Thoughts from a soggy mind - best served Cold

In slightly more than a day 2005 will b drawing to an end. For many it would be the time for new year resolutions once again. Me? I prefer to look back at the year that wasn’t.

The first two months, January and February proved to be boring months. Only tuition and the occassional helping hand at BB and PBHP to keep myself from being idle. Those were the days when i kept dreaming of coming back to SASTI, but i knew i couldnt till May =(

March was the month of anticipation, joy and then mindless rushing. Awaiting the SPM results, happily celebrating and then rushing all the way to Tapah to buy those darn JPA forms. Filled em up, made sure everything was in place and then…sent them with hopes soaring high.

April was smooth sailing except for THE interview and all F6 tuitions were in full flight. Patiently and anxiously waited for May, Form 6 beckoned!

May at last, and again i could enjoy the joy of being in the thick of things in my beloved school. June came and went, aside from the initial dissappointment of failing to get the JPA scholarship, pretty much enjoyed myself in L6Sc3 =)

Then a whole new life began in July. Away from my beloved family and friends, fighting a new and harder battle. The rest of the year? Too much and too morbid to recount here.

Anyway, looking back at 2005, i was amazed that i never changed much regardless of what other ppl think. The only difference, is, perhaps, I’ve become much more cynical than ever before. Which is a good thing in my opinion.

I used to believe that perseverance and talent are the only things that matter when it comes to success. But now i realise it matters as much whether the clerk that proccessed ur application would rather paint her nails or open your envelope. For all my efforts,by the end of the day my fate was in the hands of sometimes overzealous and sometimes apathetic bureaucrats. The word "luck" comes into the equation as well.

Talking about luck, I scoffed at the predictions that the Rabbit would have a hard 2005. Scoffed indeed. I lost-and barely regained- a scholarship which i felt i deserved (based on my performance in the interview anyway). Two other things i lost were during the final months of the year - a person and a friendship. I doubt i can ever regain them, but that’s life. And it was my own fault anyway. At least i can be comforted by the predictions that Rabbits will have a good 2006.

I also had an insight into human nature. How ambition and desire for personal glory can blind someone into sacrificing the needs and future of the greater majority. and how sometimes even democracy fails.

The last month of 2005 was indeed a period full of events for me. It was also a time of personal reflection, during which i realised one last thing about myself. I can be pretty stupid. And my stupidity had cost me dear.

A 2005 that wasn’t the best year for me by a mile. Yet it has come and gone. I can only hope i can curb my own stupidity in 2006. Happy New Year.

***A man, hungry and tired, with his last rm50 note in his pocket, stood outside a casino and gazed longingly at the entrance.

"No, you musn’t go in there. What are the odds of you winning anything substantial? It’ll be better to buy some food, fill up your stomach and find a job! You may be broke now but hard work and a bit of luck will improve your life," a voice in the man’s brain told him.

"Go in! This is your last chance to strike it rich! Who knows what will happen tomorrow! Why care about toiling on and on when you could be dead in an hour’s time? You are a man, and we must HOPE, there will be MIRACLES!" another voice, this one in the man’s heart, persuaded him.

The man stood at the casino doorway, swaying this way and that, while his heart and brain debated fiercely. Finally, he chose to trust in the magic of Hope and Miracles and went in.

An hour later the man walked out in a daze. He’d lost everything.***

What am i trying to say through the story above? Well…honestly, i created it. Just to give an analogy of what i wana say.

Many of us like to live in a world of fantasy and dreams. I was, and still am, that kind of person too. In our fantasies everything is beautiful, sweet and nice. Everything is indestructible, everyone immortal. Whatever we do, or try to do, become huge successes and we feel such elation at achieving the greatest desires of our hearts. Boys fantasise playing football for their favourite football club or being a warrior. In our dreams and fantasies, we’re always the goal-scoring hero, the monster-slaying hero that everyone adores. Even in imagining fights or quarrels with our enemies, in our fantasies they are nothing more than fools who get tongue-tied in front of us. We say all the clever things, and the crowd cheers our every sentence. Or, perhaps, fantasising about the girl of your dreams? Courting her is a breeze, she readily accepts when you pop the question, and every date is as sweet as honey or even sweeter, as we would believe it.

In short, everything is perfect in our fantasies. But in pursuing our happiness which we know we will never get, we forget that they are just fantasies. They’re not real. We start to find excuses to mask reality and try convince ourselves that fantasies and/or dreams can come true. We forget that Shrek is just a piece of commercialised feel-good story that we mistakenly worship as an inspirational story for all the imperfect. The Princess and the Frog is just a fable written to entertain children, and yet we cite it as an inspiration to justify our foolish dreams.

In the real world, an ogre will NEVER win the love of a beautiful princess, regardless of whether or not the princess has a curse on her. And let’s face it, would you kiss an ugly, talking frog and believe that he’s a prince, blah, blah, blah? You won’t. I won’t either. The frog would be lucky if i didnt throw it away with all my might. Yet you and I, in all stupidity, still believe we can be that frog in the fable.

