Do You Believe in Fate?

If you believe in fate then you must believe that there is something in store for you. A place where everything you do, no matter what it is, will lead you there in the end. A destiny that is meant for you and you alone. And it doesn't matter how many detours you make on the way, missed stops and mistakes, the road will lead you patiently and assuredly there. 

I am inclined to believe that for some strange reason, law school in the UK is mine. Over the years I have had people tell me not to do law, to do law. I myself have eliminated it as a possibility many times over; as a child, as a college student. Even on the road there doing A Level Law I abandoned it yet again and favoured media and mass communication in Australia instead. 

But that didn't last long and before too much time, I found myself yet again heading in that direction I have many a time turned from. It was not for lack of trying that I didn't manage to completely eliminate law as an option. Maybe I was just meant to be here now. 

Learn to be Lonely.

Could it be that some people fit in nowhere in this world? What are they to do then? Go about life in this perpetual loneliness knowing that nowhere in this big wide world is there a place for them to truly belong? 

Connectivity.

There's something about smart phones. Especially the very current ones. With their do-all capabilities, there is very little we will not turn to it for. But having recently acquired one myself, I find myself  growing uncomfortably attached to it. And I asked myself why. Why the reluctance to put it down? Just 30 seconds ago when I decided to pick it up again and write this instead. It felt like I was severing a connection to the outside world, to people when I put it down. That's why. 

But there's no connection to be had there. Not really. A connection to our social media and our phone screens isn't a real connection. We have built for ourselves a society which is afraid of being disconnected from other people while being at the same time so hopelessly disconnected. For there is no connection to be had there. 

The impersonality of the liking and the writing and the commenting and the checking and the status updating. We drive ourselves into believing we are connected when we are really not. Because none of the above, save in exceptional circumstances help us build a proper bond with each other. Fondness does not develop. Because we are so impersonal, even when we are being personal. 

Writing.

I've always said that life brings us to unexpected places. In fact years ago I came up with the theory that I would not have expected to be where I would be in 2 years time. And life has not since then fail to surprise me. The decisions we tend to make change as we grow and that tends to lead us to places where we would never have expected to be now. But where once I was a writer, I still am now. I've always been a writer. Even though in recent years I have stopped, shunned it somewhat because writing incurs thought, encourages it and I in turn have shunned thought and introspection from my life as it brought too much pain. The greatest beauty comes from pain and sorrow. The greatest art is delved from the wells of sorrow and pain deep inside us. It is the product of emotions felt so deep within the core that it etches itself into the psyche and becomes a reality in need of expression in the artistic form.

From pain comes the greatest poetry,
From sorrow the greatest beauty.
For happiness is too careless to keep records of its histories. It is relished and then fades away into the morning sun while sorrow is etched into the walls of stone; a standing testament of when a man has stopped and stood still, apart from the  endless flow of time if only for a moment to record his deepest thoughts and desires.

For we are as a race capable of great pourings of despair. Why do people take their own lives? Is it because the world is too harsh to live with? Or is it because they themselves are too harsh to live with?

I feared the implications of my writing. Feared to delve too deep into the wells of my soul for I would find (I believed) no good things there. It became to me a symbol of difficult times. A time of turmoil and uncertainty and I had not the energy any more to look into them. I wanted to be done with the endless times of being lost in my own thought, of dwelling within my own fantasies and shunning to an extent the world outside. And so in time, the words stopped flowing and the stream of soliloquy dried up.

But I have been and I suspect always will be a writer. We cannot deny our true natures as much as we can deny the coming of the night and the day. And though I have stemmed the flow of these morbid impulses  that bring about the best of my work, there is no denying I still retain the capacity for them. I have just refused to acknowledge them. The truly happy have no need to seek sanctuary of any kind and I wanted to be among them. Or I tried very hard to be. And writing; acknowledging those pesky thoughts and encouraging the circular nature of my introspection did not provide me with any reasonable basis to do so. It was a sad man's job. Perhaps it still is.

Though in recent years I have stopped, I have ceased to pen down very many things and poetry is but a distant activity of the past, but perhaps my soul remains one with the inclination to write.

Seeking the Balance.

