Tag: personal

  • Finding My Way

    I have a lot that I want to pursue, explore, or share in my efforts to unravel or unpack the unanswered questions around me. I think sometimes that I should in fact write that book that many friends, colleagues, and some professional acquaintances often nagged me about, but then I wonder if there is anything new that I can add to the already burgeoning stores of narratives that someone thought was special enough to share. One of the problems with this ease of accessibility to sharing your thoughts is that everything fast becomes clichéd because everyone has a pearl of wisdom to drop all over the place. I wonder then if the new challenge is not to string together meaningful fresh insights, but rather to collate the clichés in a way that brings sanity to the noise, or beauty to the jagged edges of everyone’s desire to be noticed?

    My life is less than ordinary. It always has been. I always imagined ordinary to be a normal home, with a normal family, normal parents, with general growing pains and the usual social circles to round it all up. Children that have a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, but a healthier dose of family unity. Parents that each play their own parts equitably so that a vague sense of order and balance resonates through the home. Overall, there’s a general sense of wholesomeness accompanied by an unashamed sense of mediocrity in celebrating the little life stages that each of the kids make it through, while the parents grow content with having put their kids through school, and then maybe college or university, followed by marrying them off into good families to start that entire cycle again.

    That’s not my life. Never has been. Improving on that would be extraordinary, but less than that must then be less than ordinary. That would be my life. Less ordinary, and somewhat weird. Part of the weirdness was instilled at an early age when I realised that I was not like my siblings, so seeking affirmation from them for what interested me was never an option. My parents had their own distractions, so seeking out fatherly guidance was not an option either. And so started the troubled journey of finding my own way in life.

    There’s a boon that accompanies such a journey, and that is the ability to forge new paths and take the less travelled roads (oh, those damned clichés ). The opportunity to make your own mistakes without having someone around to tell you ‘I told you so’, nor having someone around to constrain your thinking or creativity in line with their fears, or failures. But there’s a burden that accompanies every boon. That burden is the anguish you feel when you’re embarking on something really important, or at least want to, and there’s a room full of no one that you’re able to use as a sounding board. No one that you feel comfortable enough to share that passion with because you know that your reality is very different from theirs. Your frame of reference is different from theirs. Your self-imposed limitations, your fears, your desires, your perspective, is all different. So seeking sanity in their reflections is a futile exercise.

    At points like these I wonder if this is what it may feel like, in some small way, to be an orphan. To be without guides, or mentors, or pillars of strength. To instead find yourself to be that pillar of strength, that guide, and that mentor for others, with the means to guide you being not much more than a quirky ability to reflect while indulging, or to observe while acting, coupled with a resilience that can’t be explained. There’s a stubborn obstinacy within me that refuses to give way to convention. When I do fight that stubbornness in an attempt to ‘get along’, I find my health suffering because of the unnatural tension that it causes within me.

    The likely delusion in all this is that I seem to think that my circumstance is special. This world appears to be more dysfunctional than wholesome. Our drive for individual instant gratification has already eroded the sense of community that we all long for, but towards which most are not willing to contribute. This is sounding more like a brain dump than a post. Perhaps in that lies the secret of finding my way. Rather than internalising, perhaps there is much to be gained from verbalising my clutter, because once it’s out there in plain language, the sense or stupidity of it all becomes blatantly obvious, making it possible to sift through the muck so that I can find the gems that would lead me on to the next leg of my journey.

  • Random thoughts

    Browsing through my archives is somewhat surreal. At times it triggers stark reminders of forgotten moments, but sometimes it feels like I’m a stranger observing a struggling soul. Looking from the outside at someone that’s trying to find their way and not quite figuring it out. It’s strange and disconcerting, but there’s a rawness in the expression of emotion in my posts that reflected a sincerity that seems to be lost these days. I feel so guarded and safe in what I express, or even what I share. It’s as if I’ve suddenly become aware of the audience. I didn’t count on having an audience before. The audience, by their very presence, has tainted my focus, my sincerity, and my courage. I’ve become an attention-whore. And I hate it.