At some point in our lives, we try to pursue our dreams and fantasies, urged by the misguided assurance that everything will turn out exactly as we fantasised them. Coupled with the fear of regretting not to have pursued our deepest desires when the chance was there for the taking, we plunge in head-first and find ourselves in the dark world of hurt and dissappointment.

Do we regret what we did then? Yes. Repent? No. Like idiots we cling on to Hope, waiting for a Miracle to happen, for light to shine on us and liberate us from the darkness. Waiting and waiting, stupidly Hoping and secretly believing that our fantasies will still somehow come true and all will end well. "And they lived happily ever after" seems a better thought than rousing ourselves to face up to reality and light our own fires instead of waiting for light from above, light that deep down in our hearts we know will never shine on us yet never had the courage to admit it to be so.

As days passed and we still obstinately cling on to Hope and await a Miracle to happen, despair and anxiety set in. When will it happen? WILL it ever happen?  Secretly you and I both know that it will NEVER happen. But to admit that is to admit defeat and accept that our greatest dreams will never be realised.Ever.

While in actual fact we’re wallowing in self-pity and hoping for the suffering to end, for the regrets that we’ve brought for ourselves to just dissappear, we try to appear otherwise. So we continue to console ourselves, telling ourselves to Hope without any real conviction and trying to be Optimistic as we await the Miracle.

Optimism? I now realise it has another name : naivety. Fantasies and dreams are nothing like reality because they can never come true in spite of our best efforts. Hopes and Miracles do occur but they are not for fools like me. Nor are they for those who refuse to believe that the princess wouldn’t have kissed the frog in real life.

For me at least, i should start living and stop daydreaming. Nay, start living and stop dreaming altogether. It’s time to wake up.

Somehow even before i start typing away, i have a feeling that this post is gona b the hardest for me to write in the way i want to express myself. The reason? Regrets are, in my opinion, the rawest and harshest forms of torture one can possibly suffer from. Hounded for life by them, we can never successfully shake off that nagging feeling of shame, sadness, anger, dissappointment and despair whenever images of our past float by in our minds. I dun know bout u, but it’s true for me anyway.

Sometimes it may just be a small regret, something that i feel more embarassed rather than sad about. But at times it can be Something really close to my heart that it hurts.So much so i wished that the earth would swallow me then and there, bury me in its depth forever to free me from having to look at the sunshine around me and yet see only darkness instead of light.  I know some things should have been but never was. Some things i should have done but never did. Some things i shouldn’t have done and yet i did! Same goes for things i should and shouldn’t have said; i ended up doing the opposite. The despair that i feel, knowing that no amount of crying, moping or brooding will ever bring me back in time to repair or change things,just makes the regrets all the more painful and unbearable.

If a regret(assuming it’s a big one) is already that painful, what more when there are a few to face? And what about when we are faced with different choices, each of them promising some form of bitter regret in the future? With only one choice to make, which regret should i choose to face later on? If, knowing that all the choices at hand are bitter in nature, wouldn’t it be wiser not to choose any and just sit back?

The trouble with waiting and doing nothing is that the fear of uncertainty of the future appears. I confess I am afraid of what the future holds for me and for those around me. Death, disease, natural(or man-made) catastrophes, human nature, who can control such things? If, by being idle, i end up losing something i treasure, that will be as big a regret as any of the regrets that i know i will inevitably face when i make and act on a choice.When both being active and passive condemn me to the gloom of heart-tearing regrets of different nature and yet equal in the pain that they cause, what should i do then?

Regrets Vs Regrets….hard to choose indeed. Especially when i know(or knew) that whichever i choose (or chose), there won’t be a happy ending. Only pain, hurt and despair await at the end of the road…

This is a continuation of sorts from my my previous post. I’ve actually thought the whole thing out before deciding to blog - i dun wana post rubbish (maybe i am, but this is the best i can do). Well…not the whole thing. Most of it, actually, over 3weeks beginning early December when Something happened.

Back to the point. In my previous blog i talked (or should it be ‘wrote’?) bout the H(h)uman M(m)ind and my inevitable inability to control it."So what if i can’t control my thoughts?" I would have liked to say that, but sorry to say the reality is thoughts never stop at just being thoughts. With one thought a new thought arises - possibilities, consequences, what-will-bes and what-could-have-beens. Sometimes i find that my final thought is about something that happens ten years after the initial thought. Stupid, and ultimately useless thoughts. But they happen. And let’s admit it, some of us do enjoy having such thoughts, don’t we? Myself included.

But when the final thought is finally laid to rest, a new, and more sinister thought arises in the form of Choices. What should we do now? What options lie ahead of us? If, and i say IF, making choices were an easy task i probably wouldnt be writing this blog today. And on a bigger scale, people would perhaps be liberated from the agony of deciding which choices they make and which they discard.