It is funny how the chronicles of our gatherings and our meetings start in languid silence. We walk in, we sit down and we contemplate each other. It is a love hate relationship between us, a necessary love hate relationship such as the one between life and death itself. Hopelessly entwined, one giving meaning to the other, one existing solely because of the other. As love and hate and as life and death. We are as siblings. All of us needing each other to survive, needing each other for balance and to make sense. We all have our roles to play. 

"We need to regain our dynamics," I rubbed my forehead tiredly. "It wasn't the best system, but it worked." 

Mademoiselle sat casually, legs crossed and sharp heels glinting in the light. The slick cut of her coat and her clothes, polished, elegant, tailored, asserting. Self-assured and arrogant. But somehow after all the ordeals of the past year, a comforting presence. A reminder of a better, stabler age. No one would've guessed or even thought, that Mademoiselle with her cold, calculating, mercenary presence, could ever be a source of comfort, softness and warmth. Or some semblance of it. 

She need not say anything and she knew it. But when she did, when she deigned to grace us with her words, they seemed to drip as honey from her lips. Warm and buttery in relishing the fact that she had her presence again. She was never meant to diminish for long and to ignore Mademoiselle completely is a folly one would make. 

Missy leaned back on her chair, her soft, unassuming attire unthreatening, gentle, unostentatious. She looked tired and drawn, her limbs hanging lazily by her sides as she stretched out on the armchair. 

Slowly, bit by bit, we need to find our balance again. I was at a lost for what to say. We all knew what needed to be said, what would be said and there was no need for me to actually say it. Neither was I inclined to actually say it. 

I sat back as well, feeling the familiar soft cotton of my plain top, the reaffirming texture of my old jeans and my satchel bag by my side. We had long been bereft of each others' company. And meeting each other like this again, there was an awkwardness that lingered in the placid air. An awkwardness mixed in with a scent of guilt and spice but at the same time a comfort in it finally happening like pieces falling back into place and a sense of embracing belonging that lingers in the air as in finally meeting family again. 

"We're nowhere near it. But at least we're here now." 

Maybe we are all due a change. God knows this world moves with change. It is an ever constant dynamic of shifts and eddies that swirls in and around itself, weaving its threads into the fabric of all existence, giving it life. But where does that change lead us? Does it lead us to bigger and better places? Or darker, smaller spaces within the confines of our own minds and imaginings. 

Now Mademoiselle was never known for outward displays of affections or anything for that matter. But she knows what needs to be done, just as her tendencies may be unwise at times or a lot of times, she does step up when she needs to. When she does something, it means something. We are all unwise. It is the human condition. And she reached our her hand, first to Missy, then to me. And we linked hands, in a circle. For the first time ever, a physical manifestation of our interactions with each other, initiated by Mademoiselle herself. 

This world moves by change. And maybe we too are due a change. We may not be able to or even want to replicate what once was but we can together, create a semblance of something that works again, with the dynamics of this time that we are in, a stability that suits the present we are in. Maybe we are all due a change. But wherever and however we decide to move forward, we move forward together. 

We Are No Better Than You.

We sat in a circle, us again, meeting each other after a long time. Acknowledging each other's presence after a prolonged separation by the hectic and distracting confusion that is life so far.

Missy was hunched over in a defeated pose, her shoulders slumped, her hair limp and lank and bounceless, much like the wilt of her limbs and the downward cast of her eyes. She has had a rough time and the weeks have taken their toll on her. Much so as it had wrung her out like a sponge and hung her out to dry under the rain and the storm before being wrenched from the clothesline by an errant gust of chilly wind only to be dragged back in by the cat and left in a sodden heap on the floor.

"I'm sorry..." she intoned softly, full or remorse and guilt and burden. "I'm so sorry. This is all because of me."

And she was not necessarily wrong. What she did was an inconvenience. A burden and a pain. But somehow, in the fabric of this strange human existence where people feel that to bleed and to feel pain is to feel alive, what she did was also in this strange, nonsensical equation, necessary.

We cannot live without her and she was an essential part of the puzzle. Much as we hate to admit it at times.

Mademoiselle sat in the corner, the black in her hair bold and strong and solid. The firm set of her jaw and her eyes, the flashing of her look as she sat, a presence in an otherwise limpid room. When did she regain her stature? I wondered. It was somewhat an unforeseen though not necessarily undue consequence.

And I as always, sat on my armchair, my legs crossed in a casual and a neutral position. I didn't know what to do, and when I don't know what to do or to think, I always adopt the neutral position.

