Everything begins to fade to grey, beyond what can be seen and heard and touched and tasted. As though the meaning in life and in being alive can actually be bleached away, like a simple chemical reaction.
Certain thoughts strike my consciousness suddenly, their sporadic impulse to surface completely outside my jurisdiction. If even I cannot control my own thoughts, then I must indeed be losing my sense of self, or giving in to a subconscious that is threatening to kill me.
Looking back at some stuff I wrote before, I realise that I have once again returned to a damned spot (or perhaps I have never really left it!) And that I am my own captor. How does one break free from oneself?
************
CLAUSTROPHOBIA
I am trapped.
Threading on dust, despair weighing heavy on my back.
The world is closing in on me.
What once were my hopes, the bright vision of my dreams, my future
Those mental images have begun to die
As though I look through a stained screen at them, helpless as they fade.
I will never understand why part of my heart trembles to know how I am falling,
And yet part of me sees with all rationality the righteousness in conformity.
I have walked, trying to take my mind off these troubled thoughts
Of escape, of completely leaving all that I have done these 3 years, more.
As though part of me will never find fulfillment, never find satisfaction in my own deeds.
Why this awareness, this wretched form of rumination?
I will never understand how
I stand in my own way to happiness, to joy
That strange light and darkness that seduces, eludes, and forever enchants
In a spell that cannot be broken
And thus my entanglement tightens, and the depression
Rises and falls in a cycle that bewails its own fate even as
Somewhere within the masochist moans in pleasure…
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
Vertigo Attack
Am not thinking straight, and the room is spinning around unpredictably. Waves of dizziness. Brain seems to be whirling around inside my skull. Need to shut eyes, shut the moving walls out.
Sense of balance almost completely disrupted by some shit going on inside my own head, and I have no idea what it is.
Too many scattered thoughts.
Forced to listen to colleague's Cantopop ballads. Too loud, too distracting. Found mould growing on 2-day-old coffee and tea residue in cups left in office conference room over the weekend. Wondering why I am always the one washing up after others in workplaces. Possible retribution for not helping out at home. Microwaved dishwashing sponge and coffee cups in state of paranoia. Hate mould and fungus. To me these growths are like the most base, silently barbaric symbol of putrification. Simple living things, parasitic, prehistoric, impossible to escape from, spawns uncontrollably, waiting to be seen with utmost disgust. Literally looks like cancer of the physical world.
Call me a clean freak, perhaps.
The oppressive grey dankness and sheer lack of cleanliness in this workplace is really making me feel claustrophobic. Even the eerily narrow toilet has been giving us problems of late, spewing water in revolt to mere flushing and causing the drainage outlet on the floor to overflow, vomitting all manner of filth from the sewerage system of this building that looks like it's trapped in a 70's time-warp both from the outside and from within. Dingy is an understatement.
Feel disconnected from a meaningful life, and circumstances certainly feed that realisation.
Seem to be partying too hard with a bunch of folk I don't belong with, getting roped into the lives of persons I shouldn't feel emotionally connected to, knowing bits of information that only confuse my beliefs or values about relationships, love, life, and the future. Truth, youthful idealism, steadfast adherence to Christian virtues, and that basic understanding of what is right and wrong - all seem shaky now. Relativity becomes a justifiable excuse, to escape judgement, to defend behaviour in a lifestyle based on more than just double-standards and morally challenged choices.
Maybe when it all boils down to nothing, money drives economy and sex drives society. We survive on the material rewards for our probably mindless toil, sweating blood for gold, working all our hours away, and seek pleasure just as relentlessly with our fellow humankind when we can find the time to f**k each other. (What an irony, that phrase. Human beings are f**king each other up, down, in all directions wherever, whenever, however, mentally, physically, emotionally, sometimes even spiritually. We have an amazing capacity for being cruel to our own species, do we not? And yet we cannot bear being left alone, for fear of ourselves. So if we do not seek to destroy each other, we will plunge straight into the pit of self-destruction. Yes? Or perhaps I am being way too cynical, underestimating the "milk of human kindness".)
And life passes thus, day by day. Maybe there is nothing else worth living for? Only Carpe Diem, only in the transcient now?
What if one day you are left alone, and looking into yourself being alive, you find nothing more than an automaton, a living robot controlled by the society you live in?
......
I had a major epiphany one morning, rushing into the pathetically vintage building that houses my office. It was as though God had suddenly pressed His finger down on my head, striking my mind with that searing realisation that made my heart stop for a moment.
