01/12/2011

I no longer feel like writing more words on here. Time to turn a new leaf

and I'm afraid this blog is part of the old. Thanks for reading.

29/11/2011

When words fail to describe the intensity felt within and the serene joy that comes with it, sometimes music is a better relay.

29/11/2011

To my life, my thoughts, and everything that led to where I'm at now

What if... what if I had run away when I was younger? What if I had left home - would it all be different today? Would I be less of a confused mess? Would I have a life to speak of, instead of just words and thoughts, and how much different would it all have turned out if I'd left years ago, when I was still young enough to adapt and learn to fly...

I was thinking about a whole lot of pointless what-if scenarios today, mainly triggered by a conversation about one of my cousins, whom I haven't seen in a decade now. She's my youngest cousin, and we met exactly three times in our lives. Yet her life turned out quite parallel to mine in some strange ways, except she did the opposite of me in the end - she ran away.

Let's rewind for s second and give it some context, shall we?

I met this cousin for the first time when we were little - I was 9 and she was a blond-haired, blue-eyed 5 year-old from the East. She came with her mother to stay for a few weeks in Paris with my mother and I, and the truth is that I don't remember much of it at all. I'm guessing we spent our time playing with dolls or running about in the park. What I do remember is her mother - my aunt - going crazy at some point after an argument with my mother that led her to lock herself up in my bedroom and refusing to get out for days. Their stay turned so bad that my mother had to send them both back early, and that was it.

When I was 13, we went to visit my mother's family in their country to spend Christmas with them for the first time. My cousin was there too, but without her mother. Her father had left eons ago and her mother couldn't cope with looking after my cousin, who by then was around 9 years old, so she was often left in the care of our grand-parents, whom I met a total of 3 or 4 times in my life. I remember one morning sitting on the floor by the large wooden coffee table, writing a letter to a school friend on some plain piece of paper because that was all I had. My cousin came to sit next to me with an old rag doll - probably the only one she ever got. She kept talking to me in her language and I kept saying "I don't understand what you're saying", and then she gave me a few sheets of writing paper with Disney characters adorning the sides. Beyond that memory, I remember next to nothing.

The last time I met her, it was the summer of my 18th birthday and she was 14. Her blond hair had been cut so short she almost looked like a boy. I was staying at another aunt's place for a few days before heading back to London for good and she'd come to stay for a few days as well. This time, we didn't really talk at all, and I found her quite withdrawn and lost. Little did I know that during that same period, she was about to be taken by her mother pretty much overnight to move to Germany. I was withdrawn and lost, too, and only really remember one random moment of her and another cousin sunbathing in the garden.

I found the parallel funny between me and her, how she'd been taken overnight to move into a whole other country just the way it happened with me. Nowadays she's fluent in German, while I'm fluent in English, so there was never a plan from life to get us to ever talk to each other, I'm guessing. Just like me, she landed in a foreign city whose language she couldn't speak, struggling with her mother in different ways.

And that's where the parallel stops and the opposite life choices come in. As soon as she turned 18, she left home and never went back. I... just stayed and never really tried to leave.

Not long ago I learned that she got married, but she never invited her mother to the wedding, and they are no longer in touch. I saw her mother a couple of years ago when she came to visit us for a few days. She was upset and angry that her daughter had cut her off.

But here's the thing. There is only two choices in the story: either you stay out of loyalty and therefore give up your own right to live as your own person (the choice I made without really knowing at the time) or you put yourself first and severe the bonds (my cousin's choice). Neither choice is right or wrong, but the outcomes are as opposed as night and day. Sometimes you have to leave for as long as it takes to be ready to see certain people again - even family. But I missed the boat, I was too weak, too... weak. Too scared and isolated.

I just keep thinking that there is such a thing as too much love to the point of suffocating a person and leading them to become helpless and unable to ever cope on their own.

26/11/2011

I keep wondering why I can't get used to the idea of solitude. I need to embrace it and yet the more I try, the more depressed it makes me. Why can't I even find solace in solitude? Why does it always have to feel like loneliness for me?

Since I cannot bond with people, I really need to start getting used to being alone. I wish I could stab my own heart. It is this heart inside this chest that feels so heavy with unspoken sorrows and for no reason. If it didn't exist, I would be free... I would be at peace.

I'm tired of this tortured soul I've somehow inherited. It feels like fire burning inside constantly... pure inner torture.

It's like... not being where you should be, and not doing what you ought to be doing, in a way. There is a pull inside that keeps torturing me, telling me that it's all wrong. And I have no idea what that pull wants me to do.

24/11/2011

I'm starting to wonder if I'm not heading towards a complete mental breakdown at some point. I can barely control or contain my emotions, and the greater awareness I now have of my social retardation feels like I've opened Pandora's box in the worst way possible.

I keep watching myself, especially around others, but I can't even trust my own perception of things because if my perception is twisted then obviously I'll keep perceiving things in a twisted way and therefore draw twisted conclusions. I find myself feeling the increasing need to keep people away. So long as they don't know 'me', all is fine. The moment they approach me or spend too much time around me... it all goes terribly awry. So I'm just trying hard to keep away from people as much as I can, a distance that is more for their benefit than mine because in the end I'm the one who's alone. I'm just tired of playing the role of the weirdo.

Today I had to go to an informal business lunch at some posh restaurant where they serve you tiny portions in giant plates. I have to say the first few times I was made to eat in these places, I had to bite my lip hard not to laugh out loud at the sight of things like three peas in the middle of a massive white plate placed under my nose by an overzealous waiter. However I'll admit the food itself is often scrumptious and as tiny as the dishes may appear, they do fill you up (except for that pea occurrence, but then again that was just one of many starters).

As I sat at the table, I made myself relax and smile, looking eager to take part in whatever conversation, or just listen to it. My colleague, who sat right next to me, kept a serious face that made her look like she couldn't care less, and yet everyone at the table kept talking to her, while I sat there like a lemon. At some point, I said something that the people across the table couldn't hear, so they just ignored me. The next moment, my colleague says something that the people across the table couldn't hear, and guess what? They all start leaning closer over the table to listen.

This has happened SO many times I've lost count. It makes me feel like a ghost, like... like complete shit.

It's not even like I'm talking gibberish or about completely insane things. Or maybe I am, I'm just too insane already to realise it. There has to be something that I do or don't do that makes people ignore me.

The worst part came when we were ordering desert. Everyone said what they wanted, and then... they just skipped me. I tried to say something, and believe me I was being loud enough, but people didn't even stop talking - they didn't even look at me. The next moment, everyone looks genuinely surprised to realise that I've been forgotten.

It all feels so much like a living nightmare in slow motion... I almost want to laugh thinking back on all these horrible social occurrences because it sounds way too far-fetched.

Statistically speaking, if these things happen to me with a lot of people then the odds are that the problem lies with me, but I've reached my limits. I don't want to try anymore because I don't even know what's to try, what's to do or not to do. I just want to keep the hell away from this alien society.

23/11/2011

I went back to work this morning. I realised during the day that the more I hated it, the emptier I felt, and the emptier I felt, the faster time went - because I felt nothing but indifference in the end.

During my lunch break, I took a long stroll down one of the city's most beautiful parks, which happens to be only a stone throw away from my office. As I walked by the lake, the winter sunshine was shimmering like a thousand diamonds in the water. Crispy leaves on fire beneath my feet, I stopped at the sight of a huge white bird grooming itself right by the edge of the lake. It was no mute swan this time, but a pelican - massive. As I stopped to take a picture, it suddenly turned its long orange beak towards me and began waddling with extreme clumsiness in my direction only to stop by the low barrier that separates the public from the bank of the lake.

It stopped there and just posed in front of me as I took pictures... and then when people started gathering around me to watch it in awe and take pictures, too, the bird set off back towards the water... but as it did, the huge wings it had to drag beside its body made it waddle so clumsily that everyone started laughing.

"Look how he's walking!" said one woman, out of breath from laughing.

But all I could think about is Baudelaire's poem... It all felt so much like deja-vu, in the sense that I'd mentioned that poem a couple of days ago... and there I was, looking at the real-life version of its true meaning... in all its splendour, so much so that it hurt.