We sat in heavy, loaded silence. Much has come to pass since and much pain has been brought into the periphery. The room sank under the weight of it as it pressed down and in from all sides like a pressure, making one's eardrums pop as we try to equalize the inside and the outside.

I sighed.

"No Missy. Maybe you are a mistake. Or the sum of all mistakes. But I am a mask. And Mademoiselle is bitterness and anger and fear. We are all broken pieces of the same puzzle. We are no better than you."

Maybe that is why we need each other. Maybe that is why we have each other. Because if each of us on our own is a disaster, then maybe together, we can find some semblance of something that works.

Stream of Consciousness

Things have come to a head and I don't know where to look next. What will come out next will probably be partially an incoherent stream of consciousness spew which and undilated mind needs to get out before it chokes on it's own poison. Because expression is how the world deals with its pain and itself. It's how we handle and explain ourselves and try to make sense of this big, crazy mess that we have all come to know and love. Life as a whole.

Yes, things have come to a head and I don't know where to look next. I have spent months. And months. Wallowing in misery and dragging my feet and my whole self everywhere I went, living as through a dense haze of smog and other choking substances which threatened to block out my entire meaningful existence. Feeling like I had hit rock bottom and yet with no way to get back up, contrary to the popular saying. Months and months and months. I was wallowing in my misery and my self-pity and my regret and my disappointment and all those unpleasant things. And then I came here, and then not 2 months pass and I find myself again wallowing in the misery and the pain and the misery that I thought I had left 6570 miles behind me. And maybe this is hindsight talking but this time it seemed worse than before. More suffocating, more disabling to the heart and the soul. So much that I couldn't find a way to carry on any more. I was assaulted from all directions suddenly with my insecurities and fears and even shit I didn't know I had and didn't know existed or never acknowledged before this all came assailing me with an enthusiasm equal to a Mardi Gras day parade. I buckled under the pressure. I caved. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move, I couldn't comprehend. I was curled up into the foetal position and yet I had to go about my day like nothing was wrong, like nothing was the matter. Because life marches on endlessly whether we participate in it or not. Life goes on uncaring of an individual woes and sorrows. It was a disorienting mess of sound and silence and noise and clamour and confusion and anger and fear and disappointment and shock and so many things in between. I had to sit down and close my ears for the din was driving me crazy and it did drive me crazy. I might have left a few screws along the wayside, I wouldn't know. Not yet anyway.

Many long nights were spent in unnecessary, needless contemplation. Many long hours were spent in uncalled for contemplation and introspection where every wound and every pain was dragged out of the mud again and again and again and again like an endless cacophony of sound and chaos and poisoned smog. Many long, quiet moments were spent in endless, needless thinking. About things. About things that were unwise to spent any time and grey matter on. Unwise. Nobody said one was wise. We are all not wise. For the most part, we humans, we are unwise beings.

Maybe I was happy once. But that was in the past. And the past is over. And it's gone. And where we are now is here today. Where I am now is here today. The past is gone and maybe I was happy once but that was in the past. There will be many things that will break your heart. Smash it to the ground and shatter it to smithereens. Run over it with a bulldozer and Zamboni the whole damn thing into the cold icy ground before you. There will be many things that will break your heart again and again and again and make you doubt the very fabric and purpose of your existence in this wide, cruel world. There will be many things that will make you cry your now non-existent but somehow still hurting like a motherfucker heart out every night into your pillow. That will make you sob the night away and squint into the morning sunlight with your puffed up teary eyes and repeat the whole damn process again the following night. There will be many things that will make you feel like the world's going greyer and greyer every day like every single pinch of sorrow is bleaching the colour right out of your world, making it go from Technicolour to a dull shade of bleh. Even grey is too good a shade for it. There will be many things that dash your heart into the ground and rend it and squish it till it leaves a bloody mess behind which you have no idea how to fix and just stare at.

But we must all just carry on. With our broken hearts, with our dulled out and disillusioned minds and souls, with sorrow weighing heavy on our spirits, we must join in on the endless march. And we shall carry, we must drag our burdens and our baggage behind us and carry on for there is nothing else to it. And maybe one day, we can finally find a way to let go of it and leave it behind.

Maybe I'll be happy again one day. But for now, the only thing to it would be to just carry on.