  • I Hate Skinny Jeans

    It’s been a while since I felt an inclination to post any reflective thoughts about my current state. I’m 100% primed for a mid-life crisis right now, but it seems like the only crisis I’m managing to acquire quite successfully is a mid-drift one. My chest is still pretty much where it used to be for the most of my life, so I’m quite comfortable that this is not a case of having a drop-chest. I’ve accepted that I am firmly part of the horizontally challenged brigade that still struggle to squeeze into their jeans of yesteryear. However, the situation is not as dire, nor as disgusting as it may sound.

    I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to maintaining my weight over the years. I’ve reached a point where my pants’ size is as big as I would ever want it to go, and I’ve been convinced of this for many years now. So each time when I feel it getting really uncomfortably tight around my waist, I know that’s a sure sign that I need to shed some baby fat. Incidentally, it turns out that baby fat is not as cute on a grown man. So the simple philosophy really just says that when my pants get too tight, instead of buying a bigger size and giving in to the bulge, I make a concerted effort to lose weight instead. My tolerance level to put up with that discomfort has obviously grown, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m only maintaining my pants size because of my anatomy extending over the belt line, rather than being constrained by it?

    Ok, enough of the disturbing mental imagery and on to the real point of this post. Going shopping for new jeans (of the same size I might add), has turned into quite a frustrating chore because of the insistence by retailers to shove all men (including us real ones) into that girlish designs that suggest that skinny jeans look good on real men. It doesn’t. It never did, and it never will. A man that wears a skinny jeans is probably a man that is either still living with his mother (for her to take care of him and not the other way around), or a man that gets his nails polished and has facial products to keep his skin looking soft and youthful. I hate skinny jeans. Especially for men. And I hate men that pamper themselves as if they’re women. We have more women than men in this world, literally and figuratively, so give it a rest already. Try being a man for a change. You’ll be surprised at how refreshing that can be. And no, being a slob doesn’t mean you’re a man, it just means you’re a slob. Usually a blob of a slob, now that I think of it.

    Shopping at several local retailers has proven that there is a pervasive assumption that men want to wear what women wear. I’m old school and proud of it. I yearn for a time when men were men and women were women, and each had equitable roles, and chivalry was still admired. But the feminists and the apologists will not allow such wholesomeness to survive, so they decided to force men into bootlegged jeans, skinny fit everything, straight leg jeans, low rise jeans, and everything but REGULAR FIT jeans! What happened to the good old regular fit? I don’t want some fanboy designer look. I simply want a comfortable pair of jeans that will allow me to do the chores around the house without having to shift my jewels back in place after each movement because of the feminine crotch that someone thought would be a good idea on a man’s jeans. It disgusts me to say the least, and physically pains me at best.

    No wonder we have such a dysfunctional society. Men are trying to prove that they’re as sassy and polished as women, and women are trying to prove that they’re equal to men. Neither are comfortable being their natural selves any longer except when they’re alone in their homes without any social stigmas to comply with or judging eyes to appease. All this is blatantly reflected in our children when they develop that vacuous mentality that allows only for self-promotion and a desperation for affirmation, while believing that any challenge is a reason to be diagnosed with a mental illness because the support structure that should be there to guide them through the insanity of adolescence is suddenly replaced with self-centred adults trying to compete with their children in appearance and social status resulting in social ills that leave even anarchists cringing with fear.

    Seriously. Can someone simply point me to a retailer that stocks men’s clothes for men in the men’s section, so that I don’t have to constantly look around me to reassure myself that I am actually shopping in the men’s section of the store?

  • Perhaps…

    Farting against thunder. That’s often the sum total of my state of mind these days. For a moment today I felt as if sharing my thoughts on this and other blogs of mine was in fact perpetuating the whispers of insignificance that taunt me. It’s an insane cycle. Needing an outlet, not necessarily creative or emotional, but just something to release the noise, make space for the clutter to fall into an open space so that I might be able to look for clues on how to unravel it all.

    I sometimes feel repulsed by what I write. At other times, I’m repulsed by the fact that I write at all. I wonder if all my efforts at unlocking the logic behind the ridiculous labels is in fact me denying that those labels actually apply to me. Perhaps I have a mental disorder but my arrogance and obstinacy prevents me from acknowledging it. Perhaps my views on what is or is not good in this world is in fact tainted with a sense of idealism that is unachievable.