The Albatross 

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew 

Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds 

That indolently follow a ship 

As it glides over the deep, briny sea. 

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck 

Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed, 

Pathetically let their great white wings 

Drag beside them like oars. 

That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is, 

So beautiful before, now comic and ugly! 

One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe; 

Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew! 

The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky 

Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman; 

When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers, 

His giant wings prevent him from walking. 

- Charles Baudelaire

On my way back to the office, the random thought of Peter Pan came to my mind, and right at the back of my mind a thought went: "You're in Wendy's city, just remember that." And then I started looking all around me and it was true. I am in Wendy's city.

22/11/2011

The piece of music above may be entitled 'Danse Macabre' but it actually sounds far from macabre to me - more like getting sucked into the middle of a Tim Burton movie in all its fascinating weirdness.

I can't believe how fast my extra-long 'weekend' has gone. I feel sick to my stomach at the mere thought of having to go back to work tomorrow. I feel even worse when I think about my colleagues and especially my boss.

I keep telling myself that I'll have more time off until Christmas than I will have work days, but still...

Last Friday was arguably my worst day to date in that place. I hoped that being away for a few days would help me feel better, but it wasn't to be. I think the reason I feel sick and can't get over it is because I realised that I've already been categorised by my colleagues and specifically my boss as the pushover of the story. My lack of social skills always put me right into that spot every time.

My mother was unhelpful in terms of advice. She simply said: "Well, just quit." But that made me retort at once: "Isn't that the easy way out... to just quit when the going gets tough?" to which she just shrugged.

At the back of my head, just as I was saying "Isn't that the easy way out... to just quit when the going gets tough?" the exact opposite thought occurred to me that life is way to short to waste time being miserable in some place, might as well try else where.

I've since been left torn between two opposite plans of action: endure or drop it in the search for greener pastures. The middle ground seems to then be: find something else first, then quit. Neither simply enduring nor quitting overnight would be the right plan of action. The middle ground one makes the most sense, but how come the other two feel much more appealing? I'm guessing going from one extreme to another is always easier to do than actually making the effort of not just finding the middle ground, but going with it.

I have undeniably learned some things in that job. It was like a crash course into one aspect of the world I would never have delved in on my own due to my dislike of all things related to money, finance and so-called economies. What I got to understand a bit better in more concrete terms than just saying 'it's all wrong' will hopefully help me take into account more factors in my reasoning in the long run.

Apart from that... In the late summer of my 24th birthday, I began writing a long story that I never really finished, and beyond the fact that it turned out to be more of an exercise than anything, I discovered along the way that there were some things that helped my mind calm down and focus better. Unfortunately, barely a year later, and just as I was starting to find clarity within my mind, an unexpected turn of events kind of messed it all up and to this day I haven't been able to get back to my previous 'normal' self. Three years on and I'm finally getting back to it.

I had a strange day yesterday. I almost wanted to add 'as usual'... isn't everyday strange because every day is new and is being experienced for the first time every time? How different would be our perception of time if we never divided it, if we never had the same names for the days of the week and that of months for instance? After all, it's an illusion. On the one hand, we have the 'same' days and months passing by over and over with each year that flies by, but none of these days and months are ever the same, they are forever brand new.

But to get back to my strange day... I realised more fully that I probably come from a completely insane family. The fact that I can think or reason well at times is only a random composition from the madness within.

"Heaven is a place on Earth with you, tell me all the things you want to do..."

Lighting up a new candle whose flame I watch waver slowly in the dark window's reflection as night engulfs the world outside.

I went outside briefly earlier, just before night fell on the city, and breathed in the coolness in the air that tasted like a fog coming. There is something strangely hypnotising about winter coming... as if the whole world is slowing down. Winter is a poet's window to death. Yet in nature, winter is only a prelude to life being reborn.

I feel a bit lost... I know I can no longer rely on the past to make real sense of the now. If I carried on delving into the past and relying on memories, I would only be immersing myself in the equivalent of quicksand within the mind because memories and perception keep changing and shifting constantly. If I kept following that road, I'd just be like a puppet running from one shifting perception to the next depending on the fancy of my own mind's interpretations.

When we moved countries and had to only take the necessities, those necessities at the time consisted of pictures, a couple of books and my diaries.

This one particularly strong occurrence in my life helps to show that I was already displaying a misplaced attachment to the past. I couldn't fathom or accept that things come to pass. One of the hardest lessons for me remains reaching that acceptance. My ultimate fear is that of loss, and that fear is translated by an inability to let go.

I have spent my time fighting within myself, trying so hard to find a way to stop things from changing... Now I am simply frightened that there is nothing I can do to stop doing that because I've always done that.

I don't think I can help myself. The key won't come from within this time, but from without. What a contrast to all the things I used to think so far.

I wish there was someone to take my hand and pull me out of the quicksand... is that weak to admit?

regardless... I'm at a crossroad. The choices I make next will dictate whether I slip deeper in the quicksand and let the flame die, or emerge somehow out of the cocoon to fly.

I need light in my life... my own antithesis to wake up.

20/11/2011

It's past 3am and I can't sleep. I can hear the birds of dawn singing outside my window, their endless twittering now drowning in Beethoven's 7th symphony going crescendo.

I watched The Butterfly Effect earlier on TV. I remember going to the cinema to watch it a few years back when it first came out, and it was nice to watch it again and refresh my memory... Memory... what a funny creature, memory.

After I watched that movie, I went to bed but started crying again. Turning and tossing endlessly, I remembered my own teenage diaries written in little notebooks in the same way the hero of the movie is depicted doing/reading back. I got out of bed, switched on the light again and started rummaging in my drawers to try and find my own stack. When I finally got my hands on them, there was a fine layer of dust covering them.

I slipped back under the covers of my bed and started reading the first diary I started to keep (where there's actually more than a random line or two written by the child I once was) when I was around 12 years-old. I wasn't very good then. I kept mentioning the most trivial things, but there were some glimmers of deeper thoughts hidden here and there. The first entry starts with disappointment at the thought that moments just go to fast, and that most of us don't seem to appreciate them as we live them. Then I move on abruptly to mention that a friend has failed to call me to go ice skating. Each entry ends with the exact time, including seconds. I used to think if I made sure to record the exact time every time, it would help somehow to immortalise the moments recorded in writing.

As I flicked through the pages I start to notice that some pages have been ripped and I know I was the one who ripped them out, but I'll never remember why. All my years throughout high school are recorded vaguely in that diary, with lists of people I ended up in class with as I moved up a year. There are scribblings next to certain names, others are simply crossed out depending on who was my friend or not. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. In fact, the more I read, the more I felt surprised at how mainstream I could sound at times... oh, and so dramatic. Every little thing felt like the end of the world.

Then at some point I got up to get a glass of water and as I put down the diary, pieces of paper that were tucked between pages fell on my lap. I remembered them at once. Most of them were little notes I used to exchange with a girl in one of my most boring classes. We were 14. In one of them she wrote:

"My dear Aliska, I'm sorry I was mean to you earlier but you need to at least understand me if you can't find it in you to forgive me. I'm going through the worst teenage crisis of the century. I say and think things that are completely insane. Why am I telling you? I have no idea. Perhaps because you are the craziest girl I know, but not in a mean way. .."

It felt strange to read this back knowing that this very girl who wrote me that note all these years ago is now settled down, married with kids on the way. I did stare at the mention that the reason she wrote me this was 'perhaps' because I was the craziest girl she knew. It's not the first time that people will feel the need to use that word as one of the reasons they like me. Either that word, or that I'm 'so' weird.

I also read about a time when I went to a friend's house for a sleepover, which is news to me today - I have no recollection of it whatsoever. I don't know if the lack of memory worked to make it funnier as I read that passage. I was writing how me and that girl (we were both 13 then) didn't feel like sleeping, but another friend also staying over was already fast asleep. We decided to play monopoly, but couldn't keep the light on, so I told her to put a sock over the light bulb of the bedside lamp. Yeah... Then I wrote how I suddenly noticed a faint burning smell, and then smoke coming out of the sock... We retrieved it in time, but as it cooled down and I lifted it, it just dissolved into black crumbs.

