wandering galaxies

It never really ends, wandering. We daydream of the various and multiple possibilities that have been. We seek them to play God, to gain a certain semblance of certainty and control in our haphazard dull life; to feel interesting; to spice up whatever variants of our life. We conjure multiple worlds and parallel dimensions of what could be. I skirt around Romeo and Juliet and cry wolf at the superficiality of their romance (infatuation)? When I think of tragic love stories and romance, it is not the images of suicide and family bitterness that pains and tugs me but the tragedy of parallel lines, and lovers in parallel dimensions. I search for tragedy in science fiction because what could be more romantic and tragic than parallel lines, lovers stuck in multiple dimensions unable to meet?

The emotional appeal and catharsis of tragedy is in its mimesis of life and action. Or so as Aristotle says. I love(d) the idea of Shakespearean’s cosmic irony - the notion that fate toys with human hopes & expectations; indifferent to the individual lives of the men. When Doctor meets Rose at The End of The World, separated by a thin spatial-temporal wall, palm facing palm, heart syncing heart. Or  when Murakami’s boy meets the 100% Perfect Girl in a perfect cherry blossomed falling day, failing to recognise her a decade later. Or when Platonic lovers transversed through different times and centuries to find their would-be half. That lamenting irony of believing themselves to be ideally fated such that even cruel Time and Fate could not tear the other. Well the joke is on them. Why throw away a gift and chance encounter in time to the hands of Fate?

the fragmented goodbye

I am my own person, own persona but who am I? Who am I? Am I not the sum of my parts - the perennial influences that have made me who I am? We wax lyrical on our residing souls, nature and constitution that truly defines, demarcates us but do we really exist as soul? Or do I exist as the perennial influences of my upbringing and that my bulwark of a soul is nothing but a falsified truth? I do not know for it is a neverending interplay of our environment and apparent make believed self-hood. I have been thinking that my self could have been conceived by chance, by hitsuzen – an inevitablity that is not by design or chance. It is a conscious and subconscious choice to be who I am. 'Cogito ergo sum' 'I think therefore I am' Descartes, you proclaim these theories of knowledge and self but how do we think good, successful and healthy thoughts when the thoughts around us are everything but good?

I am the sad and lonely constitution of my own influences – the materials I have been exposed to have defined an irreconcilable piece of me. Sylvia Plath's “How much of my brain is willfully my own?” and yet all that material could have not been my willful choice? They were inevitably by chance for as I sit here in the room with greenery around me, I might not have been here. I might have been somewhere, someone else by a tiny slip of fate. I could have been different. The 'what if' of the world are a dangerous place, they portend disaster and chaos of the mind because have not all the greatest crimes been conceived in the mind? To the thought polices in the world, silence them for they are the infants to thought crimes.

I should not dwell in my what if. I must not. It beckons path not taken, lost and missing conceptualistation of self. In another alternate universe, if I had walked Path A, I could have been whole. I could have been alive, burning and full but I have not walked Path A. In this universe, I have taken the path I have deemed aligned to my state of mind past and present. I have trek the empty road and the empty road will bring me to greater, narrower, further roads – arbituarily. But if only, I could will myself to the final destination. They say 'All roads lead to Rome'. If only, the self can will itself there but my conceptualisation is weak and failing. I am chipped and scabious and all the parts that constitute me will crumble in time. The glue that holds my scabious form is lost. I am all alone.


To The Outsiders, I apologize for my broken promise. I apologize for our flawed promise. Our dreams will not hold true for even as we take different paths, it might not lead us to Rome – the Holy Grail of our dreams.

All roads lead to Rome.
Isn't death the final destination and the Rome of all man?

What an ironic, twisted joke would it be if the proverb is true.

-

But I hope not, I still desire, möchte for our whirlwind trip to Europe. I still desire to be whole again. Self-egoism has no place in an universe designed by contingent occurences. I am alone, we are all alone and we will be alone together.

hello, audrey hepburn

Scan from Audrey Hepburn: A Life in Pictures

Reading Audrey Hepburn's biographies have made me realized something that resides deep inside within me. I have come to a conclusion that the lack of emotions that has characterized me is not founded on my deadpan expressions, but rooted in a “inherent sadness” of the heart. This sounds absolutely ludicrous but somewhere, under all these thoughts and chaos, I think I am alot like her. There must be a reason why I am even compelled to like her at all. Maybe this explains my subconscious gravitation and subliminal interest in her.

The description could have been offered by Audrey’s son, who later wrote of “the inner sadness she had always carried inside her.”

