How do we cope?

Typed on April 4th //

The world is full of people. And that makes it all the more ironic how there are so many lonely people, how we isolate one another, how we sometimes choose to turn away from another living, feeling being's emotions. 

One human is only so much. Yet one human could be everything to another, or take everything from another. Some of us live blind to the pain of others, some of us live blinded by the pain we suffer. That's how able and yet crippled we are in every breath we take. Everyone deserves to be loved, but who has the heart to love everyone? It hurts me to think that I can't do that even though I know I want to and even though I'm conscious of that. 

It hurts me to think about how many people need help in this world but will never receive it. It just hurts right now, in this night, and it's dramatic but it brings tears and I wish I could do something to make it all okay. 

And I'm more than aware of the fact that when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll again be numb and blind so as to preserve my sanity. And I'll believe that we can't focus on the negativity forever. But right now, it hurts a little, and perhaps, now, a little less.

We can't change the whole world, but we could start with changing the world for one person. 

Build or break

As we build our walls, laying brick by boring brick, we contemplate leaving doors, windows, even just a peephole, to remember how the outside seems to be.

To leave that leeway is to allow entrance to within. To even care about what's outside, it suggests that though the candle inside of our hearts may be flickering, but it's not out yet. As social creatures we yearn everyday to keep the warmth in our hearts. As me, I wonder every day what to measure my life by: accomplishments, or love?

We could all be quick to jump to judgment, and essentially I know life needs no measure. But when dilemmas are placed in your life, often we, or maybe just I, wish there was an easier way to rationally decide. 

I could build my wall to climb, or break my walls to reach. Either way, I risk losing some bit of myself. 

Breathless

Really tired right now. The past days I've been burying myself in work, seeking relaxation in small doses of joy now and then. But I can't sleep right now. Had a relaxed Saturday night for the first time in a long while, but as I lay in bed, trying to solely concentrate on breathing evenly, I couldn't.

Why are people so damned complicated? We should all have a "let it be, let's be happy" attitude in social relationships. Let go of grudges and stubborn opinions. Embrace differences and enjoy understanding.

It's not easy, but it certainly isn't any more difficult then being upset about shit all the time. No big deal, man.

Emptiness

Wow. I didn't even realize it's been over three months since my last post. I could probably take it as a good sign of not having anything depressing to blog about (well, I did disclaim that I only blog when I'm down) but I know for sure that it's not the case. So I'm not sure why. Perhaps I'm censoring my thoughts more than before. Funny realizing now how I used to always obsess over writing a flaw-free blog post; I forgot during this void how much I love writing. It's good that it's gradually returning though! It's a healthy way for me to get over my emotions, which can be overwhelming at times. Recently I've been feeling like the smaller person, when I always used to believe I could forgive and forget and let go and simply make the best out of situations. I hope what used to be comes back to me. I've been so so petty, so sensitive, so damn shallow for too long a while already. It's time I got over things and learnt and moved on. Hopefully those values I treasure will return then. For me to be wiser, better, bigger-hearted. 

24 days late but definitely not too late for resolutions. May I learn better and move on in this new year. :) I was genuinely going to blog about some negative feelings I was having, but as the words spilled out, I gradually realized how cryptic that usually ends up. So, I rather I reflect. Better than uselessly moping for sure.

/edit: lmao look at how the title and content are a mismatch, very aptly so. 

?

People don't believe you when you tell them the bad truth, because that's not what they wanna hear. When you prove yourself right, it then makes everyone unhappy. Is that why people lie, why people go to lengths to hide certain things? To save everyone the trouble of hurting? Perhaps. Yes. Yes.

That's why I prefer it too.

Two types of withdrawal symptoms

One is whereby you suffer from withdrawing. The other is in which you withdraw because you're suffering.

The second should be so much better, unless it's followed by the first.

/edited.

Reason & emotion // Superego & id

I always think I'm damn logical and reasonable. But when I end up feeling shitty over the 'right' decisions I've made, I wonder - are they really worth it, and am I actually emotional and needy of happiness rather than correctness?

Such a dilemma, isn't it. For my Creative Writing class this week, we're supposed to write on the tensions between reason and emotion. Reading on research from a psych perspective, it says that emotions are an automatic system, while reasoning is controlled. I guess I can parallel this to another topic I blogged about previously, about the brain and how there are the desires of the id, and the morals of the superego. Then I guess, the ego probably directs and manages both these sets of opposites.