I'm writing all this because as I read these glimpses, I realised that those I didn't recall are now alien to me. And that led me to think about memories in general. No matter the medium we use (be it writing, pictures or movies) memories are like water slipping away between your fingers... and they can never be trusted. The more time passes, the less they can be relied on. And not even trying to record them can prevent it, or the fact that the mind will alter everything about them as time goes on.

That sock 'memory' may have happened, but I may as well have read it from someone else. The effect would have been the same: it is as though it never happened to me because I have no recollection of it today. Each mind will remember a certain thing, a certain angle, a certain detail, and these will always differ slightly from one person to another even though they may have all be present during a same event. Some people will remember a certain occurrence while others will never have paid the same attention.

There was a time when I thought, perhaps naively, that I could try and record as much as I could in writing to 'capture' myself in its completeness, you see. I now realise more fully that it can never happen. The mind selects what it wants to remember, and then tampers with it so much as time goes on that what you're left with to 'remember' is nothing more than a twisted shadow.

Feeling sleepy now... It's just gone past 4am. I want to continue thinking about this, but my eyes won't let me.

19/11/2011

I feel as though I'm in mourning... I never thought I wouldn't be prepared to know myself. It was what I wanted to understand all along, and now I also understand what it really means to say 'ignorance is bliss' - because it's easier to never know, never question, never try to find out... that way, one can blame everything else for the rest of their lives never realising the part they play. They remain none the wiser, in a way, so no harm done. Had I not have this obsessive-compulsive, repetitive need to make sense of what doesn't make sense between me and people, or the world, I would have easily carried on simply assuming it was just the fault of others.

I'm so aware now of my inability to connect... The only reason it's not always obvious is because I constantly use my intellectual and reasoning capacities to build bridges and connect. But it was always painfully visible in real time around people.

I talked some more with my mother last night, and asked her if there was a possibility that me living with her hadn't in fact conditioned me to adopt the same 'symptoms'. After all, I grew up living with someone who lived in their own bubble, shying away from people, cutting herself off... I always assumed she just hated people and was unlucky in life in terms of never meeting the 'right' people. She said that it was unlikely. And I agree, I myself grew up in my own bubble, cutting myself off, struggling to relate, often terribly afraid of others because I couldn't make sense of them and couldn't relate on a social level.

All the problems we've had with people along the way... I've lost count. Now it makes sense. There's nothing worse than interacting with others but never understanding social clues properly. Never being able to create bonds or relationships with others because you don't even know how that works. You can see others do it, and you keep asking yourself: how does one do that? And then you want to try, but you realise that you can't because... whatever you need to do that, it's missing. So you revert back to being terrified and confused, closing yourself back inside your inner world where you're able to relate and connect.

My intellectual capacities allowed me to learn somewhat to be able to interact with people - the more formal the situation, or 'cold', the easier for me to get by - but one thing I was never able to grasp is the concept of 'small talk'. This thing just really eludes me. I never understand its relevance, although I'm capable to derive a reason why it exists logically, but I don't have the tools or capacity to integrate its meaning, let alone make any use of it. Now I can look back at all the times I tried to do like everyone else because I understood that was an important part of what people did when socialising. And I understand why people just stare back at me in confusion, or just ignore me.

I find it extremely hard - next to impossible - to look people in the eyes. I've always avoided not only looking people in the eyes, but also looking at people in general. I assumed for a long while that it was just that I wasn't interested, and besides what's to look at. The eye contact thing has bothered me for a while. Sometimes I tried to force myself, but every time I get confused and cannot for the life of me read a person's body language at all - I don't just get scared, it terrifies me. I could read about it, but never actually process it. It will remain a theory for me that can never be put in practice.

When I was younger, I used to be so scared of men, in particular. They petrified me beyond words, and to this day I avoid looking at them in general like the plague. When I have to go to a social gathering for whatever reason, say work, I'll talk to guys using solely my intellect. God forbid they should start making body language signs, or even look at me too much - it's a deluge of alien information to my brain and I panic. I can't process it.

Recently, I did get to experience my first 'relationship', but I realise the only reason it was possible was because the other person displayed distant, detached traits. He, too, didn't seem very good in terms of social clues, and there were things like that about him that made me feel safe. But then, I just couldn't process the idea of relationship beyond the theory and I became obsessed with the need to make my relationship look like a normal one out there. But I can't process feelings, I just intellectualise them, and when I can't, that's when I lose control in panic.

I feel sorry for my cousin who's staying with us at the moment... living with two strange women who never connect with him. It's always so quiet at home too. Each of us staying in our own head, interacting from time to time, but then each returning to our own universe. And there's my cousin in the middle, getting bored out of his mind. The weirdest thing is that I have to make a conscious effort not to assume he's the weird one out.

I could never leave home... whenever I tried, it ended in utter failure. The last time I tried, it was to go to university where I shared a house with 3 other girls. At first, the excitement and novelty of it all made it easier for me to socialise with them in the house. That lasted for about a month, and then I started locking myself in my room. I'd get so angry if anyone bothered me... I misread all their social cues, taking their curious staring at me for signs they hated me, which made me isolate myself even further, to the point where these girls really started to hate me. As I isolated myself further, I got warped into a downward inner spiral, not having anyone to help me out of that black hole - not having anyone to relate to. I stopped eating, started self-harming, became a complete wreck. And then my mother came, sort of took my hand and brought me home. But if she hadn't been there, I would have drowned in this big world I can't process on a social level.

How could I live alone in the outside world and not be eaten alive when I can't even make sense of social interaction and all these unspoken rules I can't read? I would stop even being able to function, I would simply shut down. And I know why my mother says I can't live alone, or why she gets so afraid for my sake whenever I talk of leaving... but these are just a reflection of my imagination. I couldn't leave even if I tried - it's too petrifying, the thought of being alone in the middle of a vast world full of people who speak this alien social language.

It all makes sense now... It makes me wish I could just stick a banner around my neck reading: socially clueless, mental glitch, sorry. Just so people wouldn't misunderstand my impediment for something other than what it really is. It's not that I'm just shy, or weird, or arrogant, or even a combination of those. Just so they would stop being so harsh on me as though I was acting the way I do on purpose. I always tried so hard... but when the brain isn't wired fully as it should, there is little than can be done, only the best we can with what we do have.

It's funny. I can make sense of the most complex pieces of information, my job itself seems the perfect example. Yet I get overwhelmed in any social situation and I can't even process the simplest of cues.

Right now I feel a bit like I'm starring in my own version of Shutter Island, I have to say. It's unnerving, to say the least.

18/11/2011

Things have been bad recently. They say it's life. One moment, everything seemed almost bearable in general, and I could immerse myself further in delusions, and then suddenly everything went wrong at the same time. Life reminds me of some twisted fantasy horror story where one enters a room and sees a beautiful room, only for it to turn ugly with rotten walls in the blink of an eye.

I spent most of last night crying so much that when I woke up this morning my eyes were red and puffy, and no amount of make-up could conceal it - I tried. I had to go to work looking so rough that I felt the need to make up an excuse, saying I'd gone out drinking too much the night before. I'm finding work less and less bearable, to the point that today I had to rush outside the office to stop myself from bursting into tears. The feeling of being trapped inside some twisted parallel universe has never felt so strong. And then as I sat outside and lit up a cigarette, trying hard to puff away the rain of tears swelling inside my chest, I strange 'illumination' dawned on me.

This impression of being trapped in some horrible parallel dimension is not an impression for me. It's a reality, the only one my brain is able to perceive. Something is missing inside my head, or brain, that has always made me unable to relate fully to the world. I have no capacity to 'socialise' the way regular people do, and what's more, I don't have the capacity to form bonds or what we call relationships because I don't have the thing that develops in most people's brains that allows them on a conscious level to connect to others and their environment the way regular, healthy human beings do.

