Addiction to Self-Actualization

As per usual routine, this piece is written when I'm supposed to be working on something else (with more specified deadline).

Lately, I've been deprived of meaningful connection. I snapped. I keep having terrible mood swings. Nothing is exciting anymore. Workload is all burdening, when it can be lighthearted and fun.

I printed sheets over sheets of paper. Scientific literatures to review. In printed form because my attention span is just horrible over the monitor. I installed extensions to block distracting websites. I used pomodoro timer just because. I tried being efficient. I tried immersing myself in the work. It succeeded, for a moment, before the timer stops and I produced a 9-pages paper for a task that required minimum 15 pages.

For a moment. I took a breath, and it was all just... gone? Like a thin layer of mist, huffed and dissolved into the air.

I stressed out over a week for... that? Hundreds of pages and hours of indecisive design for that? For a half-assed, half-baked (supposedly) academic writing? And when it's done, I won't even know if it's good or not?

I know I did bad. I tried promising myself I would revise. But when deadline passed, it seems like it's already a lost cause. I didn't even know if my revision would do me any good. I didn't even know if that work would do me any good.

Sometimes I don't know why I feel upset all the time when it's something that I chose for myself. Maybe because I know deep down it's not a wise decision, maybe because I didn't know it would be this hard for my brain to function, maybe it's because it's apparently not as fun as how it initially seemed, maybe I strayed too far from my earlier purpose.

Ironically, I found the answer in the brief moment of breathing after that past-deadline tension, with the underlying anxiety of another upcoming big wave.

I've been deprived of meaning.

I've been deprived of meaning because I haven't been creating something.

I looked at the pile of papers I've printed, post-it notes sticking all over the place, highlighter of various color atop (what could be) important sentences. I glanced at my manuscript, horrid incoherence over incoherence, glued together with half-baked words and last-minute pretension. I sighed. What's it all for, in the end?

I created it, but I wasn't proud of it. I spent hours and hours of sleepless nights just to make something that I don't even want to look at ever again. And I won't even know if it's correct, if it's satisfactory. It makes me mad, to know that I invested so much just for nothing. 

I know, I know it's a process. It's going to be a long process. Knowledge is intangible, I realize, and in the end learning is going to produce something in the long run. Maybe I'm just too impatient to wait.

One day I asked my friend, "what do you do when you're bored / tired?" to which she promptly answered with, "work".

"But what if it's the work you're tired of?"

"Then find another work, don't just do one thing."

It sounds weird at first, but I got her point. I know there's something missing in me because I've been doing only this one work of relentlessly following class and writing papers (okay not one work but it's one string of sequential work, you get my drift). Back then, I could still be following class and writing fiction / contemplation, to which I can say that I created and liked (forget how shitty it was).

I need another work. Not work "work", but probably, something with goals and output. Not for long term, but something, anything I can look at and say "yeah I made that". But I know I've been too tired to do anything nowadays. The schedule won't even let me breathe before bombarding me with other series of tasks. I even began thinking about uploading something to instagram after quite a long time of hiatus, you know, just so I have a digital artefact of my existence without doing so much.

I know I always say that. I had plenty of side projects that I want to do, when in the end nothing gets done. But maybe all this stress will finally make my brain snap and realize that there's no better time than now.

It's kind of ironic that I always have these kinds of meta-realization when I have urgent things to do. Maybe putting in actual works always gets me thinking if it's all worth it, and if it's going to do something for me in the end. 

I just hope that next time, I would be wise enough to understand what's meaningful to me before it gets too late. 

Test Drive

I want to drive down the southern coast and never be seen again.

I want to feel the nightly wind blow against my hair as my fingers tap the steering wheel to the rhythm of How to Leave Town tracks. I want to smell the ocean air, hear the thundering friction of my car wheels against the empty road, and watch the dim streetlights lining up the sides of my course.

Driving was always such a hassle in the city road. Traffic was everywhere, motorcycles would impudently cut your lane with no warning, and I especially hated how I got honked after only 0.01 seconds of green light. I thought machinery was invented to ease the work of mankind, not spawning petty problems like this.

But then again, perhaps as human needs get progressively fulfilled, we tend to seek for new problems to solve. Our goal has shifted from the survival of a species to that self-actualization of an individual.

And that's precisely why I'm here.

Either to actualize myself through this lonely journey, or to run away from the entity that used to be myself that I projected onto society.

I don't smoke.

So when I stared longingly into the darkness of the night sea, I did that with a chupa chups in my mouth instead of red marlboro. My fingers twirled idly on the thin stick of my lollipop. I waited for the current song to end before turning the car stereo off, letting my ears soaking in the sound of crashing waves

..and footsteps.

