Though the reasons for my absence have been many, I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I refrained from writing for so long. Actually, my mind has been giving me a lot of trouble in the wrapping department lately. Seems like every time I try to wrap it around something, the darned thing proves itself about as much wrappable as an Electrasol Powergel Dishwater Detergent (with Power-Jet). Messy and slippery, I mean to say.

It has now been exactly 56 days, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 31 seconds since I turned eighteen. And that, to me, is the most un-wrappable thing in existence.

For me, age has always been one of those ‘things’ that every one is forever harping on about along with shopping, shoes and other such unworthy things. Until now, however, I had managed to tuck the whole ‘Age’ thing in a remote corner of my mind, something amounting to ‘just a number’, and nothing more. But now, suddenly, age is no longer about the numbers, but what society calls the ‘deeper stuff.’ I mean, Eighteen. Even the word Eighteen sounds so grown up. Compared to, say Twelve, which seems cheerful, Fifteen, which seems carefree, and Seventeen, which still manages to seem quite friendly, Eighteen sounds too menacing and grim and cold and serious.

And yet, the thing that I’m not able to understand, the thing that’s absolutely driving me mad, the thing I cannot figure out – is why I still cannot come to terms with it, despite trying my best to. That’s the funny thing. I don’t feel eighteen. I’m not talking about feeling ‘grown up’ and all that, just feeling eighteen, for what it is, nothing else.

But now I think of it, it’s not just to do with being eighteen. I’ve always felt any age but my own. Sometimes I feel like a total kid, but at other times I’m weighed down by things and thoughts, far advanced than my age, that scare me that I’m actually a 60 year old trapped in the body of an eighteen year old.

Maybe, as JE puts it, it’s due to my being more interested in eating the cake than in the number of candles it has. Or maybe it’s just due to my mind resembling Electrasol Powergel Dishwater Detergent (with Power-Jet) as usual.

Anyway, of all the darndest things,  ‘acting your age’ is certainly the most difficult. Is it something inherently impossible, or, does it, as with many other things, become better with time? If that’s the case, I hope it proves itself less slippery than Electrasol Powergel Dishwater Detergent (with Power-Jet) in the coming years.

‘What is the point?’

No doubt, you will gasp at the profundity and utter sagacity of this insight. I understand. As deep and thoughtful as this question is (Socrates and Plato would agree), I feel rather concerned that humans do not ask it often enough. Especially the folks at the Parliament, the judiciary, and every law-making body of the world. Those grimy, balding. terribly self-important people with a preference for stale banana milkshakes and an ability to think some of the most pointless rules in existence. Lawmakers, some would call them. A bunch of doddery old fools, is the term I prefer.

Of the many strange and mysterious things and unexplained phenomena that abound in our world, including the  possession of so-called writing skills by Pete Wentz and the re-election of George W Bush in ’04, perhaps no other phenomenon is as mysterious or unexplained as the Law. Indeed, such is the complexity and inscrutability of this dreaded school of thought, that concepts such as the quantum theory pale in comparison.

Now, I’m one of those people who love complexity as such, but love simplicity more. But one thing that irritates me more than anything else is the ridiculous precision, the exaggerated, long winding descriptions, perfectly normal terms hacked to tiniest details, and the tendency to define every term that contains more than one syllable.

I mean, consider this:

The Income Tax Act, 2007
…
993
An individual ( “A”) is connected with another individual ( “B”) if-
(a) A is B’s spouse or civil partner,
(b) A is a relative of B,
(c) A is the spouse or civil partner of a relative of B,
(d) A is a relative of B’s spouse or civil partner, or
(e) A is the spouse or civil partner of a relative of B’s spouse or civil partner.

Or this gem:

(1) For the purposes of this section a company is a petroleum company if-
(a) its activities include any relevant activities; or
(b) it is associated with a company whose activities include any relevant activities and its own activities include the ownership, operation or management of ships or pipelines (as defined in section 65 of the [1962 c. 58.] Pipelines Act 1962) used for transporting or conveying petroleum or petroleum products.

Like, HELLO! A petroleum company is considered a friggin’ petroleum company when it deals in the damned petrol!

I would give more such examples. but I do not want you, my dear reader, to go into a deep coma.

The basic purpose of law is to safeguard our rights as an individual and make life safer and easier. But modern law does precisely the opposite. Statements and declarations abound on paper. Action is mistaken for  the passing of bills. I wonder if they would come up with an official declaration on that too.

(We’re the folks who pass rules/Never mind that we are a bunch of fools/If you should be stabbed or get your jaw broken/There’s nothing more we can do than pass a token/We’re afraid, that’s the law/We won’t do anything about a broken jaw/’Practical’ is a term for us that isn’t supposed to be/It’s not in the book, you see/Yeah yeah yeah)

Alas, I know I am pursuing a lost cause. I may be the only person on the planet to criticise the Law (the Law is the law, after all) but I do this purely out of concern for my poor little brain, which hurts every time I come across  legal mumble-jumble. It’s been like this for centuries, of course, and no one’s complaining but me. Well, next time I’ll make sure I stay well out of a hundred mile radius of a legal document.

