Abstraction from the freezer

My rational self has taken its toll like a curse, for years and for endless moments on days to end, I keep thinking about things that I should be thinking about - work, what I’d do the next morning, where I’d go tonight, how I’ll empty the well of work that seems bottomless. My preoccupation with the routine of living life, that is, of being routinely 'rational' has eaten all that is supposed to be what artists call ‘creative juices’. I bore myself with writing technical reports, that’s what I do for a living, boring myself, maybe until my last breath. And since I live a very ordinary life, the kind of life that makes me even doubt of my own existence, I do not have anything interesting to write about except maybe, when at sudden bouts of clearheaded drunkenness, I find the world a little bit bearable. Then my diary gets a fair account of my mind.

At long periods of ‘normalcy’, I can’t imagine things and my mind is confined within narrow technicalities of executing tasks in the rigid, mechanical life that I am used to. The mind that should be left to wander traverses the same path everyday so much so that the unfamiliar recesses of consciousness are left idle, barren, unexplored. I can not go back to that road, or at the end of the road as often as I used to, new patches of grass have sprouted, animals scattered all over the place that makes me uncomfortable. It’s like being in a familiar place but seeing different things, different people, something happened and it creates that uncomfortable feeling as if the place have known you all its life and yet treat with the same aloof disregard as everybody else.

Existential Preview

At the end of third year, while I was pirouetting, doing all kinds of tasks and losing my temper at the snap of a finger, I considered it was time to go. I don’t believe in keeping a job for the sake of keeping a JOB, so when I started dreading doing what I used to love doing, I started saying my goodbyes. I told myself that if I keep such a demanding job, life will really start at forty. By then, I will surely be too grumpy and grouchy for any saints’ patience that no one would want to accompany me in “getting a life”. They thought I was bluffing and for a time, I wanted to get away as soon as possible to prove my point. But to avoid appearing a pompous plutocrat, I stayed the requisite period for them to find a replacement.

While working for a development institution has hammered in me a noble responsibility of thinking for the “less fortunate individuals” (hah! condescending) I became too emotionally involved with work, not knowing where my personal life starts and my where my work starts. For a time, I confused friend with officemate, officemate with confidante. Though this worked for a time being, and helped me through my rainy days, I woke up one day and found out that life and friends may not necessarily be synonymous with WORK. I learned that while I can have friends and develop a good relationship with officemates, I should learn to keep a decent distance for my sanity.

For a time, my disengagement syndrome was masked by the vitality of school, etc, the etc taking up more space in my journal, but at the end of the semester when it started to wane, I had the sudden urge to do things I never got to do when I started working, problem is, I never knew what they were exactly. That was when I started enrolling in all sorts of classes. I thought my senses have completely abandoned me but I woke up this morning, they’re suddenly waking me up to pick LIFE from where I left it, enjoy whatever is left of the summer. Though I had to pay a high price to gain the lost momentum and had to endure the embarrassment of missing dance steps and mispronouncing all the words, I had to pick up the lessons from the riotous maze of life. Though I can not put an adage to what I learned, I get the feeling I am finally accepting that I cannot just throw away the 17 years of good education and pretend to be somebody else and do something without any purpose, whenever I feel like it. I have to face the responsibility of creating more positive externalities, otherwise, I shan’t be able to forgive myself for sitting idly by and letting life’s course take me on . I suffering from temporary messiahnic complex, i know, i know...

Frozen not stirred

At times, I feel that I do not own my mind, as if its just there to complete my human side, that I can not make it think of something other than the things that I keep thinking everyday. As the theory of reinforcement would no doubt suggest(whatever that is), the more I keep thinking about these things, the more my braincells get comfortable with the rhythmic ‘functional’ tasks. It can not be bothered to deal with the senseless feelings of loneliness, solitude, sorrow, love and other such rumblings which ironically sends one to heights of unearthly happiness and overflowing inspiration. I ran out of inspiration to appreciate and embrace life. I seem to have ceased feeling anything but numbness...