The thing is, sometimes we fret about a simple choice such as our next meal (when it shouldnt b so considering some people have no meal to look forward to). What more when the choice brings about greater consequences than whether we satisfy our taste buds? Perhaps the choice we make would hurt someone, or ourselves? Or ruin what was once a beautiful friendship? Or cause us to lose something forever?

People tell me to just let things be and decide as the choices present themselves in good time. Sound advice, i’d say, except one small problem. What if there is no time to lose? Or, in my case, i imagined that there was no time to lose? It’s when choices have to be made immediately and they all cause some serious consequence or the other that it becomes a source of agony. I know, because i’m always beset by too many choices and too little time. Do u feel that way too?

As far as my experience goes, rushing headlong into making a choice often results in Regrets(the topic of my nex post). Well, i can’t turn back time to undo or unsay certain things. A burst balloon can never be patched up and inflated again no matter how hard you try. Sometimes choices often come with a rosy promise of better things, urging us to act quickly. And in pursuit of the flower i forgot the thorns. All i got were withered petals and a bleeding hand.

Knowing that rushing to make a choice is stupid, why do i do it again and again then? Simply because deep inside every human being(i hope i can be considered as one) there is a fear of the future, of the unknown, of irreversible loss, and of death. Sometime even when i try to withdraw from choosing, a fear sets in- what if i don’t have another opportunity to act on the choice? will being passive now cause me regret in the future?

All in all, even deciding whether to act on a choice or not, and deciding between choices are choices in itself. In most of the cases, they lead to Regrets. Some don’t. But most do.

What goes through our minds, day in, day out, every hour, minute and second? Thoughts. Happy thoughts, sad thoughts, angry thoughts, bitter thoughts, nostalgic thoughts. Recollections, reflections, Contemplations, Plans,imaginations, Fantasies - all these are forms of thoughts. A strange thing, the Human M(m)ind. Sometimes the swirl of thoughts in my mind is so intense, so confusing that it’s frightening.Note i used uppercase for Recollection, Contemplations, Plans and Fantasies: no such case for reflections and imaginations. That’s because i consider these four to be the most important and therefore the most damning.

Have you ever felt the world to be dark and lifeless when one of those four kind of thoughts cross your mind? Recollection of bitter memories or an unhappy past, a friend you have lost,words you’ve uttered or actions you’ve done only to regret it later? Contemplations of what COULD have been but can NEVER be, steps u wish to take back but can no longer do so, words you wished you never said, words u wished u had the courage to say but never did? Plans that you know deep within yourself will never bear fruit despite your best efforts, culminating in your deepest regrets? Fantasies about the uncertainty of the future, of what will be and how u will be deprived of the things and persons u cherish most in your life?

Or perhaps you live in a bright and sunny world where the thoughts are positive? Recollections of the greatest moments in your life,when u felt like you were top of the world, being with friends, family, the one you dreamt of? Comtemplation of how u have acted wisely in the face of adversity,how u had the courage to do what was right in the circumstances and how, right now, u’re enjoying the fruits of your bravery and labour? Plans for the future - where nothing will go wrong, where everything will only be brighter and rosier than things are now, where everyone will look at you with rapturous expressions on their faces and say "you’re the greatest!", where you will live in a state of eternal joy? Fantasies of the wildest kind : being in a fairytale where you are the lead character, everything is made of sugar and honey, laughter rings all around and all ends well, u’ll live happily ever after with the one of your dreams?

I suspect most of us alternate between the two realms mentioned above. Some are in states of joy (or depression, depending on the circumstances) for hours, days, weeks or maybe up to years. Some, meanwhile can alternate between such realms in a matter of seconds. I’ve experienced both. Which brings to my question : if our thoughts can lead to happiness and despair at the blink of an eyelid; and last for eternity to boot, do we revere the chief architect of our condition for its power and call it the Human Mind? Or do we despise it for its cruelty and the damage it does, and just call it the human mind? Elevate it to the heights of being a Something (as a special noun with capital letters) or crush it to earth and just be a something(a common noun with small letters)?

By this point u may probably feel that i’m just a nutcase with too much to think of. People tell me not to think so much. But the H(h)uman M(m)ind, love it or hate it, is not an easy thing to control. Thoughts are very much part of our lives and they often make the difference between rejoice and regret- i find that most of mine inevitably bring me the latter. Perhaps i should really not think so much? ignore my M(m)ind and let things be, as my friend(s) like to tell me?

But then again…by making a conscious effort not to think and to ignore my M(m)ind, i’m still using my M(m)ind at the same time, am i not?   

People who know me (and i mean those who really know me) would probably agree that i’m both reserved and outspoken at the same time, a contradiction of sorts. As to why I have such a personality, I do not know. Being a private person I used to keep my innermost thoughts to myself and writing this blog won’t change that a wee bit. This blog is just an outlet for my outspokenness in certain issues close to my heart. What I write may or may not be my own experiences, some are just observations of events, people and emotions revolving around me everyday. Please bear in mind whatever i write are frank and honest assessments which may offend or insult certain individuals (as I always do) so if u dun like what u’re reading or may be reading in the future, kindly close this browser window…Cheers