The first hurdle doesn’t pose too much of an inconvenience, but the other two do. Talking and sleeping, as everybody knows, are the two most important things in the world. And being the kind of person whose personal philosophy is ‘I talk, therefore I am’, I, more than any other could fully appreciate the agony of swallowing that disgusting bowl of oats without uttering a word. It seemed my voice had turned rather like one of those foul gooey medicines I’ve been prescribed by my physician, whose mission in life seems to force down as much medicine as he can down his patients’ throats.

Now, sleep. When i had done everything i could to ward of insomnia to no avail, I decided it was time for drastic measures. These drastic measures, I decided, were to be in the form of  ‘Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul‘ an atrociously mind-numbing book which had been gathering dust on my shelf for the past three years.

I open the book at a random page and start reading…

It wasn’t surprising that before long I was positively giddy about him. My friends told me I had no chance with a junior. My sister looked concerned for my potentially broken heart. But you can’t help who it is that you fall in love with, whether they are older or younger, taller or shorter, completely opposite or just like you. Emotion ran me over like a Mack truck when I was with him, and I knew that it was too late to try to be sensible. I was in love.

If that doesn’t make you fall asleep within five minutes, I doubt anything will.

Anyway, this ingenious discovery of a cure for insomnia notwithstanding, it would be wrong to assume that sleep was of help. If only the problems of the world could be solved by sleeping! I would definitely bag the Nobel Prize for Sleeping in that case. But I digress.

As I was ill, I wasn’t allowed to sit at the computer or watch TV or read, for fear of these activities putting a ‘strain’ on me, as the doctor put it. I would have told him that the only activity that is capable of putting a strain on me is listening to  Rihanna singing ‘Hate That I Love You’, but thought better of it.

One of the worst things about illness is the ever-present sense of idleness and exhaustion, co-existing simultaneously. Everything seems oppressive, and even the sight of fluffy teddy-bears seems annoying (at least to me). That’s when it begins to operate on psychological level. In an effort to drag my brain from the depths of despair, I hit upon a more brilliant solution. I raided my wardrobe and came up with the most disgustingly lurid clothes I could find. A bright-pink top that I loathe (I never wear pink) would do the trick, I thought. I know, stupid theory, but pink, whatever its faults, screams cheerful. And it worked, almost, my spirits had raised a notch somewhat.

I was down with viral fever, which went away within three days, but the Universe, not content with having its sinister plan executed in this manner, decided to add the finishing touches as well. General weakness prevailed, and I was convinced that it would be highly dangerous if I didn’t get well soon – no, not dangerous for me, but for the doctor, who was probably going to get strangled by me soon if he dared to prescribe me more of those yucky medicines.

When I was feeling better again I was allowed to walk around the house and climb up the stairs. I was so glad to have my health (and voice) back, I ended up in bed with sore ankles again later in the evening due to a hour’s worth of running up and down the stairs. I kid you not.

Anyway, the upshot of it all was that I now have a reputation of being ‘psychologically delicate’, which is rubbed in my face every time and which annoys me to no end. Hmph. When I end up finding the cure for cancer, I shall make sure I rub it in their faces at every opportunity I get. ;-)

I have no idea as to why I scribbled this on the last page of my notebook. The words, nonsensical in themselves of course, just came floating out of my head subconsciously (Really, I wasn’t smoking anything). I stared at them, then started laughing. I told D, ‘Oh wow, look at this – it’s a life-altering literary masterpiece.’

He too, stared. Then, apparently realising that I was joking, smirked. Of course I was joking. I was acting stupid for no reason (as I am tempted to do so time to time). ‘Well, it is, isn’t it?’ I persisted. ‘Makes a lot of sense.’

This was a bit too much for D. He smiled ruefully, informing me in stern tones that it didn’t make any sense at all.

‘Of course it doesn’t make sense!’ I countered. ‘It’s not supposed to make sense. Can’t you see?’ I thought that was fairly obvious.

D, who seemed quite irritated at my deliberate fit of stupidity-et-randomness, scowled and snapped: ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean, anyway? It has no meaning whatsoever, it just sounds…dumb.’

Upon which, my tirade promptly followed:

‘What the hell do you mean by meaning? I can’t believe this. Jesus. You folks are so narrow-minded! Honestly, do you really believe that everything has to have a – a meaning? Come on; learn to bend your minds a little. Not everything’s supposed to have a meaning. Think about how our world would be like if we went about trying to cram everything into structures and hierarchies, plastering cold logic on everything! I suppose you’d want to assign logic to fairies and fluffy bunnies too, eh?’

By now, D was looking quite alarmed at this sudden outburst. Secretly amused, I went on:

‘No, you want to broaden your mind a little. Look, some things come with their own meaning. Some things don’t – and more often than not, those things do matter. Because it’s your imagination that decides what or how it is. Your imagination that shapes it, makes it, controls it. So, learn to accept absurdities because, believe me, even nonsense is sense. In a different way, of course. This world and the things in it – the real things, are wonderful, but the unreal is even more wonderful.’

D was silent, staring at me. Then, suddenly, he picked up the notebook, read through the nonsensical words, and said, ‘Well…yeah. Deeply thoughtful, that is.’
We both burst into laughter.

I can hear it chiding now, but this time I am going to have my way.
*racks brains for something to write about*
Don’t be stupid, brain, I can’t possibly write about jumping monkeys on the moon. They don’t even exist, you silly bundle of nerves and neurons.

