Sometimes I wonder if it’s so hard to spread universal joy and peace.  But it is, isn’t it?  Especially when you dig a little deeper and wonder about why it’s so hard for everyone to be content with being…content.

That’s the way the world works, I suppose — everyone’s selfish, even that holy fellow by the altar there.  There’s got to be some sort of a nth degree of imperfection, no?

A few days back, I was listening to Lennon on the car stereo and it hit me — spreading universal love and joy isn’t really that hard to do.  It just takes a lot of willing members to create a movement that basically will overpower all the cynical people in the world.  However, it hit me even harder when I realized that I was one of those morose, cynical souls.

Shame on me.

What spurs you on to be a better person?  There’s got to be some sort of a drive, a force, that leads you upon that path.

It’s not that hard to be nice.

I guess it’s being consistently nice that’s tricky.

I want to start a fight with myself.  I hope that on a fine weekend morning in the near future, I awaken to find my evil twin at the foot of my bed, mocking me.  He’d berate me for all the things that I find lacking in myself.

Fickle.

Slow.

Dawdling.

Fidgety.

Impatient.

A list.  A list would spew forth from his mouth, and then he’d charge at me and push me through the wall, into my neighbour’s soon-to-be-completed monstrousity of a renovated landed property.  We’d battle it out in this skeleton of a home.  I’d take him by the scruff of his neck, and repeatedly crush him into the pillars, thus destroying the foundation of the house and having the ceiling collapse on top of us.

When the dust would settle, we’d duke it out for a little while longer, before he’d have the upper hand and use leverage against me, pulling me over and impaling me on a protruding pylon.

He’d then take my identity, and be the guy that I never could be.

I wish this would happen.  Because I look at myself now and I feel incredibly confused.  And if the clone can set things straight, then be it as it may.  Take my name and make me great.

You’re going to make a king of me.

I have the tendency to never appreciate anything fully.  In these troubling times, you’d think that I’d be remotely grateful for what I’ve got.  And the thing is, I’m not quite sure that I am.  I wouldn’t call myself ungrateful — it’s more of yours truly being lost when he gets something that he wants.

I get very edgy when things start going my way.  I expect calamities to befall.  I expect to have a dodgy stomach for the rest of the day.  I expect the Plague.

It’s a fear of the goodness of life.  I suppose I feel that I’m entitled to suffer.  Anything remotely bright or dazzling would eventually find its way to my thrash pile, so instead of wholeheartedly accepting it with open arms, I’d rather pass it on to someone else.  Someone who’d probably value it more than myself.

No doubt, a short walk down the line would make me slam my own proverbial head when I realize that I’d made a horrible mistake, but, lo, that’s my life.

I simply don’t know what to do once the stars align for me.  Despite my constant whining about how they never are.

It’s time to take the bull by the horns again and get slain in the process.

I lead a blessed life.

I’ve been predicting the eventual drainage of whatever luck I have, but so far, the chips have been falling in my favour; everything that’s resembled an obstacle has conveniently morphed itself into something pleasant. Or it’s been magically wished away.

Therefore, I shall now do the familiar:

My luck’s going to run out on me before I know it.

There. I’ve signaled the death-knell once again.

Happenstance can’t be dancing with me forever.

Supersonic actuators are slowly building a crescendo in my head.

I was happier then, when my mind was at ease and my balls were firmly connected to my pelvis.

Now, every day seems surreal. Driving to work has become an adventure in itself. The people I know and the people I meet remind me of cardboard cutouts that sprang to life from some strange quarry in the back of my mind.

Then it repeats itself. An incredibly sickening, overplayed mantra that rings true for every one of us: ‘there’s got to be more than this’.

Some people can be incredibly satisfied with what they have. Some people are more than happy to settle for less. Some people know what they want. Some people know what they don’t want.

I don’t want to go thru each day like it doesn’t exist. But I think I’ve come to a point where it doesn’t really make a difference anymore.

I’m so tired.

I don’t think I’m as obsessed with success as I should be. Most people around me are driven to succeed; it might be some desire to gain a remote semblance of ’stability’. It also might be because it’s regarded as the right thing to do — after all, there’s nothing better than making something out of yourself.

I’ve never felt the urgency to go places. I’ve been perfectly content being aimlessly aimless, and I’ve been happy with how things have been. I’m not saying that I want to stay showered in static all my life — it’s just that I crave and hate anonymity all at once.

Have you ever felt lost about who you are and what makes you tick? A while back (but not too long ago), I always walked around with this inclination that I was set for bigger things. I don’t really know what I think these days.

I’m not sure if I’ve built a cage around myself and whether or not I’m just a jaded little jigga who can’t figure heads or tails between what he wants and what he really wants.