"You're so cute when you try to act tough." He joined me in leaning against the right side of the car, facing the ocean.

"I'm not acting tough." I held out the candy when I spoke, not sparing him a glance.

"Sure," I could hear him chuckling and inching closer to me. An arm around the back of my neck, the palm clutching the edge of my shoulder. I rested my head on his chest and we stayed like that for quite a moment.

For a moment....

A moment....

How long would the world be waiting for us? Does it ever, anyway? Or was this the world that's actually waiting for us, and now that we were finally here, it's opening up its arms to welcome us? Everything just seemed so perfect, so comforting, so peaceful, so forgiving.

The trip was initially a one-man plan. Drive away, don't be seen. Take a break. Breathe. Observe. Reflect. Find yourself.

Instead, I found him first.

"Take me with you." His voice was stern.

"You do realize where I'm going, right?"

"You could take me to Antarctica for all I care."

"I'm going nowhere."

"Maybe that's what I need as well."

Long silence. He waited still. I took my time to think.

"Are you sure?"

"Never been so sure."

I gave in to the touch of his calloused fingers against the cold of my cheek and the tip of my chin. The hand that used to hover around mine so much with uncertainty, now in its definitive physical proof tracing the shape of my face. I did the same, from the side crinkle of his eyes, the crook of his nose, and the scruffy side of his upper neck.

Don't ask me if I ever ate metal, but he tasted like one. My senses soon were engulfed with the mixture of salty breeze, strawberry candy sweetness, faded fragrant musk and saliva. The moon was still hiding, the streetlights were still faint, the wave sounds were still deafening, and the car engine was still off.

The stillness was like an oasis in this ever-crowded world, and I had to bite to make sure none of this is a dream I would be ruthlessly yanked away from.

"Careful there." He chuckled, "Don't bleed me out too much."

“So you don’t mind bleeding a little?” I smirked.

He laughed. Just the way I had always liked it. It was nice.

So we smile and embrace until we don't know who we are. ♪

"What's the previous lyrics- your head doesn't tell you-?" 

"Doesn't tell you to kill yourself ♪."

"That's morbid."

"He was just being explicit."

The music continued keeping us company in the late of tonight. The street was vacant, save for a few trucks and generic compact-type cars that passed me by. I stepped on the gas pedal a little deeper, making sure to put more caution on the brake under my left foot. My former driving instructor's words rang inside my head.

You're very careful with your driving. I wouldn't worry about your safety as a driver.

I didn't even want to be too cautious. I wanted to let loose. I wanted to escape myself. But I also wanted to drive slow and enjoy the night. Especially with him beside me, what's there to rush for?

I insisted on driving again because I had to keep my autopilot brain somewhat functioning. He was not supposed to be a variable in this soul-searching operation, but then again maybe I was not in his initial plan either. I'd like to think that I was the one catalyzing his intention into action, or perhaps he was just curious of what I would be doing and wanted to accompany me because he liked me that much.

He was no stranger. It wasn't as if I found him on the street one day, hunched over behind the trashbin of an alleyway, bruised and battered like a stray puppy in a rough neighborhood. Nothing that dramatic. After years of building up friendship, he had known me close enough to decipher the fact that I was going on this crazy secret supposedly lonely trip. And I thought I knew him like the back of my hand, yet I failed to predict this unlikely alliance.

I glanced sideways at him looking outside the passenger seat window intently. I noticed he moved his head in sync with the tune. The slightly ajar window gave way to light breeze that swept the upper part of his hair. He seemed to be preoccupied in his inner thoughts. Or maybe he was just familiarizing himself with my music.

♪ But I still felt the eyes upon me, so I drove away.

I focused on the road once again. Dawn was almost arriving.

I Don't Want to Go

The clock is ticking, like it always has been. For quite some time, I dreamt about it being halted. One unmoving minute, when everything is just silence, stillness, and I could stare at your dark brown eyes, the scruffy haircut you said you'd curse your barber for, and fading acne blemishes around your chin that you hated so much, for as long as I could.

"I'm scared." I said to myself, retreating further to the corner of the dark room. That's where I stayed for the rest of the week.

"You're stubborn," He remarked, "You're hopeless."

"I know," I replied, closing the text window and slipping into unconsciousness.

I only see you through my screen now. I know, aren't you worried? It irks me to be honest, that I don't care in the least. All I do now is crying to depressing music and eating biscuit crumbs for lunch.

I haven't felt like this in ages. This time it seems slightly different, as if I'm enveloped by some soft focus filter. I can't think clearly. I don't speak anymore. I'm lost.

It's kind of a reflex. Fight or freeze. I did the latter a few times during my early years, and it sort of becomes a habit that embedded in me. I close the doors, shut the blinds, and get under the cover, hoping for it all to go away. But they never do. They only waited, patiently, relentlessly, until I realized it's too late.