I have to give this up. I have to QUIT all this and GO. ESCAPE.
And in the end, I repressed that panic-inducing urge and made a conscious choice in an opposite direction: that I would stay for another 6 months to prove myself here, to achieve the results that were expected of me.
Am I a complete fool? Or have I gotten too used to the utterly pathetic habit of denying myself what I want in times of burning desire?
At this point in time I am unable to contemplate the clear answer to this question, probably because the increasing workload and sheer mundanity of this job, nearly completely against the grain of my personal interests, have slowly and surely constructed a veneer of numbness over this time I've spent here. I am tormented, yes, occasionally bursting with frustrated anger, yes, but the numbness acts as a shield preventing it all from raging uncontrolled.
......
A gathering of classmates/school-friends some weeks ago led to a lengthy, humourous, bullshit-filled discussion on sex lives, virginity, and promiscuity. All of a sudden my peers were divulging their preferences (These were mostly guy comments, note: "If you've never had a virgin before, stick to non-virgins, trust me on that." "I'd f**k a guy if I felt he was the right one. A threesome is fine with me as long as it's a hot guy. The girl can watch." "Pulse-optional, man!" "The word Celibacy should be removed from the English Dictionary!") and though I played along to the general discussion, I cannot deny my amazement at the parallels between what they were talking about (they apparently indulged in debauchery, but let's give that the benefit of the doubt for now.) and what I was actually seeing in my older friends' lives.
The vicious cycle churning us inexorably, replicas all, in this societal machine? Yes.
Does being alive entail being somehow drilled into living as pleasure-seeking slaves to an undeniable, rampant urge to f**k each other? Perhaps.
Somehow all these thoughts make me feel less human, and yet I realise my own weaknesses, my ignorance. My idealism, that stuff of dreams that supposedly gives our lives true meaning, seems tainted with a naivete that is now bleeding into cynicism.
Sense of balance almost completely disrupted by some shit going on inside my own head, and I have no idea what it is.
Too many scattered thoughts.
Forced to listen to colleague's Cantopop ballads. Too loud, too distracting. Found mould growing on 2-day-old coffee and tea residue in cups left in office conference room over the weekend. Wondering why I am always the one washing up after others in workplaces. Possible retribution for not helping out at home. Microwaved dishwashing sponge and coffee cups in state of paranoia. Hate mould and fungus. To me these growths are like the most base, silently barbaric symbol of putrification. Simple living things, parasitic, prehistoric, impossible to escape from, spawns uncontrollably, waiting to be seen with utmost disgust. Literally looks like cancer of the physical world.
Call me a clean freak, perhaps.
The oppressive grey dankness and sheer lack of cleanliness in this workplace is really making me feel claustrophobic. Even the eerily narrow toilet has been giving us problems of late, spewing water in revolt to mere flushing and causing the drainage outlet on the floor to overflow, vomitting all manner of filth from the sewerage system of this building that looks like it's trapped in a 70's time-warp both from the outside and from within. Dingy is an understatement.
Feel disconnected from a meaningful life, and circumstances certainly feed that realisation.
Seem to be partying too hard with a bunch of folk I don't belong with, getting roped into the lives of persons I shouldn't feel emotionally connected to, knowing bits of information that only confuse my beliefs or values about relationships, love, life, and the future. Truth, youthful idealism, steadfast adherence to Christian virtues, and that basic understanding of what is right and wrong - all seem shaky now. Relativity becomes a justifiable excuse, to escape judgement, to defend behaviour in a lifestyle based on more than just double-standards and morally challenged choices.
Maybe when it all boils down to nothing, money drives economy and sex drives society. We survive on the material rewards for our probably mindless toil, sweating blood for gold, working all our hours away, and seek pleasure just as relentlessly with our fellow humankind when we can find the time to f**k each other. (What an irony, that phrase. Human beings are f**king each other up, down, in all directions wherever, whenever, however, mentally, physically, emotionally, sometimes even spiritually. We have an amazing capacity for being cruel to our own species, do we not? And yet we cannot bear being left alone, for fear of ourselves. So if we do not seek to destroy each other, we will plunge straight into the pit of self-destruction. Yes? Or perhaps I am being way too cynical, underestimating the "milk of human kindness".)
And life passes thus, day by day. Maybe there is nothing else worth living for? Only Carpe Diem, only in the transcient now?
