on the contrary

I see facebook posts celebrating the imminent conclusion of the final exams.

I feel slightly disconnected.

I see posts written, celebration in anticipation

I see anticipation, anticipation to abandon everything the term has crammed into our heads.

I feel a disconnection.

Personally,  I'm starting to hate this. I grow to treasure my subjects only at the last moments. I don't know what I've been doing the countless days and hours in my room when instead I could be studying. I could be appreciating the things I've learnt.
But now, it's a little too late.
There's too little time to...
appreciate.

I had grander dreams. I did. What happened?

I feel dead desperate now. Not in the mood to finish my essay.
Nothing seems significant at all. I feel like I'm writing dribble.

I just want to sleep. And wake up in my room. I wish I don't have to take all these emotions in
at a juncture where my hands are full.
O God can't you take these all
and put it on yourself?

What stops me from surrendering all?

Creating pain in the bypassing of it.

What, am I taking my A levels this year? Nope, not really.

Maybe it's just a culmination of things, you know, issues which are dwarves in themselves.
Little things getting to know one another, then joining hands and tripping me all over.
Then something else rises in me. It's the real nemesis. He's always within.

He gets up, frustrated and throws everything down.

It's a self sabotage.

Who are the dwarves?
The writing module paper 3 is a dwarf. It isn't that hard. If only I borrowed the book.. if only I made the effort to.
Church camp is a dwarf if I choose to stick legalistically to my job scope. If I can reply coldly "er, I think that's your job" to all sorts of requests it wouldn't be a big deal. As it stands I'm not convinced that I should relegate it to dwarfness.
My exams? Ha ha. Why do I only mention them now? I have no idea. They're not much, in themselves. I just never really had a peaceful exam period. Each is fraught with all sorts of demons. All wrestling for my attention, all knowing that I will spare them some, always.
And then there's this idiot friend. Who's doing the same thing she did the last term break. Why always at this timing? I'm not sure. What shall I do? Play victim... or should I be the nice guy. Shall I dismiss this as I did the previous time? Or shall I insist. Shall I make things difficult on the basis that this happens to be one of my peeves? I'm considering, I'm thinking hard.
I also wonder if it's even worth thinking hard over.

There's something else, a same old theme I'm sick to repeat. After a run... I wonder. I wonder if my actions changed anything. I wonder if it changes your mind. I speculate about what you really think of me... and then I wonder why I even care.
I'm almost done rationalising my way out. I almost done seeing that nothing good's coming out of this.
But the enigma draws me back. I may certainly never find another. You're an opportunity far too golden.

But why shall I drag my heels over this? What if something happens. What if, this falls off the precipice?

Back to life, back to looking at it.
These little concerns, the concerns other than my studies are the ones I'm really after. They flood my mind and rob my time. I'm compelled to bypass my studies and think about the things I'm really after. But in the bypassing of this hassle
Is the creation of real pain.

How does one finish his essay and preparations for sociology (the whole of both) in a day?
God please make me a genius for once. Like a DOWNRIGHT genius.
I dread the coming days. I passionately hate them.

Not even close baby

I was thinking that I understand what my brother is going through now.
I thought I'd even say that I'm facing something similar.

Actually it isn't. When I think about it, it's the close shaves in life which are hardest to let go.
I haven't had much of close shaves.. the current one isn't even close.

When I think about it I start to realise why he keeps talking about it these days.
I'd talk about it if I were in his position.
But I'm me. I don't.

it survives

When I wake up I still feel the same.
I'm of the same opinion still.

That's good, it wasn't flippant.
It wasn't some self pity or anything.
This persistence points to the existence
of a real and compelling issue.

is it... is it... is it?

One can only guess what this means, pissing off 3 people in one night.
Exam stress? Personal reasons? My fault?

What's the reason? There are reasons for each of the reasons.
Maybe, I dread to think of it this way, maybe the world is filled with nice people. Nice people whose toes I tread on every waking moment. So these things are surprises because in some sense I had it coming.
You had it coming... sounds familiar. It's the favourite way of dealing with me.

Maybe, I dread to adopt this, I've been living on borrowed time. Maybe my existence really taxes the patience of others.
Maybe they sit down and wonder, maybe it's a calculated murder.

It's not funny anymore. There's no place to start either, for a kindly voice reminds me right here and now that this is part and parcel of virtual interaction.
It's most likely misinterpretation on my part... or the emboldening of the individual on the other side. Choose. Maybe, both.

generic sadness

It's raining again and oddly enough it was the rain which woke me up. No no, not the lightning for there isn't any, just the rain.
With the rain comes about a usual bout of generic sadness. This is a term I have come to use for the odd tender sensation I often experience when it rains. I don't even know where it's coming from.