My inability to connect or form connections with people is the equivalent of hearing sounds but never having the extra piece of 'software' in the brain to connect the sounds to the notion of words. I can only relate by using my rational part of the brain, which happened to develop perhaps even more so to make up for the other missing part to cope or survive. But what it really means is that I am unable to connect to other human beings except on an intellectual level - hence why I've always been obsessed with finding 'depth' in others... that 'depth' is actually a translation for my inability to relate or connect to anyone unless the connection is based on an intellectual level... because that's all that I have. The rest, what could be generally summed up as humane connection/socialisation - I don't have it. It's like a glitch in the brain, or something.

It's not about feeling awkward around people, or being shy. I not only feel all that, but the reason I do is because I'm never able to 'read' people's social clues. They go right over my head for the most part, and the ones I've learned to read are so few, and yet took me years to 'get'. I spend most of my time watching people when having to interact with them wondering how I'm supposed to respond, and usually I'll just run scripts in my head and pick out the one that has what I think may be the best outcome statistically speaking. Sometimes I'll just mirror people, or try to - very clumsily. That means I'll observe people and like monkey-say, monkey-do, I'll try my luck rather than remain completely lost and disconnected from people who interact with me outside the sphere of intellectual talk, which corresponds to the only developed faculty my mind could use to build a bridge and allow me to connect socially at least on one level rather than none.

My obsession with certain topics are also another give-away of some kind of neural impairment. I have something close to an obsessive-compulsive need to analyse and over analyse the same things over and over again, and guess what they always revolve around? Society, social topics, people, language... all the very things linked to what's missing in me to make the connection.

I live inside a mind that never stops analysing things over and over again, zooming in on a tiny thing and just never stopping. It's so full-on that the only way I found to keep myself from feeling like my mind is exploding is to write down my thoughts. When I say write down, I'm not talking about a couple of pages now and then. One diary can reach over 100,000 words in less than 3 months. I've checked it (that was easy, I write on word documents so I get the word count at the click of mouse). Last year alone, I filled perhaps 4 diaries in total, each spanning a period of around 2 or 3 months - and the only reason I don't keep one diary and split them into parts is because after a couple of months I reach the equivalent of a book, except all there is are thoughts, thoughts, more thoughts. Non stop. My other blog consists mostly of extracts I would select out of all the endless writing of thoughts.

My inability to connect normally with others on a social level is also coupled with an innate avoidance of touch. I've lost count how many times it simply felt weird to be touched by someone, even just to feel someone's hand brush my arm by accident. It feels weird and alien to me, and I naturally avoid it. My mother told me that I used to dislike physical contact ever since I was a tiny baby and that it used to make her sad at times because she always wanted to cuddle me, but I'd just push her away.

When outside in the street, I need music in my ears not because I'm bored or really enjoying listening to music. I put music in my ears to have something I can relate to, because music was always the one thing I felt I could relate to, and feel touched, or moved by. Listening to music especially in the middle of busy streets and faceless crowds of people is especially soothing because suddenly this alien world in front of me I cannot relate to or connect with is erased and I can remain in my own inner world undisturbed. I'll even avoid people from work outside when I get out of the office just to stay alone and lose myself in music.

All this detail came back to me after I spoke with my mother last night. She said to me she was sorry I had inherited her strangeness, that she could see I was afflicted by the same strange things she went through. She then went on to tell me how disconnected she was as a child, including not speaking for months at a time even at school. She would avoid social interaction at all costs most of the time, instead retreating alone to just be in her head, you know. As she grew into an adult, she never managed to really have relationships, and now simply stays alone.

We are both so socially dysfunctional and unable to connect on that level that so many people take for granted because, hey, it's supposed to be just 'normal'...

Things are getting worse for me. The pull inside my head to switch off and stop trying to 'connect' is so strong, but now that I realise that I really have some kind of disorder, I also realise that all these past years I was looking for answers to my sense of loss and disconnection... now I can stop trying and accept that I'm the way I am, and make the most of whatever it is that makes me. So what if I have a glitch in my brain that prevents me from ever experiencing a real bond or relationship with people. So what if I can only relate through the intellectual side of my brain?

It also explains why I cannot control my emotions. I cannot even relate to them, the only way I 'relate' is by intellectualising them. Beyond that, I am at loss, unable to really control them, left to feel as though there's this mixture of magma inside that keeps erupting randomly. The worst part is that I constantly misread people, especially in person. I find it a bit easier in writing. Hence why I love writing so much, perhaps. It makes things so much easier for my mind to understand or connect.

I had this strange 'revelation' dawn on me today, although I probably fail to explain it clearly enough, but never mind. The strange thing is that it feels now as if I was staring at the obvious all along, but I kept trying to become 'normal' in the sense that I never realised that I was always missing a 'pathway' somewhere in my brain that could allow me to relate and connect the way regular people do.

I can let go now that I understand... and actually start exploring this strange way of experiencing the world my 'impairment' has left me with.

17/11/2011

I'm still listening to "The Japanese popstars", and that's just because that song happens to fit my mood perfectly.

I am so tired.

Tired... of everything. I want to hang onto the dog sledding dream only. Whenever I close my eyes and imagine myself or simply picture the scene in my mind, I feel relief and beauty.

I'm gonna do this, you know. I'm really gonna pay too much money just to go to Greenland and do this.

Why? Because I'm looking for something... and I don't know what it is, but I've decided to listen to the call within.

I have to book something that's all packaged for me - you know why? because I'm absolutely useless in concrete terms. Here's the perfect example of a person (me) born and bred exclusively in cities. My only experience with 'nature' dates back to when I was about 10.

As much as my mind develops, the need to get back to nature is unbearably strong. There is a link I need to make at least for myself here.

I need to reconnect.

I need to let go of everything I ever thought I knew... and join the dots.

Words... No longer enough... sounds, gestures, actions, images, music...

I just want to fall into the deep end and not care if I never resurface again.

16/11/2011

Work is like high school, but instead of working for grades, we work for a salary. Therefore the only value in so-called education beyond learning to read and write has to do with conditioning - conditioning to get used and adapt to 'work'.

Then, depending on the type of 'job' one gets, the equivalent of homework is either easier or harder.

FACT.

The whole basis of this current society (the one I was born into and therefore know from experience) is a JOKE, and anyone who defends it or works fine along with it is either a brainless idiot (there are many) or a piece of shit that thinks they can make the most of it because they already understand the fakeness of it all.

I rest my case.

15/11/2011

I woke up feeling horrible... I can't focus at all. I have so much work and so little time to do it, the stress is coming back and I hate it. My mind keeps drifting off, and I don't seem able to rein it in to focus on writing all the complex things I need to write... that's really bad.

I couldn't even get out of bed this morning... it was so hard. I just need some time off badly... but before I can have it, I need to find the strength for the last hurdle, or something close to that.

It gets so hard at times to find the strength to rein my own mind in to have it focus on concrete things like work-related intellectual demands. But if I don't do it, I'd be in real trouble...

14/11/2011

These sorts of simple melodies tend to get straight to my heart, waking up the little girl within who never really left anyway.

Whenever I feel sad, I feel her within. She never left me. She's my inspiration, my only reason for living.

Work is a hassle, as usual. But maybe that's the best type of job I could ever get. I can't really get bored since I'm always dealing with something complex, which in turn appeals to my mind.

I've always felt more at ease with complex matters, more so than the simple ones. Trust me to get it wrong or remain clueless in the face of the simplest tasks in life, yet I'll figure out things far more complex like child's play.

I was always like that... Even at school. Whenever we were given a test, I'd spend the first minute figuring out which questions were the hardest, and then I'd select them over the easy ones I knew most other kids would at once select.

Anyway, who cares?

I wanna go dog sledding in Greenland... lose myself in the tundra... go ice skating across a frozen lake nestled between white mountain peaks... and then collapse in some hut or igloo with a warm cup of cocoa.

Dreams always come back to you... like phantoms in the night... they come back to haunt you and when they do, it's always at a time when you can no longer ignore them.

