there to watch on Youtube today…  

 

Crystals

 
Memories.

People and places, faces and feelings —things of any and every sort spin through my head like the eternal spin of time’s preverbal wheel.

Back and forth, back and forth, again and again. Clockwork perfection. White, black, past, present… so many things are made so clear where I stand.


Epiphanies. More than anything else, this eight-month period is one that has never ceased in it’s indiscriminate and relentless pursuit in shedding light on as many avenues as there are minutes in a day.

Those who have always been there for me, in times of joy, in times of darkness. Those who were never there, but always were in times of dire need. Those who cared, those who went all out, those who were never calculative. Those who never flinched, those who’s only sole and overwhelming reason was that of love and friendship.

Then those who were the empty shells, the masks behind faces, the hollow vessels. Those who never once lifted a finger, those who never gave a passing thought, a second glance, nor a second chance. Those who couldn’t have cared less, the icy depths of their indifference… not unlike a cold, harsh death by drowning.


Uncertainty is all around me, yet strange as it is that so much can be this clear.

A string of words for this entangled state of flux reads: people, relationships, disappointment, frustration, hurt, appreciation, content, self-greed, choices, consequences, uncertainty, worry, despair, optimism, hope, hatred, anger, defeat, calm, denial, disconnect.


Take no relationship for granted, especially ones most important, most cherished, and most prized. But make no mistake and hesitate not at getting rid of the people who have been nothing more than their eloquent smiles.


A restructuring is called for, and by the time it is finished, a handful of relationships will have come to an end.

Thinking of the simpler times, the innocence, the careless freedom —all if only in song.

Eating the Cake

 
Sometimes, I stop and I look, and I then think to myself just how much better your lives have now become, and I smile --I am happy for all of you.

Your lives are now rid of such monstrous academic torment, free of all the unduly pressure and ridiculous stress, emptied of all the painful, obscure, mind-boggling theory, calculation and hundreds of years of humanity’s accumulated knowledge.

I see it in your eyes. I see it in your faces. I hear it in the ways you talk. All of you look so much better, so much more at ease, so much more relieved, so much more cheerful, and so filled with life.


All you who have jumped out of this wretched hell-bound train live better lives now. But on this flaming carriage, there is little life.

In fact, beyond that of academia, there is no life at all.

Many times, I do wonder if I too, should jump. Sometimes, I wished that I too, had called it quits.

But I have already threaded so far down this path —one that so many have said that I neither should or could all those years back. But then again, I am neither closer to the end nor farther from the beginning.

Guess this must be how it feels like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place!

 

 

Cycles

 
Last night was the second I spent drenched in a blaze of alcohol, a state initiated by conscious choice of course.

Sometimes, doing what feels right needs no explanation. And for the past two nights, swirling in pool of quarter-consciousness under the sheets of a 16°C night was something that felt good, and justly right. 

Sometimes, one must accept that there are just too many things in life that one can never control, and can never foresee. We are forced to do things we never wanted to do. We are forced down paths we never chose to take.

We are just little pawns in a continuum of chaotic variables.


I have lost sense of everything.

For once in my life, I know not what it is that I actually want.

For the second time in my life, I am consuming my self like a cannibal.


What if being, studying, and failing in (and perhaps one day graduating from) this tough, glitzy and expensive place isn’t what I want?

What if taking the easy way out, what if a simpler, easier, less pressured and less grand or impressive piece of paper at the end of a three year programme, all the while being closer to home, to the people I loved, and to all joys of a more sane and more ordinary life is what I wanted instead?


Perhaps acknowledging that mystery is an unavoidable part of life is the most sensible thing to do right now. It is, perhaps, the only thing that can be done. Which essentially means doing nothing but to sit here and wait for the hands of time to do their thing.

And hope. Hope that perhaps in time, things will solve themselves out (or not).


And no, I am not as "emo" as I sound =) 
 

Lines

 
With the renewed sense of urgency, and the crystal clear consequences of me not passing being so real, I put all cerebral engines on full, and pushed on without a care in the world.

But sheer-headed optimism means only so much against the harsh reality that we live in.

Sometimes it gets so surreal: a little unforeseen question that you cannot twist your head to solve, or worse still a little error in mis-substitution, the difference of a single minute negative sign in the equation, that collectively, could mean the end of your hopes, dreams and plans of graduating at what particular time-frame, and consequently, from which particular institution.

Having always stood by the sworn principle of being open to second chances, I find it particularly ironic that it is me who will --with almost all certainty-- not be given such an opportunity myself.

I have worried. I have despaired. I have been distressed. I have tried. I have done much, much more than I will or shall reveal on this open site.

I have not faltered even as I stand against all odds.

But I know: the war has already been lost.

