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What being alive means...

I think that as a young man about to enter the working world, it is a natural time to start asking seriously what I want from life? Over the last few weeks, many things have been pushing me to review just what it means to have lived. Movies I've watched, conversations with various people (like Amabel today), the change of atmosphere and pace of dentistry, the peaceful environment of pre semester college and even the computer games I play have reminded me of many concepts I have forgotten and many new things I should consider.

The next few blog posts I guess should be about the things that I have thought over in the quiet beginnings of the year.

This post is a general feel of things whenever I approach this subject.

When we discuss life at this age, we inevitably and often inadvertently also speak about death. Age becomes a concern as youth finally leaves us completely. You start to count the years and how long you may be spending doing something. After all from 20 to 60 you only have 4 decades to achieve most of what you would like to accomplish. How long do you want to stay in a career? How long do you want to be in one place? What do you want to do now before age and death steal them away from you? Can you do so?

I have always been rather skeptical to the commercial goals of life - happiness, love, wealth - all promised to you in a McDonald's advertisement. I have always thought life is a lot more brutal than that. Most people are aware enough to tell you that there is a lot of sorrow and suffering in the world. Fewer people are aware of the constant struggle is what makes people feel alive. That doing things almost defines being alive. Previously, I believed that life was about striving and learning and maybe achieving something along the way.

It has been awhile since I have rescinded that concept somewhat. While ecstasy in a bottle from the television screen is certainly an extreme, focusing solely upon striving is also another extreme. Happiness, love and wealth are subjective issues, that some people do believe in and thus can achieve. I have come to realise (finally) that people are indeed different and being alive means something unique to each person. That does not mean that everyone can do as they please because it's their life; many people do not recognise their way of being alive or worse do not know how to be alive.

I think I have come to this understanding mostly from doing dentistry. I have always known dentistry is not my aspiration. But to actually go through it and experience the meaning of doing something you are not happy with for a long time impresses upon you deeply the meaning of monotony and drudgery. Then you wake up one day (after fighting with yourself all manner of phases, depression, reduced confidence, etc) and it dawns that you can't do this forever. As proud as you may be, some battles are lost. But always all that you really find yourself doing is surviving, one day after the other. It is a sad kind of existence and certainly not what you call being alive.

Anyway - movie reviews, philosophy and some interesting ideas coming up next! Stay tuned.

Back to fascination and wonder.

Now most of you realize if you ever ever ever tried to keep up with my blogs I have a catastrophic habit. I change blog site every 6 months lol.

Once again - I was sorely tempted to do so. But they say insanity is trying something again and again believing it will work. Besides it's time to try something new. Ergo, I'm not changing blog address lol although I am going to change the tone of this blog.

There was a time that (and this was my very first blog mind you) the posts were about random thoughts and philosophies. I think I enjoyed that. And I also realized I had many phantom readers. In fact the blog was actually worth something (I checked with a blog evaluation website that showed the blog was actually worth several thousand dollars). Due to some emotional catastrophe - that brought about the bad habit of changing blogs regularly - that blog was destroyed and many old thoughts and ideas. Which is a great pity! Now that I look at it. A childish act of destruction from general frustration.

Inspired by my friend's (currently more open) blog. I decided that maybe I will once again try capture that essence. I know what mattered on that blog lol. I advertised and spoke on good and interesting topics. I provided diagrams :P which were a good plus. The reason the blog failed was my incessant need for perfection, myself being the victim of emotion and my rather... dire attitude towards everything. But now the enemy is known!

So to a new year cheers! And to more interesting topics - watch this space!

Going home

The thought hasn't quite hit me yet that tomorrow night I will be on a different bed in a different weather.

I feel like I've become less of a person this year. But at least that in itself is a good realisation.

So I now have new year resolutions, which is a rarity.
I resolve to be more patient. (A quality I have lost more and more of)
I resolve to be kinder.
I resolve to be more caring.
I resolve to be stronger.
I resolve to be more confident.
I resolve to be more thankful.
I resolve to keep trying.

And I hope next year will be a better year!

Fuck Off

This Library Night

I swear the exam revision brings out the weirdest in people...
Or maybe I'm just really good at attracting weird people. Haha

Okay - so I'm sitting here at the head of the table at the library right. I'm just doing my thang - flipping open lecture notes, reading my wargaming book, reading sinfest the comic etc. By the power of Chaos Theory the library is crowded today with the strangest of people. I mean THE strangest people you could find here.

To my left is a boy who has headphones in his ears. While he reads his notes an alter ego speaks through his mouth. What it seems to be saying is like excerpts you could get by randomly flicking through radio channels. I'm pretty sure I heard lyrics from Trogdor the Burningnator and instructions out of a audio French lesson tape. It's not that he's asking for a conversation. He can't hear anything through the headphones...

Further beyond is a strange man in glasses. He does linear acrobatics on the couch with a sheaf of paper in his hands. Most of the time he's staring into space for minutes at a time stock still. Occasionally he starts singing to himself... while beating his palm against the leather in time. He too talks to himself occasionally.

On my right is a boy who has to tell us everything he is going to do. Until we ignored him for long enough for him to stop doing so - which was several hours later. I'm not sure whether he was seeking approval for his actions or as a kind gesture that we may align and adjust our minute by minute scheme with his. But truth is after while it was a kind of shut the fuck up.

In fact shut the fuck up would have been my response to all three at some point.

Oh dear now I have sworn twice and thus resort to slapping myself. They are staring at me for slapping myself without cause... I think I just joined the ranks of the insane and the lost.

But me? I'm just chilling. It's smooth riding from here baby. It's pretty cool realising that hey! I know shit. I can do this without too much hassle and tears. After the melodrama of the year, this feels like a picnic. I just almost won emo award here at college too. Yeah, I don't care thaaat much. But it feels a little unfair. Would they rather I bottled up everything inside so that their lives would be free of another eyesore? Lol - but then again with that one sentence I have just shown how deserving I am of the award runner up.

Still - can't wait for this exam period to be over. Got a lot of fun fun projects to start up once this thing is done.

But for the now - I'll just try avoiding eye contact with half the people in the room. *Places blinkers over eyes*

I feel the tension

Listen to the lashing rain,
The storm against the window,
The flurrying leaves, greens and yellows and browns,
Brace yourself o man,
There is power in the darkness,
Fear of the unknown,
The yawning chasm hidden in the shadows,
Senses sharp as knives,
Gray the dawn of awakening,
Blank and boring the known,
Death the source of life,
Life the source of death,
Chaos and order mere reflections,
But the mirror all will fade.