Here would be a rough idea of the four corners of my inner world... within which I constantly find myself travelling across, from one corner to the other. Who actually needs travelling when it all already exists in the mind's eye?

I tend to spend more time wandering around the ice cap and frozen landscapes these days, but I've been found to remain for periods of time in the spring valley... rarely have I stepped foot in the more arid corners with only sand dunes stretching in the distance, but I like to take a stroll by winter's feet, where the landscape is turned crimson and gold by a dying sun.

13/11/2011

The sky is a lovely winter blue outside my window, even though it's still autumn, and the white curtains flutter lightly in the quiet breeze as I sit here puffy-eyed and sleepy. It's Sunday morning...

When I went to meet a friend on Friday night, I'd spent the day feeling rather good, but I'd also started to become more aware of the things that actually separate me from the world in general, or more precisely people. This isn't some big-headed confession, but a rather painful realisation in some ways.

As I train myself to let go and remain neutral inside, I find the distance between me and people around me only growing further. But it's not people, it's me. Every single person I know seems to have hobbies, things they like to do, favourites, dreams, desires that are often widely found among people, making it easier, in a way, for them to bond with one another. These hobbies, favourite things, 'interests' or dreams make it possible for them to fit in more often than not because all these hobbies, favourite things and 'interests' repeat themselves randomly across the world. After all, we're part of the same species, and though we like to claim differences, we are mostly similar in essence. Even the need to feel different is part of a common human trait that can be found across the world in various people.

Depending on the pool of integrated 'interests', hobbies, preferences and desires a person has, it turns out easier or harder to make 'friends' and integrate within a group. The more generic the likes and preferences, the more likely the person will find themselves integrated within a larger group, whereas the more 'niche' the list of interests and hobbies, the more difficult it will be to find others sharing the same sort of niche list of interests and hobbies.

Well, that's nothing new. Being more like the majority means getting on easier with most because you share a lot in common with a lot of people.

I've realised for myself that I've grown rather empty already. There is nothing about me remotely attractive for any regular person out there. I mean really. I have no hobbies, no strong preferences in anything, no strong interests... nothing. I could sit in that chair just thinking all day and it would be enough for me. Sometimes I think about what I could do or try, but there is never a strive strong enough to make me want to bother. I'm like a blank slate inside that just doesn't 'take' in when it comes to further adorn my identity with composite elements such as likes and dislikes, interests etc.

I can be interested, of course, especially if it's something entirely new to me, but nothing ever seems to become a part of who I am, or that could ever define me.

I noticed that a long time ago, but until now I was never able to fully realise it for myself. You know how people will define themselves through the things they like and don't like, be it in a conversation or online? I remember once when I was still at university, I started going out with a few popular people in my year. One day, I ended up sitting in a pub with a couple of guys from that group of popular folks, and as I sat there wondering what the hell I'd talk to them about, one of them simply started asking me about my likes.

"So what kind of music you listen to?" asked one guy. I looked at him for a moment as I racked my brain for an answer... nothing sprung to mind in terms of 'favourite' because I liked way too many things without any particular preference for one or the other. I just enjoyed almost every genre rather equally for different reasons. As I looked at him, I picked my answer from the pool of all the types of music I liked without any higher degree of preference according to what I knew would probably fit it with his own high favourites. So I replied: "Radiohead, Kings of Leon...that sort of thing." And the guys nodded in approval at once, especially at the mention of Radiohead.

Depending on who is in front of me, I seem to adapt to what their bundle of interests is. It's often easy because while I have no strong preference in anything, I usually appreciate almost everything without any particular bias or strong interest, so I just pick whatever would fit with whoever is in front of me whose identity is just based on a bundle of strong preferences.

But what does that make of me? It means that every time I make 'friends' I'm actually playing a different role each time 'tailored' to a particular person... and it probably explains why I've ended up with a few friends, but all of them usually completely different from one another - so much so that I can never really gather a group of friends because they would be way too different from each other to get along or even relate.

For a long time, I used to accuse most people of being 'fake', but it was always me. Most people are at least consistent in terms of their core identity. They have a fixed set of likes and dislikes that can expend or retract over time, whereas I happen to be so open-minded that I have lost, or never really had, the capacity to be selective to create a core identity for myself, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all... it's just that this realisation makes all the difference now, because it finally sheds light on a lot of things at once for myself.

So whenever someone approaches me, I'll be tailoring myself according to them because most people are really just a bundle of likes and dislikes, preferences and interests, while I don't usually prefer anything, I can just like a lot of things equally for different reasons, and none of it is ever assimilated deeply to my own person, leaving me somewhat like a blank slate that I can construct in a certain way just to match another person's bundle of likes and dislikes, preference and interests.

Hence my inability to truly 'fit in'... because every time my core personality is just a made up 'doll' according to who's in front of me.

I have... no so-called personality. I'm just a rough outline upon which layers of interests and preferences can be loaded randomly depending on both my environment and the type of person I interact with. But as soon as I'm away from it, the layers vanish leaving me back with the rough outline that presents no strong interest for any particular thing.

Nowadays, I can't help perceiving people more like 'bundles' than 'real' people. It's hard to explain... it's like I've grown too aware of how much people build up their sense of identity like lego blocks in terms of defining themselves based on the things they like or don't like, their hobbies and interests. It seems to be needed to fit in within a group or society in general just to bond with others and create relationships, so I'm not saying it's bad. I just can't relate.

The other day, while I was sitting at my desk at work and thinking about these things that dawned on me with more clarity for the first time, I caught a glimpse of one of the new guys at the office looking in my direction often. At some point he stopped by my colleague's desk right opposite me and as he was talking to her, he kept looking at me when he thought I wasn't looking. My first reaction was to find it cute, no matter how real it was or not (it's not like I could be sure there was anything to it), but that pleasant feeling of thinking that someone may be showing interest in you was swiftly replaced with a dead feeling inside. A feeling that I had nothing to offer inside and out, that the guy had better find someone else to be interested in, because all I had to offer was emptiness... void... non-personality.

I then found myself imagining that I was chatting to this guy without adapting to him and I realised the conversation wouldn't go very far at all. He would tell me about his core identity based on his own bundle of likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, and in return all I could do is shrug.

"What music do you like?" he'd ask.

"A bit of everything, really," I'd say.

"Anything in particular? I love [insert trendy band name here], I went to see them in concert last year, they were great," he'd carry on.

"I'd have to hear one of their songs to see if I know them. I'm not very good at remembering names in general. I just listen to music."

"Do you watch football?"

"No." (and if someone else was there with us, the other person would probably by then get involved to share their own interest and views on the subject, shifting the focus of interest on them while I remain silent and listening in the background as they start bonding. This shift could occur at any point during the conversation but for the sake of this made-up convo, let's say there is no third-party involved.)

"Oh, ok. Yeah, I'm not a massive fan either."

Awkward silence follows for a little while.

"So, what are you up to this weekend?" he'd then ask.

"Nothing much. Probably take it easy and relax at home."

"The whole weekend?" he'd gasp, and I'd nod before he'd start telling me about how he's planning to go rock climbing, go for drinks with his mates, go sky jumping, whatever, which I'd be likely to find genuinely interesting because I've never done it.

"Really? That sounds like fun, I've never tried."

"Yeah, it's great, I love it. So, er... what do you like to do?"

"Nothing in particular. I like writing, I guess."

"Right. Are you into sports?"

"Not really. I don't mind playing sports though."

"What sort?"

"Any really."

"Do you like travelling?"

"I guess so. I like visiting new places if I can."

"Oh, me too. I went to India last year, went backpacking for 6 months, it was incredible..."

"Wow, I'm sure it must have been. I'd love to do that."

"Yeah, you should, it's worth it. Have you been anywhere?"

"Yeah, some places in Europe, nothing as remote as India, though."

"Why not?"

"Don't know really. It sounds really interesting but I guess I never really found a strong incentive to actually do it."

"Ok... where do you live?"

"I live near [insert location]"

"Cool, that's quite close to work. Do you live with friends?"

I'd stop for a second before replying, here, and then would probably lie. But if I was to only be myself rather than adapt to others, I wouldn't.