    I shy away from debates that used to impassion me. I look at others and recede believing that my attempts at getting them to understand, or appreciate, or simply entertain an alternate view is futile. I seem prone to taking up lost causes as if doing so may spur on some global reawakening about something simple that seems pivotal to the resurrection of old school values that I cling to so dearly. Perhaps I only cling to them out of fear of not being able to embrace the new? Perhaps I’m not farting at all against the thunder. Perhaps the thunder is in fact the clutter in my head, seeing chaos where only randomness exists, and seeking order where none is possible.

    Perhaps the days of my sanity are numbered. Perhaps the purpose of life that always seemed so poignantly obvious to me was in fact a figment of my own imagination. A conjured ruse of a troubled teenager’s aspirations lacking in substance and form, with a life breathed into it from the seat of desperation that wrestles within my soul. Perhaps I was feigning sanity all along.

  • Those Invertebrates Again

    The disjointed thought patterns are back. Just as I was starting to revel in the experience of being able to think in whole sentences again, it all came to an ungraceful stop today. No. It did not come to a stop, I stopped it. I stopped it because I was tired of the same routine, the same cycle, the same deja moo. You know, those moments when you feel like you’ve heard this bullshit before? That was me today, and yesterday. Oh, hold on, it was last week as well, but I wasn’t paying too much attention back then because my natural defences kicked in and I shut out the noise, like  most people do these days.

    The only words that teeter on the tip of my lips right now, threatening to escape through my fingers, are expletives. Joyous, wonderful, and indulgent vulgarities, because that is all that I can muster to describe the contempt with which I view many people right now. A herd of perfectly postured invertebrates pretending to be sincere while desperately creating smokescreens to hide their pathetic incompetence and unethical behaviour. I need to scream a primal scream that causes a mountain to crumble to ashes so that I can finally let go of the frustration that mounts within me while I wait for people to be true to their stated convictions. I fittingly and deliberately plagiarised that imagery from one such invertebrate I had the misfortune of believing in. But that’s a whinge for another lifetime.

    There has to be a point to this post other than just a rant. If I don’t make a meaningful point, it will reduce my self-esteem to nothingness at the realisation that I just succumbed to the same pathetic pointless existence as most of them. Yes, them. Those oxygen thieves that stop at nothing to secure their selfish needs without any consideration for the sequence of events that they set in motion. A sequence of events that always tramples on the disenfranchised (I can’t believe I just used that liberal bullshit term) while pompously patting themselves on their blubbery backs.

    I despise the world tonight. No, I despise the psychopaths that wear masks pretending to be human when in fact they’re simply parasites in expensive suits worn as a superficial skin that presents a notion of dignity, without conscience.

    This is a haphazard rant. I haven’t been this self-indulgent in a long time. I hate that I work with people that make such indulgence necessary to begin with. But my saving grace is the fact that having a need to vent confirms that I have yet to give up my passion for what I believe in and hold dear. So to hell with the spineless swines. I will not become complacent to be party to their despicable agendas. I really sound like an idealistic teenager sometimes. Damn!

  • Incoherent Ramblings

    For the last few days I’ve  been typing out posts and deleting them. I question the value of what I share these days and wonder how much of it really matters, or am I just adding to the clutter? I scroll through my dashboards and feel guilty for not having the presence of mind nor the attention span to read through anything that is longer than just a few lines. So I wonder how many others feel the same way when they see my ramblings appear on their dash.

    Most of life is just drivel anyway. All the distractions that I keep trying to unravel mostly ends up being inconsequential but because I applied so much effort in the process, I feel compelled, if not obliged to give it significance. I’ve been unusually productive, yet somewhat sullen at work recently, but my sarcasm is usually enough to distract anyone from noticing the mind-space I’m in. People have grown to expect nothing less from me, except when they’re in need of advice, at which point I’m expected to assume the role of Yoda.

    My rambles are growing increasingly incoherent. My mind is foggy and words…well, words seem to be just words these days. They no longer give life to thoughts, or conjure images of amazement or beauty. They’re just words that share a thought but fail to connect. Connect.