There's added reason today, first, I overslept. Oversleeping usually makes me sad because it means I sleep later in the night. It means I sleep at 2 or 3 or risk time wasted rolling on the bed while convulsing within tides of sleep paralysis.
But more so today as I awoke with guilt, guilt regarding the unfinished writing module work I have to complete, to complete by 8am tomorrow morning.
I think about it and I feel sad immediately. Yes yes, so the writer in concern is a little more disappointing than usual and now I may well have to find another... but why only now? Why only now tucky? Why always... only now?

I don't know. Leonard's departing words make sense to me now. Living life on the edge... maybe the bleeding edge, maybe I'm bleeding out but I only glimpse this in brief moments like this.

Or maybe it's the familiar knocking noise mixed into the steady beat of the rain. Maybe the plight of the construction workers are creeping into my consciousness. I wake up to a heavy rain and the sound of construction unsettles my heart. Even now? Even now?
This sentiment runs back to my first days in angsana... or maybe to when I, innocently 7, watched the construction of a condo from my piano teacher's house... where every morning now I wake up to the knocking sound. These guys begin at the light of day and sometimes the sound only trails off at around 9 at night.
Necessarily implicated is what I learnt about Singapore's treatment of foreign labourers during last sociological tutorial. Is this another evidence? An evidence that the country I love does ignore the rights of these poor labourers?

Or maybe it's that letter. I'm sure my heart was okay as I wrote it... perhaps just a little overzealous. My heart raced when I delivered it, I didn't want to get caught and misunderstood, I rationalized.
Fasttrack to now, my heart has been racing. It has not ceased since morning when I was told to expect a reply. A reply which was going to take 2 days or so... but a reply!
I know I'm overreacting, I feel this child in me taking over. I'm in deep anticipation.

I wake up and recall the thing I'm waiting for. The entirety of my being, compelled by the unhappiness which my work and the work downstairs, awaits. It remembers the thing it dropped before it retreated for sleep...


And the rain still provokes the same unsettling sadness. Perhaps it's just my stomach... perhaps it's time for dinner.

Consequently, the biggest tragedy

"the best feeling in the world is knowing that you actually mean something to someone."
Quoting a facebook friend.

No, don't. Don't start thinking that I'm about to disagree with this statement. I'm not as disagreeable as many people are beginning to think. For instance, I do agree that I'm disagreeable. 

The statement there is an accurate description of how many of us feel. I don't want to have to say if it's true of if it's the way to live our lives with integrity. I just feel that for the most of us, it does apply. 

Heck, I take myself for an example. 

When I got my A level results (oh this is the season, so why not?) I went home alone. I didn't even get to catch lunch with my friends or anything. Reason? Some didn't do well, some didn't remain friends after results. 

So there I was on the train ride home, dressed in no.4 and carrying my field pack. The weight on my shoulders greater in orders of magnitude than what was imposed by my bag. I wished the good results meant more. I wished it meant that people could be proud that they knew me, that in those 2 years they walked along a giant. 

The best feeling is knowing that you actually mean something to someone. It's true. In studying society in sociology, I learnt that many things are defined upon reflection against the society. How do we know that we are "mad"? One way is to notice that we have begun to behave in a way which is contrary to the majority. 

How do we know that the things we do are worthy? When they are endorsed.

Of course it'd be rather silly to say that therefore there isn't any real madness or real worth out there, if the society did not think so.

As Christians we look out for the norm and the approval of God. How do I know if I'm not mad? When I find myself obeying the laws of God, when I walk in the ways in which he has prescribed that we should walk in. 

How do I know if what I'm doing has worth? When it is aligned to what pleases God, as revealed to us in the bible, as reflected when I am bearing fruit and blessed. 

It feels good to know that we actually mean something to someone. Some other human.. and it feels good already. But when we say this, what do we really mean?

I speculate that someone says that in realisation, upon exiting a state whereby one lived in the absence of meaning something to someone. That's where things go wrong. That is where the tragedy is.

Because we mean something to God in every living moment. To not know this, is tragedy. 

To feel as though we've exited from meaninglessness into meaning when we are embraced by someone else is to forsake a summer's vacation on the beach only to return to a sandpit. It is to miss the greater joy and to be contented with something lesser. 

Yeah, it feels good to know that we actually mean something to someone. You always meant something to God... So doesn't it follow that we ought to feel really good all the time? That the supreme being, the creator of the world sees us as part of His own glory?

If I can really comprehend what I just typed, I will live my life to the fullest. If only if this isn't just in my head.