"No, I live with parents."

"Really? That's... nice, I guess."

"Well, they live near work, so it just made sense to me rather than rent some place for the sake of it."

"Yeah, I guess it makes sense. I share a flat with two guys. One of them is a bit of a loon... [insert rest of random story here]"

"I guess I'm lucky, it's not too bad where I live."

"How are you finding work?"

"It's ok... challenging I guess."

Laughter would follow in agreement.

"What do you want to do after this job?" he'd then ask.

"I don't know, I don't really have any ambitions."

Awkward silence would follow for a moment.

"I hope I'll be able to get a job at [insert big job name here]," he'd sigh dreamily.

"Yeah, a lot of people seem to want that, it's a bigger paper I guess."

"You must have an idea what you want, right?"

"Not really. I guess I have time to figure it out. And even if I don't, I don't really mind."

"Yeah, I guess... So, er... Do you write things outside of work?"

"I used to, I've stopped for a while now. Waiting for inspiration, maybe. I lack self-discipline."

"Haha, yeah, I know what you mean. What sort of things would you like to write?"

"Stories, shit like that."

"Sounds cool."

"Yeah."

And so it would go, perhaps even worse, with anyone I meet, if I didn't start adapting to their likes and dislikes and lists of interests to build up a fake core personality that aims to match theirs. Failing to do that keeps me a blank, boring slate for most out there in possession of a core personality based on a bundle of likes and dislikes, interests and hobbies. My only hope would be to find another person who happens to be just as 'blank' and neutral in terms of core personality or identity... or I would have to start integrating very precise likes and dislikes, interests and hobbies and stick to it to define 'myself' on a longer-term basis than simply depending on the people I meet.

Now of course if someone really deep and intelligent started engaging with my brain, something inside me would kick in at once and I'd instantly get into a discussion that would look at everything under the sun in terms of deeper meaning and philosophical notions. Usually, that is not the case.

Anyway... That is 'me'. I almost feel sorry for anyone thinking that I could be interesting or have anything appealing to offer. I am an empty slate, a non-personality in a world full of walking 'bundles', and now that I understand that, I feel neither resentful or judgemental about it. It's just the way it is. It is no one's fault that I end up isolated and alone. It's just a question of lacking the ability or desire to construct a bundle of likes, dislikes, interests and hobbies for myself and allow it to become my core identity. Without it, I am simply empty and uninteresting to everyone else out there. All that I really 'have' is my ability to think and feel, but nothing to allow me to bond with anyone.

11/11/2011

It's past midnight, I can still hear the crows outside.

I've stopped wondering about love these days. There is nothing to wonder about, really. A friend of mine I met today after work made a rather astute observation when it comes to human relations. She observed that most people seemed to get together out of convenience in the end.

Companionship, she said, seemed to be the driving factor after a while, rather than the all elusive notion of 'love'. After all, what is love? Is it really what books and movies portray? What movies and books portray so easily is a rare occurrence in human life, hence why it is so popular in fiction.

So-called 'love' only occurs in human history perhaps 1% of the time. The rest is filled with convenience and the need for companionship. I suspect that the older we get, the more focused on companionship we get. Companionship so we won't be alone, companionship so we can have children and lead the same sort of lives as the rest, etc.

That's all there is to it, right?

I think it is better to be alone, and get to a stage where yes, we are alone, but never lonely. That seems to be what I'm aiming for, and to be perfectly honest, that also seems to fit the patterns of my life.

It doesn't really matter... I like that I was able to at least experience bits of things in life. I learned from it all, or so I hope.

My real issue was never really about relationships, but about my own self, and its place in the world, in a way.

All is exactly as it should be, even as I don't know where the path leads. But you know what? Sometimes it's more beautiful that way. Finding my way in the dark... never knowing where it will lead, but trusting that it will lead where it ought to, no matter what.

Just a doll...

My quest to emptiness keeps me awake at night. I feel this giant void eating at me from the inside and I just allow it, like a black hole expending ever so slowly from within... hoping that at some point the black hole will be big enough to swallow me whole.

At times I feel as though I'm in some kind of trance. I'm still very much aware of my surroundings, but I feel a sudden disconnection from everything around me, and suddenly everyone and everything appears two-dimensional, as if the people around me were nothing but momentary hallucinations. As if there was nothing more to them except exactly what my eyes see. Bodies moving randomly around me.

I used to be deeply depressed, so I know what I'm experiencing is different, for the main reason that when I was depressed I used to wish I was dead. I hated myself as much as I hated the world and its fabrications. But now... I feel this 'depression' just as deeply, except I have no wish of being either dead or alive, nor do I have any wish to hurt myself or others. I just feel in limbo.

I spent the weekend watching episodes from a TV series called Dollhouse, which is about some corporation with the technology to erase people's brains and memories completely to implant various personalities back into the 'emptied' bodies depending on the mission the corporation gets paid for.

The whole concept was rather interesting. The question of what remains if someone erased all of your memories or 'identity'... what remains if identity is wiped out? The series starts off with the assumption that by wiping out a person's memories and experiences, not only is the person's core identity, or illusion of one, destroyed, but all that remains is really the empty shell of a body - and as such the people whose personalities are completely erased are dubbed 'dolls'.

As the series progresses, it starts questioning the notion of a soul, or core 'being' and whether wiping out what we call identity (memories and experiences) really does lead to an empty body.

As I watched the 'empty' bodies walking about, clueless and childlike in their lack of memories and personality, I have to say I was able to relate far more to them than all the other fully-functional characters who haven't had their personalities and memories erased. I wondered for a moment which one I 'was', and the answer was... just like the 'dolls'. I don't know why, but there you go.

The way it feels is strange... It's like I only become 'active' when my environment triggers me. But as soon as I find myself alone or not 'triggered' by a person or event, I switch off. Vacant eyes, numbness, the void within. And then it only takes one person to come my way, to ask a question or simply talk to me, and I swiftly switch back on again almost like magic... but now I feel it... I feel the trigger, the way my personality switches back on to life because that is how I've been conditioned as a human being to evolve. It is so rooted in me that I switch back on beyond my own control, just like a reflex. I cannot consciously decide to remain disconnected from my environment when it triggers any sort of reaction from me. A lifetime of learning only about responding to it has led to this.

Head hurts...

04/11/2011

So not empty... it feels like pus oozing out of an infected wound - my whole being. That would be the most accurate way to describe my 'state of mind' these days. "Pus" coming out of my mind or whatever entity that I am within...

I have no idea what I'm doing. I simply cannot not do it. All my thoughts and feelings are heightened, so loud and 'stinky' like gunk spurting out of some rotten dead corpse. The more I focus on silence within, the more of that gunk comes out, but what seems different this time is that I am aware of it?

It's very tiring, especially when surrounded by people, chatter, city noise in general... especially when having to interact with other human forms because I end up being acutely aware of my reactions 'inside'... and all my thoughts and feelings appear like mere reactions triggered by the environment I'm immersed in... it's disturbing.

How to even attempt to explain it?... I've suddenly become more aware that everything I 'feel' or 'think' are mere reactions.

I am constantly merely reacting to my environment, although most people would see it as being 'me' and 'interacting' with the outside world - but in fact I am truly only reacting to it.

One example - and there are plenty occurring every single day, perhaps in the thousands - would be when I finished some work and sent it to my boss at work, and then he turned to me to congratulate me. I could not control the 'feeling' of sudden elation at the praise, which came as a direct reaction to the compliment.

I ended up feeling rather at loss when I 'felt' that sudden surge of satisfaction when at the same time I was capable of discerning that it was in fact an uncontrollable reaction... much akin to a reward-reaction conditioning process.

The worst, most harrowing part was that I could not stop it from occurring. The reaction was so rooted inside that it kicked in not in function of 'my' control, but that of my environment.

If I cannot control my reactions in thoughts and feelings, then I am never in control of anything, I only like to believe I am. There is no escape from that, except by reaching a complete neutral state.