I wish the ego was as simple a matter as how proud I was. Lawl. Meh.

From time to time I should give in to my emotions, my desires. If I'm just going to keep listening strictly to my morals and reasons, I'm going to become so emotionally tortured...

I just hope it all plays out well.
Please do.
Because when it comes to emotions, the game becomes not just about you anymore.

Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

 I always thought this poem was about God, until I read the Wiki. Lmao turns out it's only the first stanza to a much longer poem, and it doesn't seem like what I thought anymore.

Makes a world of difference knowing a little, and knowing more. Most of the time we're too ignorant.

Social disease

Let's stop spreading our pessimism, stop complaining, stop quoting sad shit. Why don't we all think positive, smile more, and despite what may bring us down, remember that when you're down, when you feel like you've hit rock bottom, the only thing left to do is to go back up. Difficult as it is, it happens.

It's too damn demoralizing when I visit Twitter lol.

I'm no psychic

"One step forward, two steps back" is so cliche because it's so true and applicable. It's my mindset, and as much as I try to kick it, it kicks right back in.

Let me be? Let me be.

Slow and steady

It's been a while since I've posted! Been occupied, lol. Anyway, I'm still reading that self-improvement book, and I'm trying to apply it to my life. I'm also trying to be more open, bit by bit. Right now what I need to figure out though, is what I really want. What is it that I crave and makes me happy and is good for me? What is good for me, and, am I even good for anybody? I'm not saying I'm not, but these are doubts I'm always getting which really hamper me, and I need to figure them out. I guess in a sense, the reason why I like doing socially-beneficial stuff is 'cause I wanna convince myself that I'm someone who makes things better. Sigh, my superego /cues psychology geekiness/ is such a pain in the ass.

To elaborate on this, Sigmund Freud has a theory on the human psyche. There's the id, which is basically your innate desires, your superego, which is your ideals and morals, and lastly the ego, which serves to regulate the two so that you don't die of guilt nor go around raping people lol. Pardon me if I remembered anything wrongly hahhaha. For me, I think my id and superego are both really strong. That's why sometimes my ego goes on overdrive and all these doubts and confusion starts to kick in, making me wonder who I really am. Sounds like an identity crisis? Hahaha, perhaps. But awareness of a problem is a major key in reaching the solution, so I believe I'm probably nearing there. :)

Man of steel

I'm just so tired. No one understands the amount of consideration I put into my decisions. If even superheroes get tired, what more me?

Normalcy

Fear is a figment of your imagination. Danger is real, and very pressing, but fear is not. Fear cripples you in the face of danger.

I learnt this from watching After Earth, and it's funny because it may very well be my only takeaway from the film. It was pretty mediocre I gotta say! Thankfully the company wasn't. :)

Fear stops us from many things. It's okay to acknowledge danger (in fact, it saves our lives), but we have too many unneeded fears that, instead of keeping us alive, prevent us from being more alive. Fear is a figment of our own imagination. We're keeping ourselves from leading fulfilling lives.

Ever heard of the law of attraction? I just started reading a self-improvement book (heheheh) and it says that when you think happy thoughts, you meet happy events. Of course you'd think this is bull, "Wtf man I also think I will do very well but in the end like shit!" But hey. Look at how negative you're being! You think that one positive thought is enough to change things? No. It isn't! You have to be a positive person through and through to achieve things. Be courageous, be adventurous, be happy. Believe sincerely that you'd be. Everything is all in the mind. If fear can cripple you, faith can change things and move mountains ya.

Burning

I'm like setting everything on fire. How apt is it that I'm having a fever now... I'm setting off sparks, starting fires, fanning them bigger. I'm doing crazy things.

I need to stop, I'm scorching myself. And it hurts, much more differently than what appears to be surface level.

I'm crazy.

Upstream

Whenever I see people posting stuff along the lines of "The people who smile the widest are the saddest", I always feel sad. Part of me tries to agree with it since I do feel sad very often, but then again, who doesn't feel down once in a while? And so I feel like saying that or agreeing to that is ... not legit. C'mon, I don't want to be seen as secretly hurting when I smile. I want to really be happy. If I see any more of that, I'm going to end up always pitying myself when I smile, which is gonna be always... Sigh, lol. Humans are bundles of contradictions.