Oh no! Blasphemy! I repent!

Emily Dickinson, bless her, once said that the brain is ‘wider than the sky.’ (Never mind the fact that she would have redefined the whole geometry from a sky to a  subatomic particle had she happened to live in our times). Anyway, the point is, the human brain never fails to amaze me. On two levels: its sheer brilliance, and its utter stupidity. Extremes on the spectrum, but both equally amazing, you see.

My awe leads me to this unforgivable crime, oh, horror of all horrors, a poem composed in its honour.

It’s a bundle of nerves weighing barely three pounds
Yet actually wider than a sky on metaphorical grounds
Oh, it’s a wondrous little mechanism, all right
(Though, like a squeezed walnut, not exactly a pretty sight)

Old Freud, he couldn’t figure it out
Not that he was the only one about
Scourging the depths of the cup of the brain
Ended up only with a teaspoon in vain

But the riddle teases us right back
It’s nowhere as as easy as a MySpace hack
Like an old geezer put on public display
But who cares, MySpace sucks anyway

It’s best if you just give it a rest
Though we will never entirely tire of this quest
It seems the answer may elude us for a while
But we’ll get there by a long mile

I am now absolutely convinced of the feats of the human brain; for this, of course, is something only a talentless waste genius like me could produce. Shelley must be rolling in his grave. You made me do it, brain.

Oh Good Lord, my brain’s rebelling on me. I’m sorry for all the late night studying, please don’t leave me, okay? You’re all I’ve got.

Those impulsive, hastened, rushed, I-don’t-know-what-I-was-thinking moments. Oh, how I loathe them. Whether it is shooting my hand into the air in class as soon as a what, why, how, which is uttered by a teacher, or jumping down an innocent bystander’s throat when I catch them playing a song I dislike in public out loud, or deleting my previous posts by mistake – I don’t know how I manage to rise to extraordinary heights of stupidity.

Impatience, impulsiveness, irritability, I’m all rolled into one. I need patience more desperately than Wall Street needs credit, than George Bush needs grammar lessons, and Pete Wentz a decent haircut.

The other day, for instance, I had just finished explaining my case of why I thought non-rhyming poetry superior to the rhyming sort, to a classmate who stood there looking at me with a fazed expression on his face.

Me: …Rhyming poetry has an element of structural arrangement to it. Non-rhyming poetry is more open and free-flowing, you see. It’s unconventional, it doesn’t follow standard patterns. Therefore it seems somehow more natural, like sort of resembling a jigsaw falling into place…
Him: (interrupting) I’m sorry, what? I didn’t catch half of what you said. You talk too fast.
Me: (promptly shuts up)

Honestly, I have no idea why it has to be like this every time. Anyway, the moral of the story is:

1) When people say you talk too fast, it’s their fault for lacking in listening skills.
2) ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR STUFF. Unless you happen to have an awesome photographic memory like me, in which case you can type out yours posts word for word, like I did.

It was dissection in biology practicals the other day. Now, if there is any thing I hate more than getting up early in the morning, it is dissection. I cannot bring myself to dissect a page, let alone an organism. Anyway, the professor was demonstrating and I was only half-listening, trying somehow to force my brain into imagining that the shiny scalpel I held in my hand was a paintbrush or something.

So, the professor grabs the cockroach firmly in one hand, makes a sharp cut and – I swallow my gum. Accidentally. Uh oh. I freak out, rush to the nearest water bottle, grab it and gulp it all down. Class and professor stand stupefied, staring at me gulping down water in such a frenzy, slopping it all down my front.

Professor (to the class): Ah, now, look here. A common case. This particular practical may cause one to feel nauseous.
(turning to and smirking at me): Especially, if one happens to be of a …ah…delicate disposition. A psychological problem.

I was too busy freaking out at my having swallowed gum to take notice of her petty dim-witted insults. She thought I was disturbed at the disection, well in a way I was, but not to the extent of feeling nauseous. It was that piece of gum that was probably clogging up my insides right now that I was getting freaked out at.

Swallowing gum was much more serious than a poor wee cockroach spread out before you waiting to be cut up in the…*shudders* never mind.

I had never swallowed gum before in my life. That’s right, not once. I’d always exercised as much caution during the simple activity of chewing gum as you would while handling radioactive materials. At that moment I was this six year old again, who had just chewed gum for the first time in her life. I thought I was going to die. Seriously. Luckily, that didn’t happen. The Professor continued the dissection and the snide remarks about ‘mental health’, but I didn’t care; I was grateful for being alive.

Later that afternoon I googled up ‘I swallowed gum’ and found out that the chances of an instantaneous death are rather low. Of course S and G and A all told me they’d swallowed gums loads of times before but I’d refused to be comforted.

‘Hello, I’m seventeen and I’ve just swallowed chewing gum for the first time in my life and I think I’m going to die.’

Oh well, I’m never chewing gum again.

I hate my brain. You’re an idiot, I tell it. Why do you always have to imagine the worst? Why do you have to practical at all the wrong times, and most impractical when I need you the most? Why do you have to zoom off into crazy mode when I enter a bookshop? And why, why, do you always have to be on fire with imagination and fancy?