But is it possible when immersed in any type of disrupting environment? We're probably wired to react to it. And the more we react to it without question, the more difficult it becomes to stop ourselves from doing it. We build up some set of expected responses that pretty much cover most of the routines settings.

None of my thoughts right now are anything but the result of a reaction of sorts with any given environment I find myself in. Same goes for what we call feelings, or emotions.

But the more aware I grow, the more uncertain I become as to the outcome of what I seem to be doing inside myself...

There will probably come a time when I won't even be able to write on here, just to avoid the noise of words altogether.

I need neutrality... a certain state of tabula rasa.

I'm mostly focusing on letting go right now... letting go of absolutely everything, like shedding skin layer after layer the best I can.

Attempting the almost impossible task of not thinking, not feeling and therefore not reacting.

It's incredibly hard... not impossible, but really, really difficult.

People in general make it even harder at the stage I'm at because they trigger a constant stream of responses and reactions from my person. All I can think of doing is take note of as many instances as I can, and hope that I can slowly carry on whatever it is I'm doing.

Let go of everything... thoughts, feelings, strive, passion, anger, sadness, attachment... for complete emptiness or a state of complete neutrality.

02/11/2011

Not actually empty... but getting there. It feels like the intense wave of inner pain and unrest I'm experiencing could actually be the window of opportunity I've been waiting for to 'reprogramme' my self, this time not caring what the 'my' part of the self is about. I need to get to a stage where there is a self, without the need for a 'I' attached to it because if I can reach a stage of Self, then I am and I am not all at once. I would be nothing and yet everything at the same time.

I've been reading up on things like 'ego death' and it does feel like the reason why I feel so much unrest within is actually to push me forward to finally deal with it - transcend that state.

I need to hang on to the pain within long enough while reprogramming my self, even if it means remaining in some sort of strange, hurtful limbo full of darkness in its most literal meaning. I need to remain in the dark inside my head, switch off all the lights - the thoughts - one by one. Remove every piece of conditioned feelings and thoughts until there is nothing left but empty space within... a form of tabula rasa without necessarily erasing knowledge drawn from experience.

Every time I feel anything, I now need to train myself to remain detached from the feeling. Same goes with all the thoughts.

No desires. No strive. No anger, joy, sadness... one by one, I must let go, switch off the light.

I can already sense some of the more difficult ones in my way, such as anger and sadness. These two are going to be seriously hard to let go for me.

The 'no desires' part can also be tricky, especially as we live immersed in an environment that does its best to make you want things. That's why I need to work hard on the inner reprogramming.

No desires, no wants, no strive, no anger, sadness or joy... and no attachment. The latter is one of my biggest weaknesses.

There is a certain degree of asceticism involved in the process, no doubt about that. I don't think it can be avoided, in fact it needs to be embraced.

These days, every time my body or mind starts producing a certain conditioned reaction such as feelings or subjective thoughts (ie: opinions or judgement, in particular) I stop myself or at least try to let it go as if it never were. The more I do it, the less frequent it will be, and the more 'empty' I will hopefully grow within. After that, I have no idea, but I need to do this.

"You're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul" - I just love that line...

Apart from that, still feeling depressed. So many things I could be doing, but instead I can only sit here, feeling dead inside.

I'm tired of being made to feel like an outcast in life. I spent most of my existence so far trying to fit in somewhere, and it never worked. Whenever people complain they don't belong, people tell them that's just because they're different, or 'special' or whatever crap like that, and that they should be 'proud' of their difference. Yeah, that's one piece of useless advice when most of us are just regular people with nothing special or different about them... just bad luck meeting the wrong crowds all the time.

My only friend is my cat. Seriously, he's the only one, beside my mother, to show unconditional attachment and true loyalty to my person. Yet, as he acts more like a small dog around me, I wonder how different it would have been for him had he been free to roam the world. As I type this, there he is, sitting quietly on the bed, staring at me.

When I was little, I used to make 'pacts' with my pets because I hated reality so much that I wanted to die with them. I used to promise myself that as soon as my pets died, I'd kill myself. I started promising it with Johanna, the hamster I grew particularly attached to when I was 8. By the time she died a couple of years later, I had a black cat and so I easily found myself postponing my own death sentence, thinking I'd die when the cat died.

When I was 18 and lost my black cat, instead of killing myself as promised, I... I just carried on living.

I don't understand why I never wanted to grow up and live. These thoughts of wanting out have been with me for so long... Deep down, I was always a melancholic person, creating dramatic scenes inside my head endlessly.

I never understood why I lost the black cat. I still don't understand. When we moved countries overnight, we'd had to leave him behind because we had no idea where we were going. After our first three months in London, I started having nightmares of him being abused and starved. We'd left him with 'friends' until we could find a way to get him over to this forsaken island.

After that flurry of nightmares, I became convinced that the cat was being abused and about to die, so I convinced my mother to make a run for it - to just pick the cat up and smuggle him back on the island. She agreed.

When we returned, we sprung up on those 'friends' by surprise, and found that they'd been keeping the cat locked up inside a wardrobe. My once beautiful jet black cat with piercing green eyes was a shadow of his former self... skinny and terrified. They'd even broken one of his canines. As I opened the wardrobe, he first cowered further back inside, but as I called for him in whispers, he emerged slowly looking like... looking almost like a small child who couldn't believe his eyes.

We took him away with us and as we waited for a boat near Calais, reality suddenly dawned on my mother. She panicked, saying there was no way we'd be able to smuggle a cat across the border without people realising it. She said we had to leave him there, in the middle of nowhere in the night, promising that someone would surely find him and it would all end well.

I remember my 17 years old self sitting on the bench of some bus stop, pressing my cat harder against my chest as she spoke, heavy tears running down my face. No, no, no, I kept stuttering, looking around at the deep darkness of night... I could see my mother grow more panicked as she fought the urge to cry.

"If you leave him here, I'm staying with him... I'm not leaving him behind..." I kept weeping.

We remained there for a long time, in the cold of night, not knowing what to do, until suddenly a taxi stopped by. The man lowered the window and asked if he could be of any help, and my mother just told him exactly what the problem was. The man stepped out of his car, approached me as I clutched at my cat, and asked me if I had a bag. I nodded blankly, showing him my large, empty saddle bag.

"Just put the cat in there darling," he said matter-of-factly.

"What?" I gasped.

"Just put him in, look, let me show you," he insisted. And as he spoke, he grabbed my cat by the collar and shoved him inside the saddle bag. "There, you see, he's not moving. Cats stay quiet if you transport them in something dark. Just keep him in there and no one will know."

He was right, and we managed to smuggle him almost too easily. Of course this all happened pre-2001. A stranger in the night had helped us...

A mere year later, we lost the cat nonetheless. I was away to finish my studies, and my mother decided to let the cat out in the garden, which would have been fine if only the people who shared the house with her didn't start throwing stones at him for fun. That made him terrified of returning, because every time he tried, the people would scare him away with stones.

When I returned for a brief holiday and heard what had happened, I spent my days outside in that garden, waiting for him. Finally, he showed up, dirty and covered in wounds. I still remember the bleeding gash on the side of his head... I tried to approach him, but he wouldn't let me come close, yet I could see he still recognised me. The defiant look in his eyes... wild and suffering at the same time. At night, as I would retreat alone in the bedroom while mum was out working endless hours, I would watch him stand on the lower side of the house's roof, looking toward my window from a distance.

One night, I came out into the garden again. I knew it was my last chance to get him back because I was going away the next day, and wouldn't be back in months - and I knew we would have moved away again by then. It had just stopped raining and despite the cold darkness of night, there was a beautiful moon gleaming, giving us all the faint light we needed.

I saw him at once, sitting quietly on top of the high wall standing between the garden and that of the neighbours. I approached slowly, praying inside that he wouldn't run away, began to climb up on a pile of old stones and bricks to reach him... I reached out for him with one hand ever so slowly, letting him smell me first... he didn't move. I caught him by the collar and hugged him tight against my chest... but as I now held him, I couldn't go down without jumping, and as I jumped, he panicked and started to fight me off... and I had to let go.

I had to let go. And it was the last time I ever saw him.