    The landscape of my mind is somewhat desolate right now. Affirmation lacks any comfort when I feel undeserving of it. The energy required to share my thoughts this morning is more than I can muster right now. This effort is draining me instead of providing release. It only re-emphasises the space where passion once resided.

    Perhaps tomorrow will hold more promise.

  • Is this the real life…

    I’ve been faced with a daunting realisation these last few days. Perhaps I’m not so average after all. I’m not better, nor am I worse, but I’m starting to realise that I’m probably just fundamentally different. This may sound like a romantic notion to some, but to me this is potentially life altering. The reason it has such an impact on me is because it calls to question every observation or piece of advice that I ever offered anyone. If my disposition and point of departure is so significantly different from most others, it means that my criticisms and insights are distinctly biased and potentially useless for most of the people that I ever engage with.

    These are troubling thoughts for someone that has found much comfort in being able to offer advice to others so that they may avoid the mistakes that I’ve made. But this realisation now suggests that my mistakes are not likely to be repeated by others because I am not part of the normal crowd. I guess in many ways I’ve been resisting this realisation all my life. I’ve thought of myself as normal but different. Now I just think I’m different, and I’m not sure I grasp the concept of normal at all. I doubt I ever did.

    My ability to detach my emotions from reason is a quirk not appreciated by most. It helps in times of crisis, but it causes me to look distinctly uninterested and often annoyed when others are freaking out while I fail to see a reason to freak out just yet. Given that most people don’t live in true crisis mode all the time, it makes this skill of mine somewhat tedious to deal with. And surrounding myself with people that are in fact living in crisis mode continually will just drain the last drop of optimism from my gut. So I guess I’m in limbo.

    Silence is the only comfort I seem to enjoy these days. Everything else demands a presence of mind and a demand of my attention that has become quite an effort. I’m distracted most of the time with thoughts of…everything. What was, what is, what might be, what might not be, what could have been, what should have been, what I’m glad hasn’t been, and it goes on. It goes on painfully and tediously. But through it all I’ve managed to remain somewhat functional and able to offer some purpose in my presence. The more I experience, the more jaded is my response to life.

    Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? No, it can’t be. If it were, it would negate the realisation that prompted this post to begin with. I look at others my age and I struggle to relate to their frame of mind. In some ways I relate to the mind set of those 15 years my junior, but I find myself at odds with how they approach their sense of purpose in  life. I’m disjointed from society, from the community, and often from my family. But I’ve been revelling in that disjointedness until now under the misconception of it having been a valuable skill that allowed me to view the world with a fresh perspective.

    Who was I fooling all this time? I’m cynically jaded. There is no fresh perspectives for a jaded one. Suddenly Bohemian Rhapsody is mocking me.

  • Where Will This End?

    I wonder at times what the point is. Not of life. Of living. The worst distraction I’ve ever experienced in life has been my obsession with people’s opinions and affirmations. As much as I appear aloof or independent of it, it influences my behaviour in ways that disgust me at times.

    I’m in the process of killing my Tumblr blog. The dashboard on Tumblr seems to drive the same kind of behaviour as Facebook. It turned me into an attention whore seeking desperately to carve a niche for myself in a sea of uninterested acquaintances. But being the naive fool that I am, any seemingly sincere engagement with a stranger leads me to believe that I am being appreciated for the essence of me. The essence of me? I barely know what that is yet I fool myself into believing that others may be able to appreciate it.

    I sometimes feel like I’m primed for a mid-life crisis, although this crisis has already been in effect for the better part of my life. Responding stereotypically towards a stereotypical event hardly holds any appeal for me, but the tedious tendencies of society to label everything and everyone is rubbing off on me. I can think of no other reason why I continuously attempt to define my state of mind and my phase of life although arriving at a definitive term is quite simple. Dystopia. This is what it is, but hopefully will not be when it ends.

    The struggle then is aptly defined as my grave attempt to turn dystopia into utopia whilst still remaining morbidly functional in a dysfunctional society. Why do I keep measuring myself against society? I must be mad.