Hmph. I am not going to listen to you anymore.

Ahem, anyway, now that I’ve found my precious glasses – two of them, actually, the rose tinted ones, and my actual ones, which I’d lost for the millionth time and couldn’t find for weeks afterwards – as I say, I find everything easier. Lolcats seems much more funnier. Chips more tastier. Even the sound of ‘Hey, hey, you, you, I don’t like your girlfriend’ blaring through an idiotic classmate’s audio player less irritating. Okay, I take thatr back.

Now, this is going to sound stupid, but I want to say:

I love thinking.

(Don’t blame me, I gave the Stupidity Alert already.) As in conscious thinking…deliberate, contemplative. Thinking is my favourite pastime. You know what, I don’t think it really sounds that stupid – not when you realise the fact that very few people actually think these days. No, I am not getting started on that again. I’ve already written a critical essay on the mediocrity of society, haven’t I?

Am I really the biggest egomaniac that ever existed or what? Who am I to judge the mediocroty of the society? Pah, I hate it when I people assume to egoitical. I am anything, a hundred adjectives before egoistical. I mean, do I talk myself for hours on end? Of course I don’t. Do I refuse to share my candy? Of course I don’t. Do I think I’m always right? Of course not…er…okay, only 99 per cent of time.

Which is why it puzzles me when a certain lass in my class should go about telling folks that I have an ‘attitude’ problem. I expect Sonia imagines it will earn her a name in The Dumbest Gossipers That Ever Lived (who knows, I may pen this sometime in the future). But alas, the competition is too strong. All of them talk about me behind my back, something which I find highly amsuing. All of them, of course, are har-brained, cakefaced, superficial specimens, who could do with some brains and a life.

It’s been like this since primary school days, so I don’t really mind it. I hate gossip, I can’t imagine how anyone can find it entertaining in the least. It makes me sick to my stomach. But it follows me everywhere. Sigh. Well, perhaps that is what you get for sticking out from the crowd. That’s why  trust guys more than girls. I don’t feel the need to measure up to them, or judged by them.

On a positive note, Ritchie Blackmore is pure genius.

The skies bend over and the ground falls away. It’s not that the pain isn’t there. Just that it doesn’t sting anymore.

Fairy tales aren’t meant to be real. It is cruel to compare them with reality.
Reality isn’t always kind.

‘No, I’m fine.’ Why do you ask? You don’t want the answer any more than I want to give it.

I could walk away. But what are you running from?

Tears aren’t ugly. Denial is.

Solitude is company enough.

I don’t ask for much. Stories I can wander in. A song I can listen and fall asleep to.

A golden ocean of grass in the sun. A blue river of dreams. A green canvas of hope. And an endless, selfless beautiful sky, sky of starry nights, sky of warm clouds, sky of splashes of colours, sky of sapphires and rubies.

Dreams can sometimes be all that you have. And yet if you have nothing else but them, you have the biggest wealth of all.

How do you decide what you want?

Sometimes, the best thing you can do to erase the pain, escape the regrets, forget the moment – is to sing.

Why do the stars shine?
Why do I hold back?
Do the answers always lie beyond reach
Or do you create them yourself?

…hang on. We’re alive!

The Big Bang 2.0 Experiment certainly created no minor waves. Even a nose-permanently-engrossed-in-some-fat-book-or-the-other-and-totally-immune-to-gossip person like me couldn’t escape the wild anticipation, rumours, hysteria and frenzy all around me.

Observations:
JB: *fingersfuriouslycrossed* Go CERN go!
CG: Oooh! A baby universe, isn’t that pretty!
SA: Seriously, what is the point of this experiment? Isn’t it quite ridiculous to think that we can artificially recreate the conditions which created the Universe? When will these self-pompous scientists learn?
N: Ah dinniken why they ur daein it, jist fir tae prove at whit a hale lot aff canny folks they ur? Bliddy tubes aw dem. This ain’t gonnae work.
SF: Shair they ken whit they ur daein! Int nae hairm in tryin, is there? Ah hope fir the bes.
GL: Typical right-winged bullshit to make money off some stupid experiment while millions of children continue die of starvation. What a waste.
BBD: They can’t mess with the world like that! God made it. Only God can decide what to do it.
My wee brother: OMGOMG we’re all gonna die!

As for me, *I* find the whole thing incredibly exciting. It’s a huge undertaking all right. On the whole, I think the whole LHC thing is quite…astounding and a wee bit scary at the same time. I must admit, something on a scale as big as this fascinates me and frightens me. We’re treading dangerous grounds here. This is something that cut right to the core. Messing with Nature is a dangerous thing. The answer to the Big Bang – Universe’s biggest riddle – is something we’ve always sought to find. And yet, when (and if) we do find it…would it all be the same?

Whether we materialise the Higgs Boson particle or not, whether we identify the nature of the invisible dark matter that constitutes 25 per cent of the Universe or not, whether we modify the architecture of space-time or not, one thing is clear: we’re getting closer and deeper to an understanding of the Universe all the time. There is something about this whole thing – the whole element of mystery – the endless search, the maddening nature of the questions, and the hunger for answers.

