Life Of A Typical Malay - May 2000
if it's not Monday, then it's Tuesday...
I was asked to do this.
God forbid I ever accept things as they are.
I'd professed, lately,
to get enough pleasure (or meaning) out of life that I had come
to respect
it, but apparently, this is another delusion I have appropriated.
How can
I claim to respect life when I am constantly teasing it - prodding it,
insulting it, and running away? I seem to have some inability to allow things
to exist as they naturally would.
I am unable to choose to just sit with this life, and appreciate it
for what it is.
Left to my own devices, I begin to systematically set
everything around me on edge, tempting it to topple over and
break. I think if I were to listen to myself, I would realize that
this is not what I really want. But, it has been a pattern for as long
as I can remember. Heck, even as a happy little child with tadpoles
and sunshine, I would avow my responsibility so that I would be left
alone, whereupon I would do things no one would have anticipated, and
never came to know about.
I play the same games now, using my time and energy to throw
everything off balance.
Go on, life, fall apart. I bloody dare you.
Call it anything, it doesn't matter. Maybe I am just exercising my
skills
at anticipating the edge, and stopping short. But my depth perception isn't
what it should be.
I have to wonder why on earth I think I can believe myself to be a
'good person'. So the heck what if my primary concern is to not hurt
anyone or anything? So I take care of everything, and try to protect
all of it from harm. What the heck does that mean? That is not all
there is to respecting life. All I can really say, is that I am in
awe of it. I seem to believe that all life deserves respect, aside
from my own.
So I pat myself on the head, and tell myself that I understand, and
that it is all right. All the while, what I should be doing, is
slapping myself in the face, and telling myself to wake the hell up,
and act like the semi-intelligent person I profess to be. Why I
choose to be nice to myself on THIS issue is beyond me.
today & tomorrow
The joy that once existed in my life seems in retrospect only a
mark against which to measure my present joylessness.
Sleep, the preparation for death, frightens and frustrates me.
My bed is hot, the air is dead; when thought stops and I pass out at last
I am nervous in dreams. People accuse me or watch me carefully. My
friends turn against me. I awaken to sweaty, smelly sheets twisted
around my neck.
Trying to fill what's empty with food. Add physical nausea to
everything else. Distracted by TV, people, cats, whatever's around - I
catch up with myself as soon as I'm left alone.
Indifferent to everything except the indifference. My only
desire is for the return of my desires.
walk of life...
I take short walks around the office blocks every night to
think about how little I've accomplished during
the day. I look down at my shoes and with pathetic
anger kick little stones and crush little ants; I
look up at the moon with pathetic wonder.
I'm filled
with aimless hopeless longing followed by bitter cynical
self-evaluation. I entertain the foolish wish that
someone out in the darkness is watching me and pities
me for my deep 'meaningful' sorrowful glances into the
distance, or admires me for my poetic youthful harsh
individualism - 'he's walking
alone'.
More and more I
play these parts for the imaginary watcher: my stares
become more brooding, my inner pain more apparent.
I physically recoil at the pretended memory of some
laceratingly cruel episode in my life; I smile through
fake tears that quiver but don't roll to reveal my
tender understanding and compassion for even such as
those who I have pretended to remember have hurt me;
I fade from the smile to a long profound stare,
hinting to the watcher, to the lovely watcher, at my
unfathomed depths.
Disgusted by this game I play with
myself, I curse loudly, weak-kneed. Realizing how often
I have played this game, I struggle to create new curses
so that the game will be new. Finally I am bored, as I
was at the beginning, and I walk to the office, noticing the dark empty world.
I am suddenly strikingly conscious of a naked fact,
beautiful like an alabaster marble statue - I have no true friends.
- note -
I write here what I am too bored to write in my diary.
I am never more than a few seconds away from a curse,
a yawn, or a tear.
I can't pinpoint my sadness, seems like all I can do is turn it
into anger, or
words like this. But, like my hazy misconceptions,
my words are just as if not
more sporadic and psychotic. Do I want too much out of a
relationship? I'm so
introverted that I'm disappointed if someone can't see
through my eyes. It's a two headed coin, I can't see through
their eyes, see things as beautifully or see it with such admiration.
Letter For Whoever
Dear Someone
It is early Tuesday morning (4:30). I can't sleep. Although
I'm so tired -- I'll have another cup of coffee. I already read the reports,
checked my email, ate some cakes, and drank the
aforementioned coffee; still, I can't sleep. Something is
scratching inside my psyche. It constantly nags me, playing with my
mind, creating an empty feeling within my self. A hollow, barren
void exists, where there once was something vital. (How long has
it been gone ?) I am slowly rotting away, from the inside, out.
(I wonder though, is this so far from normal ?)
By now you must know that we will get married one day. Perhaps
this fact
relieves you. No, I don't even know. Speaking for myself, I can only
say that I wish it could have been otherwise. I feel so low. I
am letting my situation prevent me from doing what I want to do.
Maybe a better person would not allow this to happen. I feel like
a puppet. A servile animal.
It has, in the past, occurred to me that all of our few and
infrequent conversations have involved some form of
substance. This should bother me, but it doesn't.
I like dreaming, and I like rambling. Sometimes, though, I wish that
I had made the effort.
I don't suppose that you will ever read this. If I get around to
sending it, be sure that I will feel deceptive and isolated, even
in that. Please excuse the fact that this letter doesn't exactly
flow. Because I am a disjointed kind of guy.
*********************
I can't even deal with this now. I'd rather kiss a bottle than a woman.
Happy Memorial Day
Heck, now what am I to do this long weekend? New York CSCE will be closed Monday in observance of Memorial Day and London LIFFE for Bank Holiday. Maybe I'll go catch a movie or something, Mission Impossible 2.
next
..how was your weekend then?..