What if one day you are left alone, and looking into yourself being alive, you find nothing more than an automaton, a living robot controlled by the society you live in?
......
I had a major epiphany one morning, rushing into the pathetically vintage building that houses my office. It was as though God had suddenly pressed His finger down on my head, striking my mind with that searing realisation that made my heart stop for a moment.
I have to give this up. I have to QUIT all this and GO. ESCAPE.
And in the end, I repressed that panic-inducing urge and made a conscious choice in an opposite direction: that I would stay for another 6 months to prove myself here, to achieve the results that were expected of me.
Am I a complete fool? Or have I gotten too used to the utterly pathetic habit of denying myself what I want in times of burning desire?
At this point in time I am unable to contemplate the clear answer to this question, probably because the increasing workload and sheer mundanity of this job, nearly completely against the grain of my personal interests, have slowly and surely constructed a veneer of numbness over this time I've spent here. I am tormented, yes, occasionally bursting with frustrated anger, yes, but the numbness acts as a shield preventing it all from raging uncontrolled.
......
A gathering of classmates/school-friends some weeks ago led to a lengthy, humourous, bullshit-filled discussion on sex lives, virginity, and promiscuity. All of a sudden my peers were divulging their preferences (These were mostly guy comments, note: "If you've never had a virgin before, stick to non-virgins, trust me on that." "I'd f**k a guy if I felt he was the right one. A threesome is fine with me as long as it's a hot guy. The girl can watch." "Pulse-optional, man!" "The word Celibacy should be removed from the English Dictionary!") and though I played along to the general discussion, I cannot deny my amazement at the parallels between what they were talking about (they apparently indulged in debauchery, but let's give that the benefit of the doubt for now.) and what I was actually seeing in my older friends' lives.
The vicious cycle churning us inexorably, replicas all, in this societal machine? Yes.
Does being alive entail being somehow drilled into living as pleasure-seeking slaves to an undeniable, rampant urge to f**k each other? Perhaps.
Somehow all these thoughts make me feel less human, and yet I realise my own weaknesses, my ignorance. My idealism, that stuff of dreams that supposedly gives our lives true meaning, seems tainted with a naivete that is now bleeding into cynicism.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Impossible Tasks
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
by Os Hillman
But He answered, "You give them something to eat." ~ Mark 6:37a
Has anyone ever asked you to do something that seems totally ridiculous? The very suggestion of their instruction may have brought laughter or even anger for proposing the idea.
I imagine that the disciples may have felt this way when Jesus responded with this comment when they asked him how they were going to feed the 5000, who had stayed around to hear him speak. The disciples suggested a logical answer to the problem, "Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat" (Mk 6:36).
That wasn't the answer Jesus wanted. He saw the need of the people. He had compassion on them. He wanted to solve the problem with a Kingdom response, not logic. He asked them what they had in their hand.
So often what we already have in our hand is what Jesus wants us to use to solve our problems. We must add faith to what we already have in our hand. Then we will see the gospel of the Kingdom manifested to solve problems in a supernatural way. Jesus wanted to meet a need in which God would receive the glory. Sending the people away did not meet the need, nor did it bring glory to the Father.
Do not settle for the gospel of salvation only. Jesus came that we might experience the gospel of the Kingdom in its fullest sense. Our job is to look past our logical reasoning and see how God might want to solve our problem in a supernatural way.
by Os Hillman
But He answered, "You give them something to eat." ~ Mark 6:37a
Has anyone ever asked you to do something that seems totally ridiculous? The very suggestion of their instruction may have brought laughter or even anger for proposing the idea.
I imagine that the disciples may have felt this way when Jesus responded with this comment when they asked him how they were going to feed the 5000, who had stayed around to hear him speak. The disciples suggested a logical answer to the problem, "Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat" (Mk 6:36).
That wasn't the answer Jesus wanted. He saw the need of the people. He had compassion on them. He wanted to solve the problem with a Kingdom response, not logic. He asked them what they had in their hand.
So often what we already have in our hand is what Jesus wants us to use to solve our problems. We must add faith to what we already have in our hand. Then we will see the gospel of the Kingdom manifested to solve problems in a supernatural way. Jesus wanted to meet a need in which God would receive the glory. Sending the people away did not meet the need, nor did it bring glory to the Father.
Do not settle for the gospel of salvation only. Jesus came that we might experience the gospel of the Kingdom in its fullest sense. Our job is to look past our logical reasoning and see how God might want to solve our problem in a supernatural way.
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