Einstein put it very well in one of his most excellent essays, Physics and Reality:

The very fact that the totality of our sense experiences is such that by means of thinking, it can be put in order, this fact is one which leaves us in awe, but which we shall never understand. One may say that ‘the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.’ It is in the sense of creating some sort of order among sense impressions – by the formation of general concepts and relations between them – that the world is comprehensible. The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.

The connections of elementary concepts of everyday thinking with complexes of sense experiences can only be comprehended intuitively and is unadaptable to scientifically logical fixation. The totality of these connections – none of which is expressible in conceptual terms – is the only thing which differentiates the great building which is science from a logical but empty scheme of concepts.

Some physicists, among them myself, cannot believe that we must abandon, actually and forever, the idea of direct representation of physical reality in space and time; or that we must accept the view that events in nature are analogous to a game of chance. It is open to every man to choose the direction of his striving; and also every man may draw comfort from Lessing’s fine saying, that the search for truth is more precious than its possession.

Humanity has always been in the search for truth…since the beginning of time. In my opinion, our existence is threatened more by the possibility of giving up this search, than it is by Global Warming or warfare.

On a related note: I was quite taken aback at the number of people who thought that it was their last day on earth. I just hate it when people jump to stupid illogical conclusions concerning the ‘end of the world’. All that talk about the world ending in 2012 is rubbish as well. Weren’t we supposed to die in 2000, or on the of sixth June in 2006? =P It seems that every now and then someone will turn up with their own prediction of the end of the world. Guess I’ll go and make a prediction myself and massively publicise it…I decide to switch on the toaster tomorrow morning and BAM! the world doesn’t exist anymore! People will fall even for that… :roll:

PS. I wonder just what Einstein and Orwell would have said were they to witness this experiment.

I remember reading this somewhere ages ago (it was Abraham Lincoln who said it), and nodding and thinking to myself, ‘Yes, that’s true no doubt, but how boring.’

That was me being the highly dumb girl I was at fourteen, who used to think only thrill and speed amounted to an exciting life. Now that I am older and ahem, *clears throat* wiser, I do not agree with that speed-thrill-stuff philosophy at all.

In fact, I wholly appreciate the truth that future arrives a day at a time and that’s the best thing about it. I mean, what’s the fun in speeding down the road with everything passing by in a blur? That way, you’re always racing somewhere and in the end, you end up getting nowhere at all.

Still, it perturbs me to see the days passing by in a flash when I can’t get anything productive done. A feeling greatly aggravated when I get a book called Scientist Extraordinary: The Life and Scientific Work of Thomas Henry Huxley out of the library, and come across a passage like this:

…continued entries in Thoughts and Doings (Huxley’s little notebook in which he made irregular jottings when he was seventeen) bear witness:

June 20 [1841]
What have I done in the way of acquiring knowledge since January?
Projects begun:
1. German
2. Italian
3. To read Muller’s Physiology
4. To prepare for the matriculation examination at London University which requires knowledge of:-
(a) Algebra-Geometry
(b) Natural Philosophy …did not begin to read for this until April
(c) Chemistry
(d) Greek-Latin
(e) English History down to end of seventeenth century
(f) Ancient History
(g) English Grammar
5. To make copious notes of all things I read…I must adopt a fixed plan of studies…and let me remember this – that it is better to read a little and thoroughly, than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be in great quantity.

…Bloody hell. I can’t imagine how anyone could be so assiduously brilliant.

To be honest, I think it is more inspiring than aggravating. Hmm, I can’t quite say that I would be able to study Greek, Latin and Italian simultaneously, with History, maths and chemistry thrown in (that would really drive anyone up the wall, unless they’re a genius like Huxley which is highly improbable).

My obsession for self-knowledge notwithstanding, it is high time that I got down to work, now that’s summer’s over and all. Wait, SUMMER’S GONE?!

…seriously, where did the last few months go? Oh dear, not Time again.
By the way, it turns out the evil thing is now sending me snide reminders and premonitions. I don’t know why, but ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd comes up every time on shuffle on WMP (Yes, I support Microsoft).

‘Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you,
No one told you where to run, you missed the starting gun’

And just I happened to be watching the rain when it came on today. On top of that, Anne Dillard goes out of her way to shout at me “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” from top of the page of the big book of quotations in the morning.

I swear, the Universe is rubbing it in my face.

(Annie, that was certainly a bit of worrying advice. What, am I going to end up spending the rest of my life with my nose buried in a book, living off chips and irn bru, and writing pointless entires like this? Oh, now I’m seriously disconcerted!)

But, but, but at the end of the day, it’s only a day at a time. Phew. And there are so many days. There’s birthday, death day, graduation day, this-day and that-day. There are good days, okay-ish days and some truly terrible days. Our life is sent to us as presents wrapped in these twenty-four-hour-period boxes called ‘days’. All of us would rather the presents were only good, lovely and perfect. Well, hope as we might, that isn’t the case and from time to time a nasty present will turn up. Shocks, disappointments, failures, frustrations – all wrapped neatly with a big fat ribbon on them.

But, when it comes down to it, there’s always another present waiting for us the next day. =D

(Oh, and isn’t Huxley’s opinion on reading stuff just brill?)

When I started writing down my thoughts in my diary, I was terrified that somebody else would find it and read through it, and discover all about me. And I didn’t want that. My mind was my own property – and sharing it with somebody else seemed a terrifying prospect to me.