Nobody knows where they’re going; I’m just not really sure I can be bothered to get directions anymore.

Having a game plan terrifies me, most probably because of the effort required to draw one up. I’d sooner just throw something into the wind, wing it from there, and see where it takes me. I suppose it’s this particular approach to things that’ve gotten me into this hole in the first place.

To be fair, it’s not really a ‘hole’ as much as it is a giant Sasquatch footprint; something that doesn’t really exist, yet you can’t totally disprove. I do have a problem; I can easily choose to happily ignore it, but there’s the risk of it always being there.

But, as usual, I digress.

I’ve drawn up a strange schematic that might actually resemble a game plan, and it terrifies me. Being called into action is one thing; after all, you can’t run away from conscription (unless you exile yourself to Canada). But willingly submitting to something as proper as a plan only makes things harder for you — you do so many things with the risk of them not being appreciated.

But apart from being a morose motherfucker, I also pride myself on being incredibly stubborn once I set my mind to something. I can only call it a quality I possess that makes me all the more redeeming.

Of course, whereas some people might consider not taking any advice to be a sign of a higher degree of self-value than anything else, I consider not taking any advice to be a sign that you can stay straight and true to whatever silly objective you had in the first place.

After all, we won’t always get what our hearts desire. But we can surely, surely fucking try.

With that said, I’m about to embark on a relatively strange and alien trip to the center of my head. And I hope that this incredibly cliched passage of self-discovery ends with me being a happier person.

I’m just like Jerry; I know what completes me.

The path to getting it is the bitch.

There’s no real surefire remedy for the blues.

So why feel better?

Should we let time run its race and take its course?

Nay.

Wallowing is good. Wallowing and being proactive is so much better. Wallowing and being proactive and getting the job done is a triple expresso.

Hang, on, Pigita, I’m coming for you.

Salut.

Sometimes I wonder if incompetence runs through my blood. My ineptitude will be my biggest downfall; I attribute it to nerves. Or, to be precise, the lack of them.

It’s troubling when we see how motivated we are in the beginning, only to cut back on progress and then bring everything to a grinding halt once we’re either complacent or bored (or at most times, a mix of both).

Success spoils us. There’s a possibility that it softens us to an extent whereby we simply cannot face failure without being able to pick ourselves up again. Undoubtedly, a lot of work and effort would’ve been put into being successful, but there’s an incredibly short way to go between being the king of a mountain and being a king of a mountain of beans.

And let’s be honest; success can only be reached if we can overcome the perennial short attention span and obligatory threshold for punishment.

Things taste sweeter when they come easy, no?

Yes.

Sadly, I’ve been drifting further into the camp of believing that hard work and effort takes us places, while being inundated with invitations to direct marketing plans telling me otherwise. However, I can see that the latter would probably involve just as much initiative as the former…which I’m unable to provide. Or it could be a biting unwillingness.

I also don’t wish to impart any more pain upon my parents, because I’d like to have them go away in peace without me having to go to their graves (or in my Chinky case, their urns), wishing them to come back to life to spot me a dinner.

There is no subliminal message here; there’s no epiphany to speak of. There’s no new dawning realization of something that I didn’t already know. There’s no striking of Nirvana.

In a little under a week (depending on…you guessed it, the probability of success), I will possibly be struck free from the only bonds that I have ever been willing to become tied down to, towards a path of either corporate slavery, a lifelong commitment to the less-than-debonair civil service or simply biding my time on a beach, making money off selling bait and tackle.

And My Lord, despite how incredibly inviting, serene and surreal that last one sounded, I know that it won’t lead me anywhere. After all, I didn’t (over)spend six years on a business degree to help you fish.

Or did I?

I was never given a raw deal. But I’m about to give you one.

These last few weeks have been rather stale. I haven’t felt the twitch of inspiration to do anything remotely interesting with the old folks out of the house; it’s been more of a case of curling up in front of the TV and falling asleep, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up with a sore anus after being manhandled by five Indian burglars.

Alas, while I’m living out my paranoid delusions by locking up everything in the house, I’ve wallowed deeper and deeper into a pit of longing and despair, where even a smidgen of human contact would make me a happy camper for days on end.

It’s not easy, being a hermit. The only thing missing in my case is a beard and scraggy hair.

Apart from all the negligent aspects of my increasingly subdued life (methinks that it’s basically a transition to a full-on repeated quarter-life crisis), I’ve got around two weeks to prepare for what could hopefully be my last dance with academia ever.

Wish me luck, even though I haven’t really started doing anything about it. Forewarned is forearmed; I hope I do remember that.