I think I am happy. But, sometimes, somewhere and somehow, I feel like there is an Audrey Hepburn inside of me or even an Antoinette Cosway. (Not in her elegance or mannerism). Both ladies have an incredibly deep need for affection. Antoinette's circumstances and unfulfilled desire for attention and affection drove her mad and delirious, causing her to become an empty broken shell. Similarly, Audrey's fervent need for attention could not be met by her ex-husbands, leading to her strings of failed marriages. And somewhere under all my smiles and merriment, there resides an Antoinette, an Audrey fervently craving to fill that voidness, that loneliness deep in me.

 Loneliness is a scary thought but I do not fear the conventional terms of loneliness. I actually enjoy solitude and the act of being alone where I can be amused with my thoughts and allowed the space for inward reflection. But this loneliness that I fear, so much, is the dark grim feeling of never belonging. Never belonging to anywhere, any person, anything.

 Moreover, this might sounds ridiculous but sometimes, I feel like I am happy because I lead myself to believe that I am happy. Somehow I am influencing my own thoughts through my understanding of certain philosophies. Descartes' I think therefore I am postulates that the we only have control of our thoughts and they define our perceptions, actions and consequently who we are. So by aligning myself with Descartes' philosophy, I justify myself into thinking optimistic thoughts and to not dwell in my own apathy and sadness. In some ways, the justification is working. I mean right now, I feel pretty good about life.

However, my best friend intuited this 'innate' sadness and even casually said, “You are so not emotional. I guess you are just really good at it.” He said it as a matter of fact, casually, as if it meant nothing. But I think he knew, he knew under all that messy piles of my 'identities', there is an inherent sadness that I try to hide and avoid. Because he did slip something about this issue in another conversation before.

 And you know what, it has taken me an ardous time to come to this: it's true.

 Hypothetically, I don't feel because I am driven by fear of emotions – fear of sadness. Can you even fear emotions when fear itself is an emotion? I don't know. Anger, Jubilance, Frustration, Excitement, Passion – they are beautiful, rich emotions and I revere in them because they make you feel intensely alive. To be alive is a grand thing. But I fear feeling crestfallen. It's a sick and unbearable emotion. It does nobody any good and it's an incredibly lonely emotion. Insulation of the mind and heart.

I just realized why I relate to Audrey Hepburn, I feel that 'inherent sadness' too. I feel it in the inches of my fingertips, in the cores of my body and it throbs silently, insidiously. It is a gradual culmination of sadness where you never really notice it until the build up peaks and the torrent of emotions asphyxiates you. And you just lie on your bed for hours, for days. And you can't feel any more, numb and raw. And at that point, you can't even cry. Drained, exhausted from living while voidness and emptiness settles in. In that moment, you just lie there, zombi, Antoinette-like. Numb and lifeless. But, I choose to ignore that inner sadness, hiding them in some deep recesses of my mind by manipulating my thoughts. I guess this is why I like to cry and rarely holds my tear in. I don't bother trying because to me, crying makes me feel alive. The detachment from emotions and inability to cry is terribly lonely.



*

1. Antoinette Cosway from Jean Rhy's Wide Sargasso Sea
2. Descartes' cogito ego sum postulation and theory of the mind

I guess I am not good enough. I was fatuous to believe that I was minimally decent and fitting. But hello, this is the brutal reality. R-e-a-l-i-t-y is not for the faint-hearted, weak minded and the ignorant.

Ignorance: extension of the gullible. Hello M.R, rolling, here to devour unassuming dorky kids. 

 Hey Mr. Willy Wonka, I am still waiting for my golden ticket to your Chocolate Factory. What am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to write? Sometimes, I really feel like my words are meaningless. Everything. Mr. Wonka could beguile with his chocolates, could charm the whole world with his craft. And me? I can’t paint the esoteric, surreal images in my dreams, can’t evoke and film the stories I want to share. I can’t even craft a sentence to articulate these circling thoughts, this quagmire of emotions.

 I will always be second-rate. My sister ascribes that I am an unemotional robot, hackneyed of feelings. And I see the truth in her opinion. However, the very act of writing about my lacking worth is highly ironic in itself. I am being emotional right now. I don’t know, I like to talk in circles and tangents because it distracts me. Distracts me from emotional chaos. I can’t corralled my own emotions, can’t even corralled my own thoughts. I like writing about circles, about anything, about metaphors and allusions or even on the word itself (W-O-R-D) to distract myself. This is depressing.

I will never be good enough. I harp on techniques but fail to address myself. I fail to hold the mirror upright and stare straight back at my reflection. This is what happens to disappointed dreamers.