It's been over 10 years now... I never dreamed of him again except for that one time, a couple of years after we lost him for good. That dream wasn't a nightmare this time. In that dream, I was back in our old home in Paris, which surprised me in the dream as I walked in, wondering how it was possible for me to be back 'home'. And as I wandered about, surprised to find everything still exactly as I remembered it, there he was. I gasped in surprised as he came to rub himself against my legs as if he'd never left. "You're home," I whispered, envying him.

And then I woke up, and it was the last ever time I dreamed of my old black cat.

My heart is too full of accumulated sadness, and I don't seem able to let go. I used to see a shrink, a few years back, and as she asked me to tell her about the things that affected me, I used to start giggling as I told her about these things. About the bad stuff in my life. At some point she asked me why I was always laughing whenever I was talking about sad things, and I shrugged. I hadn't realised. It was just an uncontrollable reaction, I said. I said I knew there were worse things happening to people out there, but she said others were irrelevant when it came to the pain experienced by a person.

26/10/2011

Still feeling depressed. That's about the only 'feeling' I can sense in me, apart from that there's just emptiness.

The price to pay for self-awareness is that we realise we are alone, each and everyone of us. Some manage to turn it into 'being alone', which is very different from being lonely. Accepting that we're always alone in life means that we can positively relate to that state, whereas feeling lonely only expresses the lack of acceptance of that inherent state of being that is attached to our ability to be self-aware.

We can socialise all we want, and build all the family units we like, it can never remove the fact that we're always all alone.

I feel so empty... I've never felt more beside the point, or perhaps I have, but it always feels worse and worse with time, never better.

I've been keeping myself busy with work, but even there things aren't great. It doesn't matter what I do, I seem to be the kind of person who always ends up drawing the short straw.

Just going through the motions, everyday repeating itself, weeks and months lost in a mist. The heroine inside my head is crying.

Broken thoughts, soul, spirit, words, everything...

I feel so much like a pariah in this life, even as I sit doing nothing, even as I sit saying nothing.

Weeks and months turn into years, and years turn into a coffin.

24/10/2011

I feel rather empty. I go to work, do my job the best I can feeling pretty much nothing. I go home, disappearing away in a crowd of early winter coats; faces are blurred as I walk past them without much of a glance, and as I find a seat on the train, I gaze vacantly ahead, my thoughts lost in a fog for the most part. I emerge into the cool breeze of night fallen too swiftly, feeling nothing. The sound of voices echoing in the near distance, from a pub nearby a light chatter and the knocking of glass... still, I feel nothing.

I look at people around me, and all I really see is giant envelops full of words. Just words, more words, like a deluge that never ends. My head doesn't listen anymore, it's learned too well to filter out the noise and skim through the garbage of mindless sounds called words.

I go home and sit at my desk, light up a cigarette while thinking I should quit, and stare at the computer screen for a moment or two as I wait for some music to numb the air around me.

And then the day rewinds to tomorrow.

23/10/2011

This year has been flying by so fast... How strange that time is experienced as going so fast once we're adults when childhood itself felt like an eternity...

I've been thinking about the notion of 'users', as in people who use others constantly for their own benefit often without even realising it, and how much a world's ethics based on greed and self-interest has been driving that trend.

It would be foolish to think that the way our world's ethics have developed isn't directly having an impact on the very way people turn out to be in life. More and more, life as a whole has become a race for consumption. A belief that each of us has a 'right' for almost everything has nurtured a society based on self-entitlement and expectations that ought to match our own, irrespective of the fact that our expectations may be wrong, deluded or contrary to the well-being of others.

We want what we want, and give no regard to anything else. We have a 'right' to want, and that's it. Everyone is out for themselves in a society that no longer exists in essence, but whose foundations are still there to give the illusion that it's still a society we live in.

Love has become this strange commodity that one can get and throw away at the slightest inconvenience. The notion that love is something deeply linked to responsibility and commitment has pretty much gone out of the window for a lot of people out there. People just want the easy part where it's all cuddly and nice, and as soon as the going gets tough, they can just throw it all away and move on.

It's particularly disturbing to me, I have to say. It's not even like I have a particularly strong sense of 'ethics' in life. I'm rather flexible, and tend to follow or dream about things that would make more sense than not. Things that would more likely bring a healthy balance than not.

Yesterday, I went to meet a friend of mine, thinking it was good timing that she'd called me to go to the movies with her since I had nothing planned and was feeling a bit down. I decided at once to go out and spend the afternoon with her and catch up on things. Just have a girls day out, you know, between old friends...

We met near the cinema where we used to work together, and went to have a burger and chips first. As we sat at a table in a corner, she started telling me how she was no longer talking to her other friends because they were so 'selfish' and always 'wanting things to be their way' without any regard as to whether it was good for her as well or not. I was listening, nodding my head as she said all this, and then she said something like: "Yeah, so I told them I wouldn't go out with them anymore. I said I didn't want to go to the movies with them this weekend anymore, and when they laughed and said I'd have to go on my own, I just told them I'd call you, so... in their face, right?"

I was struck for a second by the blatant fact that she'd just told me in my face that the only reason she'd called me was because she needed someone to go with her. She'd used me and told me in my face, and couldn't even see that she did, and yet there she was complaining about her friends doing that to her.

Talk about making you feel like the third wheel, here. But that's obviously the role I play with most people I know. Thinking back, they never call or text, or really want to be in my company unless there's a specific purpose that forces them to see me.

A few months ago, another of my 'friends' called me out of the blue. Her polite excuse was that she wanted to catch up, and then before I hung up the phone, she asked if I could lend her that pretty top I had because she was going salsa dancing. I said, sure, I'll bring it with me when we meet up, which I did.

Then I didn't hear from her for another 4 months or so... till she texts me again out of the blue and offers to go out for a drink and 'catch up'. I'm like, yeah, of course, that would be nice. So I go there to meet her, and we do have a nice time catching up, but the real reason for meeting up in the first place stares me in the face the whole evening: she needed to return the top.

This sort of situation where I'm reminded I'm always the third wheel or Billie no mates isn't new to me. It's the story of my life since high school, really. I've spent a good part of my last decade wondering what it is I do that alienates people so much from me, and I'm sure there are things I do or don't do that put me in that position. My lack of active social interaction doesn't help, in the sense that I don't actively seek to be in contact with anyone most of the time. But the reason I don't is because I just don't feel drawn to most people... they bore me, perhaps just as much as I bore them. There's this inherent incompatibility with the people I end up meeting, which is really at the core of why I can never fit in with them.

For a long time I used to think that perhaps I was just plain weird - but even the worst of weirdos make friends. Doesn't society love a so-called weirdo? Maybe I'm a mean person, but then again, don't people always feel more attracted to the bitch and the jerk of the village? Yes, they do. So... I ended up thinking that I was probably too boring, and it fitted with the fact that I just don't find what most people talk about 24/7 interesting that much. It's interesting, even fun at times, to gossip and make stupid jokes for a third of a conversation, but after that it just gets way too boring for words, I'm sorry.

So I've developed that inability to fit in with a lot of people because I don't really get what they talk about. I don't watch much TV, don't read the latest trends, don't follow sports, don't enjoy shopping, etc... so when people start mingling with each other and 'bond' I can never contribute, not only because I'm not interested, but because I really can't, since I don't follow what most of them do.

However, I recently started to make some effort just to have the basis of a mainstream conversation with people, you know. It's not really helping because now I've realised something else: people, for some reason, never wanted to listen to me at all. It's like whenever I open my mouth, people would rather ignore me or talk over me.

There I was thinking that my inability to make real friends, even to just 'fit in', was linked to my lack of conversation on trivial matters and gossip. But even as I found myself having things to gossip about, I realised that it didn't change the fact that whenever I interact with people, a chasm between me and them remains.

I've spent way too much time trying to close that chasm, and nothing worked. I just have to accept that there is something about me that makes it impossible to ever fit in. I have to accept that and start finding ways to cope and get used to standing alone in this life watching a world I don't belong to as though standing on the other side of a glass wall.