It hits me hard, this cruel fact. If only they could understand it was not my choice... But why did I let myself go through with it? Perhaps stupidity is the reason I am punished the way I am.

Sometimes I don't like my writing, and wonder why I project the image I invariably do with a lot of my work. I am also a bit disappointed that I've actually noted in specific terms how I can improve, but putting it into practise has proven to be a difficult task, it would seem. Maybe it's time to close shop altogether!?!

I sometimes wonder whether I really am thick after all. There are moments when I try desperately to analyze just what I was thinking at a particularly stupid moment, and to the best of my memory, the answer is...nothing at all. Working on auto-drive is essential sometimes, no doubt, but only when the system really works. In my case, it seems to involve shutting down of not only self-awareness, but also thought (and the two, I think, can sometimes be disconnected).

Lament

The most earth-grounding exercise I perform when it comes to my attempts at writing comes from reflection on how I tend to express thoughts and feelings as compared to other works that I am fond of by writers of varying statures. So blunt, so devoid of humour, so lacking secret or subtlety, so...obvious. I think subtlety is the biggest lapse in my palette, but this is not a new realization, sadly. I hope I can get past the all too familiar hyper-serious, suffocating style of prose that I seem to have perfected over the years whenever it comes to something that almost cries out for careful, poignant treatment. I think the reason I do not naturally gravitate towards the latter is because whenever I have tried it, I end up being overtly maudlin and again, hyper-serious (but in a different sense). Maybe the problem is that I am just no good at these things ;)

I like parts of this. But I guess it is still too personal to be the sort of "universal writing" that I would like to move towards.

---

Yes, it is just the late night
Still, it calls out just to you
Says without a laugh,
"Forget without fear,
All these thoughts formed anew!"

See that you are still alive in me
Though I hope it needn't be said;
I could never forget,
Dear moments in time,
For my heart always rules my head.

I don't care what contradictions
My thoughts and rhymes entail
Wretched though they may be,
All I need, my friend,
Is to see you back again.

I seem to keep these feelings under check most of the time, but sometimes they come out of the cracks. "On paper", I think, "I might be another one of those people, but in my heart I know I am not". It does not take much, unsurprisingly, to make me feel this way; a small comment here or there, or worse yet a photo (which is the culprit this time). I don't want to imagine engaging in conversations that do not interest me, which makes me wonder what I am doing staying where I am in the first place. "It is meant for someone who has a true interest", I sadly tell myself, before sighing and trying my best to forget.

It was many, many years later, when all that was left of what he inherited from his father was his baldness. On a cold winter afternoon, he sat stationary, soaking up the heat, as he sipped the chrysanthemum tea to help stir his senses. It took him back to those days in the house by the open field, with the workers on the porch just like he always imagined. He was served tea there once, and saw a book on Zen sitting peacefully next to the couch. He remembered opening it and seeing those Tibetan characters, wondering if somehow the thoughts would transcend the barrier of language and help him reach enlightenment. After a minute, he started to feel dizzy from the patterns that seemed to be forming from the letters, and placed the book back down.

He never knew why he went to the cupboard and opened that cardboard box where he had carefully placed all that had ever passed through in his life. He looked at the photo and letter that signalled a farewell that at the time he had welcomed, now faded with the years and the places he had been since. He sighed and was glad that he kept these things to remember the times, and at that moment, he knew that any regret was but an illusion his mind had created.

The walk back

What will I miss the most? I think that maybe it will be those quiet walks at night. The dim street lights paint the road with an orange hue, and my eyes are firmly planted on the ground as I calmly make my way back. The world always seems lighter then, the struggles of the day but a memory as I look forward to the night that is only beginning. Sometimes, I wonder where my fellow travellers are headed, but not today. Today, I just think about why I love these walks so. For the first time, I notice a crescent moon watching over us all. Humming a song or two on the way, and looking forward to the nightly news, one feels that things are alright.

Time it was and what a time it was

It's quite hard to believe it, but the stay is almost done. I can remember my first night here, and yet, time seems to have gone by rather quickly. What once was strange and unknown is now very familiar and almost comforting. I will miss these quiet nights where I caught up on the daily news, saw highlights of the cricket, and on occasion marvelled at the wonder that is wrestling. The animated faces of wrestlers with no sound - here is where life is, my friends.

As I looked outside the window today, it was with a sense of disappointment that I realized that I cannot achieve immortality with words. "The children are all insane / Waiting for the summer rain", "And if my thought-dreams could be seen /
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine / But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only", "Help me find my proper place / Because I'm falling out of grace", I can't hope to write anything like that. I look up to them, seek inspiration from them, but alas, it is depressing when everytime you find yourself falling short! I suppose that when you look at greater minds than yours, you realize how small you really are. In many ways, I guess I am but a shallow reflection of these greater writers, consciously or not using their techniques to try to give words to my ideas. I suppose it is a long struggle ahead, but at least one day I would like to write something really resonant which I can look at sometime in the future and just sigh with satisfaction.

Yes, I don't know what I would have given to write any of those lines. My right arm, perhaps!? Perhaps it's just the weather - the rain has always brought out the brooding artistic part of me - but right now I feel like I ought to leave my mark on this world using the power of the word. It may well be the only real way that we can become immortal, and maybe it's the answer to all the questions I've had about my worries about the pointlessness of it all? Then again, there is no universal panacea, but I'm one of the hazy half-asleep states right now, where my idealism seems to know no bounds.

I think part of the problem is that Jim Morrison. As I predicted a month or so ago, it seems like I'm having that period where I am getting taken with this image I have somehow created of him as a dark, brooding poet, the kind that I guess fascinates me. Plus, that deep voice, ooh now that can send chills down your spine. I can see the similarity to Nick Cave, actually. Anyway, it looks like I'll be spending this summer swooning over Crystal Ship.

Speaking of Morrison, of all people Amma said she played The Doors at full volume in her room when she was 16. For some reason, it strikes me as a very...how to explain it? No, impossible, I can't explain, suffice to say it's a remark I think I shall remember for a while now. Maybe someday I can tell youngsters of the time I played Black Dog on a cold winter morning?