The consequences trouble me to the extent that I no longer want to even think about them. What will be, will be I tell myself. But we all know that that is utter crap, because I will not stand for taking a defeatist attitude when the official white flag has still yet to be raised.

But tonight though, the surrealism took on a whole new depth as I cycled home thinking that in two months time, everything that I now see, touch, smell and feel might very well all be over and done with by then. 

You then realise a whole new layer of detail, like the dry, chilly crispness of the air, the absolute clearness of the night sky, the seemingly larger-than-normal moon, the odd sounds of the passing diesel-powered 5 Series, A4s, Tiguans and Golfs...

But perhaps weirdest of all is the soothing calm that takes you over.

Paths That Don’t Converge

 
These three months have seen me being uncharacteristically calm amidst the mountain of pressure, and (relatively) unfazed, as I stand before the greatest academic struggle of my life.

Even from the very onset of the semester, it was clear that this was to be a war that would prove to be extremely swift, tremendously difficult, and unbearably gruesome.

But it was all just that: always just a lingering thought, one of certain possible failure, of defeat, and of the great financial consequences that would ensue --but nothing, and never more than just a lingering thought.

Earlier today, in a span of a mere four hours and over six pieces of paper, I experienced what it was like to be the instrument of my study account’s considerable implosion.

In the post-exam aftermath, I have felt relieved and glad (that it’s all over), frightened and fearful (of the consequences that now lie ahead), and pissed and upset.

That none of my course-mates --many of them worthy benchmarks-- fared any better than I did is a comforting thought, but it does not change the bitter fact that I will, for the first time in half a decade, founder in school.

Something has changed.

Indeed, the papers have gotten tougher, and even if I were to have put in every single last drop of my soul into it, I would still not have made it. But still, something has changed.

Over the past few months, I have grown increasingly more laid-back, more mellow and more contented. It is not that I have grown lazy or complacent --I can hardly imagine who could in such a semester-- but that I have lost my drive.

I no longer have the energy to fight, nor the energy to pounce. I have been drained of almost every enjoyment. I have been clipped and battered down to an inconsequential rubble.

My heart just isn’t in it anymore.

Since stepping onto that four-engined jet three months back, not a day has passed without me being clouded by the illusions of a career, and of a life that lay in waiting for me back in the tropics.

I have lost track of the world around me, and my goals and my priorities in life. And if the previous post is any indication, it is  that perhaps my subconscious mind is trying to speak.



   

Nights by the Yellow Lamp

 
Never before has this hit my head so hard.

But these past few months have really drove it deep into the contents of my skull, and I think I have finally come to see, grasp and understand it in a profound and fundamental way.

It matters not what your current/future situation in life is, how deep or numerous your relationships are, where or who you are… all these don’t at all make a difference because when the push really comes to shove, we are --each and every single one of us-- truly alone in life.

Alone.

Alone because at the end of the day, it’s your life, your one and only life, and there will be situations that no one else --not even your closest/most loved ones-- but you yourself, who will have to go through.

I feel as if I have woken up from a skewed, rosy imaginary realm into the solemn, sombre awareness of life’s bitter and (often) harsh realities.

Maybe its the duty and responsibility, and having my actions and decisions being so much in direct control of so many aspects and consequences of my life that has given me this new sense of…

A new sense of ...life being not being a bed of roses.

It’s scary, sometimes. The shadowing knowledge of life being so individual, that at the end of the day, it’s just going to be you --you, and no one else.

Life is not a joke.

Bygones

“It’s amazing how people don’t change.”

That has been the single one thought that has been banging in my head since I woke up this morning.

A particular conversation last night brought to me a chance rendezvous with my past, and boy was it an insightful one.

Why am I not surprised? Why -more importantly- does the ringing reverberate and resonate so intently within the confines of my skull? Why -above all else- am I even remotely bothered by this?

I know not the answers to these questions, but if there’s one thing I know, it is that I am thoroughly glad that that element of my past is behind me.

Way, way behind me.

Thousands and thousands of miles so, in the dark recesses of the horrendous pit I got myself out of all those months ago.

Each and every day is an opportunity for me to move further and further away from that hell hole, and it is one that I have duly made use of.

Each and every day I grow more and more pleased with the current reality that is my life -a life made delightfully pristine without the presence of those nasty element(s) that I no longer associate myself with.

Each and every day I become more and more glad that there are people like you, you, and you: all the you(s) who have found me, stepped into my life, bringing along with you, and showing me so much love, so much warmth, so much decency, so much innocence, and so much life.

This is a post as much it is about the past as it is the future: yesterday, and today has been a reminder of the past -my past; one filled with a garbage truckload of negativity, and at the same time, it has been a reminder of how much much much better off I now am.

And how bloody lucky I am.

On this track, there is only one way to go -and it is forward.