It was this insecurity that magnified my sense of isolation and made me very guarded with secrets. I didn’t have a sense of belonging – to anyone or anything. I knew I couldn’t put trust in others, because I had learned that lesson early enough (and the hard way) in life – if I told them, they would either laugh at me, or reject me. So I withheld. But others have always trusted me with their secrets, so perhaps it is quite selfish of me to not trust them in return.

That is why I guess, nobody really knows me. Nobody. There’s a certain amusement and a sense of mild annoyance I get from listening to someone talking about me. They can’t figure me out.

Secrets possess power and terror. And yet I would like to throw them all away, to free myself from their clutch, so that I’ll be left with nothing to hide.

Because there is something very weighty attached to consciousness. If you’re the kind of individual that knows yourself really well, that consciousness – that knowledge, of yourself, is a terrible burden. Because in your case, you can watch the actions and emotions and feelings and doings not only of yourself but also that of others – with a calculating and accurate eye. You observe and you understand. And worse still, it doesn’t leave you out cold. It affects you more deeply than others.

I suppose I shall never have the comfort of having to listen to another person reading me. I don’t know if I am just being selfish. But the feeling that there is someone out there in the world apart from yourself – that knows you inside out, that can read you like an open book, that really gets you – it’s an enormously precious comfort…unlike anything else.

Silence…it has so many hues. It can be oppressive, it can be merciless, it can be over-powering, it can be crushing; but at the same time it can be weightless, liberating, sublime, refreshing, comfortable, uplifting, flowing…

There are silences that creep into awkward conversations. Silences that seize you in a heated argument. Silences that deter you from taking the next step. Silences that prevail after the blinding flash of reality. Silences that emerge out of chaos.

The frantic, rushed and hasty pace of the world makes no sense against the milieu where everything is calm and quiet and flowing. Where things, instead of being frenzied and rushed are as rhythmic and free-flowing as water gushing in a stream.

The endless chatter and babble and talk seem so hollow and absurd when pitted against silence. Silence takes us away from our pompous and superficial selves and brings us back to everything that is humble and pure and true within the self.

Silences, whether outer or inner, arise out of equilibrium. They may leave you with feelings of emptiness, bewilderment, fulfillment, warmth, tranquility, but all those feelings are only the milestones along the path called discovery, of whose truth is the destination.

The indescribable is so called precisely because of its inability to be wrought into words and images…because it is all the more profounder in its silence.

But why the hell am I describing silence? That’s just stupid.

The utter futility of words.

Some things are best left unsaid.

You are a funny thing.

Except that you have a twisted, sick sense of humour. Yes, you do. It really isn’t funny how you can be more indecisive over your speed than George Bush over his multiple-question choices when confronted with an elementary quiz (even with all the options being exactly the same).

Why, for instance, do you have to travel at painfully slow speeds during every Botany lecture? Or, for that matter, when ODT takes up the mic and resolves to display his shameful singing skills? Or during those ridiculous traffic-jams? And you shamelessly zoom by whenever I happen to be sleeping, or reading, or in a concert or in the library or in an interesting lecture or sipping coffee while thinking about nothing in particular or…well you know the list.

You know how many times I’ve cursed you and begged you but you blow all the whining and cursing with one ‘Pooof!’ of your breath, throw back your head and laugh, saying ‘Relativity!’ Well, relativity all right. I expect Einstein spared you the shame of asking you how long you took to choose your pizza topping.

Anyway, I’m a bit alarmed and disturbed by you. Well, you know, us humans are always a bit alarmed and disturbed when it comes to you. You knocked at my door on the fourteenth of this month and pah! now I’m seventeen. Thanks to you, I’m hit by dumb questions from dumb people such as ‘Are you grown up yet?’ from all sides. I mean, come to think of it, there would be no such questions if it weren’t for you.

‘Are. You. Grown. Up. Yet?’
they ask from all sides, in a sneering, idiotic fashion that brings back – I don’t know why – memories of a particularly sinister chorus of an advertising jingle I’d heard as a kid. And then, I can do nothing but tell them to shut up. Growing up was never (and isn’t ever going to be) on my to-do-list, I tell them airily.

To-do-lists. That brings back memories too. Remember when I was a silly little girl of eleven, I’d make stupid, gigantic to-do-lists that included every wee thing, including even things such as brushing my teeth at night? It sounds so strange now. I never follow a To-Do-List (I don’t remember checking that little box in the ‘done’ column in ages) now…though that maybe, er, due to my failure to follow them.

But really, that’s the problem with the world today. For most people, life has become an endless chain of To-Do’s. Do this, do that. And you go on running, adding more and more items to your To-Do-List at every stop, but never once pausing to stay and care to look.

So…back to you. I’ve already whined about you being oh-so-unfair. But what are you, really, Time?
Do you even exist? Are you just an illusion? When did you begin? How will you end? Don’t you ever get tired of…going on, all the time? Don’t you ever rest?

Yes, I pestered you with these questions back as a six year old and I pester you with them now. They’re maddening questions, you know. You don’t how much humans fuss over them, and over you. We owe life to you, and yet we don’t understand you at all. You’re never absolute. Most of the humans are terrified of you. You’re the biggest bully we’ve ever known.