Unsafe

Let's just focus on fencing, go back to work, and think less.

These walls around us

So many things in my mind, but there aren't really any words to say. It's hard for me to express myself properly sometimes because, my thought processes don't seem to occur in words. They're more of feelings and memories and scenes and jumbled concepts I'm not even sure about myself. And I can't even imagine fully explaining this in words. It's impossible.

Sometimes I tweet about things and I wonder if anyone really knows what I'm trying to convey. I'm not saying I need everyone to, because I honestly don't want that kind of transparency, but I wish I'd know if someone understood. If someone understands. But nah. Everyone's a complexly woven soul and it's best you explain what you are through your own efforts. I wish it was easier though, since expression's not my forte.

One thing I wanted to tweet today but decided not to:

"We sway like the trees in the wake of breezes"

Lol sorry if I tried too hard to be poetic, I really really like pretty vocabulary..... That aside, I was trying to say.. Um. When soft winds blow past a tree, the tree tilts in that certain direction. When that passes, the tree that is still rooted firmly in morals, in values, in opinions, un-tilts and sways a little from that momentum. This goes on that way whenever there are breezes. What it takes to uproot this tree -- this person -- is to wait for a typhoon or hurricane. But the more roots you have, the more morals, values, experiences, the harder for that to happen. You will always sway, but you won't be rudely unrooted.

How rooted am I? I wish I knew.

Public disease

Ok this post is gonna be really political-science-geeky ahahaha. So I was just reading up about public goods, which I think you would know too if you've taken economics, and it was about how providing this good to anyone within the territory effectively means it's provided to everyone in the territory. This leads to the free-rider problem of no one wanting to provide 'dem, and so the government has to take up the responsibility.

In tandem with this, I think a concept of 'public responsibility' should be more strongly advocated. Maybe it already is, Idk, but I'm lazy to google right now lol. Public responsibility is something that the government has to instill, because it's not something which's effects a government can solely bring. For example, recycling. To a lot of us we wouldn't normally give two hoots about it since it's not like you throw a piece of paper into the trash  bin and then you see a tree being chopped down with your own eyes. That's why governments have campaigns, movements to hopefully instill these ideas of 'saving the world' in our minds, and 'public awareness' is the keyword nowadays, where knowledge and statistics of all our atrocities are used to guilt-trip us into changing. I mean, this is something we all probably already know at the back of our minds, but it doesn't actually seem to be really in practice, not in Singapore at least. We do recycle stuff and save electricity occasionally, but other things like being courteous and helpful, or donating money, necessities or even love to our local needy, etc., seem to still be lacking. Public responsibility should really be pushed for in many more areas other than for natural resources, after all, the society is what impacts the environment, and with our society still lacking here and there, how do we really save more of the environment we live in?

Going back to public goods, I think having a strong sense of public responsibility in a state would introduce two new dimensions to public goods, where 1) widespread benefits don't necessarily have to always be directly provided by the government, but would also be by the combined hands of the society, and 2) includes abstract goods like happiness and whatnot. You could say this is pretty idealistic, but what I'm proposing is a concept; a direction where I think we should head in. Well, we can't rely on the government to do everything for us, also, we should be doing much more for fellow people ourselves than for anything else. Then together, I'm sure we could better work out something for this environment which we're currently destroying.

Yep ........time to sleep xx

Wonderwall

Been hooked on Wonderwall by Oasis after today's karaoke session. Song lyrics have always called out to me for as long as I can remember. Like as long ago as, "It's us, it's us, it's us who build community," /inserts hand actions/ hahaha! I guess that's part of the reason why I really like languages, the way they help people express themselves and sometimes, they way they flow or rhyme, or just sound pleasant in a string.

I rarely express my emotions, and I think it's hard to know what I'm thinking. I guess it's a form of security for myself.. On the other hand, I read into words a lot to figure out what people are thinking. Recently though, I've been wondering if that's something I should change, because not everyone puts much thought in their words all the time, and reading too much into them would just give me inaccurate ideas. For myself, too, I realize the possible meanings I may be conveying through what I say sometimes only after I've said it. Everyone infers differently, perceives words differently, so I guess I should stop thinking so much about it. Damn this 'occupational' disease from taking Linguistics in JC, lol.

XV

Everything seems like a city of dreams,
I never know why,
But I still miss you

There she's standing in a field of lights
I close my eyes,
And I still miss you