It’s easy to say you’re cruel. That you are merciless and intimidating. But don’t feel bad. It’s because of you that we have such a thing as memories – belongings that we gather and carefully preserve above everything else. It’s because of you that we can have music. That we have life itself is due to you. OK, that’s enough praise to last for a lifetime.

And what exactly is a lifetime? And what exactly is a moment?
Oh, I can hear you sighing now and wishing I’d stop with all these questions already. Well, all right, I’ll stop. But before I do so, let me ask you something. See, seventeen years isn’t really a long time when you’re looking back at them – no period of time is. Thing is, you’ve always been there, always hovering in the background, leveling every thing. But at some point of my life, I hope you’ll finally relent. I know that one day, even if for one fleeting moment, you’ll be still. And that moment will have been a lifetime.

Until then,
keep ticking.

Two girls with fat ponytails sit on the steps. Their plastic dolls don’t blink or frown. They only smile. With their teeth showing. And when one of the girls yanks out a strand of hair, the doll doesn’t wince or protest. She just keeps on smiling.
The girls keep their play to themselves. They recite their doll’s dialogues in hushed voices. They have the dolls cry softly. Laugh delicately. Sing inaudibly.

Because the girls want to keep their World to themselves. They are careful not to let anybody else be a part of it. They don’t want them to shatter it, their world of silent shouts and whispered weddings.

The dolls don’t mind, because they don’t have one to do so.

Over there, by the swing, the children sway to and fro. They lurch forwards only to be instantly pulled backwards again. Whoosh. They rise higher and higher, chests heaving with each lurch, but just as they put out their fingers to reach out and touch the invisible wall, they are summoned backwards again. As though the Swing is determined to let them go only so far. The breeze cuts through their hair; or do the children cut through the breeze?

A queue of children await their turn on the swing, getting more impatient with each lurch.
The Swing knows.

A few girls huddle on a grassy patch, their self-willed skipping ropes resolutely refusing to be perfectly Skipped.

‘England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales
Inside, outside, inside, on!’

But the ropes don’t obey. They get caught up in the feet every time.
One, two, three, four. The Ropes refuse.

On the seesaw two kids play.
Up.
Down.
Up and Down are like two siblings who never seem to agree. They always fight and never seem to last long, because Up becomes Down and Down becomes Up.

The voices of the children drift over the lazy air.

‘Queenie, Queenie, who’s got the ball?
Are they short, or are they tall?’

The Queenie sees with her ears.

’Are they hairy, or are they bald?
You don’t know because you don’t have the ball!’

She turns around. And listens with her eyes.

The children play.

They don’t know that the swing that controls them is only another form of the society that they will live in as adults.
They don’t know that their precious stories will inevitably be splintered, modified, and crushed someday.
They don’t know that the ropes that rebel are nothing compared to those they will come to know when they grow older – the superficial, the ignorant, the narrow-minded tunnel visioned ropes of human beings.
And the seesaws are only a feeble reflection of the world they live in, riddled with inequalities and injustices, that crashes around them everyday.

They just play.

A boy with curly locks squashes ants on the porch.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
A girl fumbles with a yo-yo.
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
The class bully intimidates the kids on the merry-go-round.
Chip chop, the old man is dead.

The name is a provision we make to organise things better. Associating a person with their name is something we do simply to escape the chaotic mix-up that would arise if everyone and everything went about nameless. But you may argue, may you not, that that is exactly what is required – isn’t the act of naming, after all, setting something apart from something else, making it distinct, separate, independent?  And that is the cornerstone of being ‘individual’ – being different. But what we call a person might be the name to millions of others. Then doesn’t the distinctness vanish into thin air? Moreover, a person can be called anything: any name at all.

The body, too, is illusory. The body is like a shadow – you wouldn’t associate your being with your shadow, how then can you associate it with your body? Don’t you relinquish the body at the moment of your death?

But the trickier aspect is this: a person with their own unique qualities, opinions, aspirations. Of course, these differ from person to person – and therefore, you may safely assume that this after all, is what makes a person different from the person next door. And you’d be right. But what if you happen to change your opinions (opinions can be temporary), shift your interests, replace your desires? Then that would, by our definition, be nothing short of being another person.

And yet you are not another person. You are just you. This is the heart of the matter: being you. Being – we call it existing. Existence, in one form or the other, is still existence. That is what we mean by ‘soul’. My definition of soul is a simple and short one. I call it the ‘essence of existence’. Soul is the heart of existing, one way in which humans differ from computers: we know that we exist. That existence, and the knowledge of that existence, is what it means to have a soul.

It is, in effect, what it means to have an identity. I consider identity and individuality to be two different things. A metaphor explains this quite simply: Water is, by definition, a shapeless, flowing, substance. When that same water becomes ice, it acquires a shape, and doesn’t flow. When that ice is heated it again becomes water, and that same water upon heating changes into gas. At every stage, the properties vary according to the form. The form is changing but no-one doubts the existence of the substance. Water, in liquid, solid, or gaseous form, is still there. And you don’t have to call it water – you may as well call it ice or gas or orange juice. So at every stage, in each of its forms, it has a unique set of qualities. Volume, mass, shape, fluidity, transparency, each of them peculiar to the respective form. That is individuality. The fabric of uniqueness. But in spite of everything, in spite of all the change, the water continues to exist, continues to be. That is identity.

And in the end, it all boils down to this: Wherever you may come from, whatever you may be called, whoever you may be related to, however you are, whatever you may become, you won’t stop being you.

Either way, the conclusion is the same.

Lately, every major political leader, in every country of the world, has been screaming from the rooftops for World Peace. World what? Peace, you say? Well, you’re fooling yourselves, folks, for you’re as near towards getting world peace as My Chemical Romance are towards being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

What right do people in power have to demand peace, anyway? It’s them who demand peace while plotting to wage wars, who keep on babbling away about human rights while violating them from the first day of assuming office themselves, who don’t see any difference between making speeches and making weapons. It’s easy enough for them to talk peace, demand peace, propagate peace, market peace, while peace is something that they’ve never had and never wanted. While the Darfur conflict gets keeping worse and worse, the people who are in position to stop it continue to sit and close their eyes. US still hasn’t drawn troops out of Iraq. Suicide-bombers are being manufactured like packets of cereals. You show me one of these politicos who want peace who are prepared for it.

What about people who do care? Who, truly and genuinely, want the world to be a better place? Are they seeking an ideal that doesn’t exist? Are they being optimistic and foolish? If optimism if foolish, how does pessimism make things better? If you’re an optimist, you obviously want things to get better and hate the current mess it is in; if you’re a pessimist, you still hate it. So whether optimistic or pessimistic, we all agree on one thing: the world’s current situation sucks. (Oh yes, even the optimists, for being an optimist doesn’t mean that you have to see the bright side and ignore the dark side altogether.) That much is certain.

The 1960s saw the peace movement in various parts of the world, but half a century later, we’re no better off. Where does the problem lie? Is it illogical for peace to be possible at all? Okay, hang on, we’re not talking about something abstract here, we’re talking about our lives, for fuck’s sake. Then is it to do with the framework of international policy? Partly, so ably outlined by George Bush: If you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Oh, then there’s this bloody religion business. My God is better than yours. How convenient! Brainwash the masses into hating each other for having a faith different than their own. Religious fanatics will do anything for proclaiming superiority of their respective religions; they’ll kill for it, die for it, anything but live and let live for it.

But when you take it all together, it all boils down to one single thing. Power. It’s power what drives politicians and policies, religions and races. The two World Wars were wars over power. The holocaust and Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ were the direct outcomes of his thirst for power. The Cold War, the gold rush, the dot com burst, you name it. Aren’t they all to do with humanity’s never-ending quest for power?

The ruthless force that makes men shine like stars, or crushes them to dust. Isn’t it strange, when Nature had already made us the most powerful species from the start? There’s power and there’s money, that loom over the earth as bullies, making people commit stupid, cowardly things. Power is a bully that creeps in and intimidates us in every decision or choice: even the choice of survival, for natural selection itself is a fight for power.

And there you have it. There’s nothing you can do about it – hunger for power is hardwired into our brains. And power isn’t a bad thing in itself – it’s its handling that plays the devil. So as long as there’s fighting over power, there’ll never be world peace. So the question facing folks everywhere today – politicians, economists, philosophers – is how to control the balance of power and guarantee lasting peace. Marx asked the same question and said the solution was a classless society where the Power was to the People. But hey, the Soviet Union didn’t work out, did it?

Dictatorship, democracy, anarchy…what really is the best way of making power make way for peace? The solution seems elusive…one hundred and ninety-five countries, various cultures, and contradictory socio-economic conditions. Dictatorship is definitely off the list. Democracy is reckoned to be the best way of governance so far but then what is to account for bureaucratic selfishness and shortsightedness?

And anarchy…I’m not sure that it’s the best way – indeed, even if it is a good way at all – but it seems to me that anarchy is the only system which puts faith in humans’ capability to govern themselves, not by a bunch of people that supposedly represent them. It trusts them enough for them to practise freedom – but then just where do we draw the line between the required and excessive freedom? And would that freedom be preserved at all and not be culminated into another dictatorship? Is it possible to eliminate the element of power after all?

Ah, maybe I’ll just leave it to the economists until I can work out a theory of my own ;]

I am not in worry anymore.
I am not in debt (money-wise or otherwise) anymore.
I am not in love anymore (if it was love in the first place).

I am free.

God knows I’ve had enough to deal with in the past few months. But now it’s all over and done with and I’ve promised myself not to whine over things for a while.

I’ve been wondering why it is that when everything seems to be going on smoothly in life, half a dozen problems and troubles come rolling down like boulders, and you go blank in the face of it. And then, as time passes, those boulders pass away too, and you emerge, sometimes scathed, sometimes not; but you emerge out of it anyway.

One thing I’ve learnt is that, when these problems do come our way, we feel their terror as they approach us, getting nearer and nearer all the time; but when they finally do arrive, a strange kind of feeling – I don’t know what it is, courage or  something else -  takes charge and it only begins to seem as a matter of time.

Sometimes life hits you on the head with a brick. Some of us manage to stay cool in its face and come up with an elegant solution, while some of us (like me) panic, get jumpy over little things, get knocked down, stumble, fall, get back up again, and staggering, tottering, wobbling, faltering end up fumbling our way through.