I'm a brick. My brain is a brick. Yet, my feet... they keep on wanting to run. But the only thing I'm running is out of time.

"Why are we like this," He inquired, less of a question and more of a matter-of-fact statement. His shirt was wet from my tears, and he stared into my tear-stained eyes.

"I- no idea," I replied, more of a whimper and less of an answer. We don't always have the answer, or rather- we don't always need one.

That doesn't mean I'm not curious, though.

"You're just confused," She remarked with a professional voice. I knew she's done this many times.

I was convinced there was something wrong with me. I don't buy this whole 'growing up' and 'maturing' bullshit. I wanted to incline to the possibility that I could be a special case, they would want me as a test subject on human psyche, and that my brain was wired significantly different than others.

But no. I was just another number in the statistics of quarter-life crisis, denying to bloom into adulthood and got stuck in the loop of golden old days' memories instead.

For a moment, I thought I could accept that verdict. I just had to do better. I just had to switch my gears in a more positive mode. I just had to talk to more people, and try more things. I could do it. I was normal. My brain works fine. I was fine.

But like I said, they never go away. Only waiting... patiently... relentlessly...

I was exhausted the first time. I didn't know what made me think I could do it the second time. Unarmed, unpacked, and unprepared even. It's looming closer, and I can't run away anymore.

Scarlet

She tasted like bleeding gum and salt.

I wondered if anyone ever told her that. She just smiled, the happiest I've had seen her in a while. I couldn't bear to make rude remark in fear of hurting her, even when intended as a joke, as we usually did.

I wanted to insult her. I wanted to hear her snap a witty comeback and then we would laugh together. I wanted to.

But the glimmer in her eyes just deprived me of any sarcasm I've ever had lying around the back of my tongue. My throat went dry and my arms went numb. I just didn't have the guts to say things. I just didn't have the heart to move.

I never thought of honesty as something akin to picking a scab. You're digging an old wound, and end up scarring more. There was a hint of disgust, and you're trying to cover it. I didn't expect there would be screaming, though.

I only wanted to help her.

I only wanted her not to be sad all the time.

In my argument, you can't be happy without bearing a little sadness every now and then. You can't have meaning without struggles. You can't have a good thing without enduring bad things beforehand.

Can't have a good relationship without a bad guy looming around?

She just told me I was a hypocrite, and then my mouth tasted like bleeding gum as my cheek felt the hot sting from the palm I've always cherished.

The first thing I noticed about her was her eyes. How they look so different under the night sky we used to stroll together in, under the neon lights of our secret hiding place, under the dim lights of our favorite coffee place, and under the one white light of her bedroom lamp. She wasn't exactly the most cheerful person, but she was the brightest of sun for the brief moments we chat about her favorite bands, her pipe dreams, and her handmade tattoo.

One day the eyes went dark. A void nowhere close as a night sky, or the coffee she liked to make me.

Underneath the shade of the sole lamp of her bedroom, she looked at me like she saw someone else. Or something else. I knew she was tense, yet she wasn't moving. Her skin was pale. I went closer in hope of cupping her cheeks and telling her that I was there for her, whatever it was, but something was between my hand and her flesh. Cold. Steely.

I guess that's precisely the problem. I was there for her.

I never thought she would look that stunning in red.

It was about time the men in blue came knocking on my door. By then I was already packed up, wrote my sibling a note to take care of whatever little I've left behind, and sat on the dining room table. They started questioning me, and I admitted to what they went here for. The last thing I wanted to do was wasting more people's time.

When they asked about 'the motive', I just told them what I thought to myself all the time.

I only wanted her not to be sad all the time.

I heard electrocution would leave the taste of steel in my mouth, so when I see her again in the next life I hoped to tell her the sensation of what I sent her away with.

I'm learning to walk as I watched my friends sprint towards the distance.

There was no finish line on my sight, but I reckon they see it, because otherwise, why would they be running?

I keep wondering if there's any way for me to become a professional swimmer without even touching the pool or getting my suits wet.

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like to touch something you can't even begin to fathom the existence of.

It pondered a lot of things, this brain of mine. It was once curious. It was once a proud child prodigy.

Right now I'm no longer a ponderer. No longer a thinker. No longer a writer.

I don't want to try anymore. There's no point.

Funhouse Mirror

Sometimes we have our own distorted, twisted perception of certain people. It's that quirky kid in class that you secretly admire because of his passion in learning science. It's that gossip master in class that you internally straight-up repulse and avoid however you can. It's that rigid-ass teacher that's everyone's secret villain figure. Of course, this effect is usually surface-level. Once you get to know them a little deeper, you begin to find justifiable reason beyond why they are who they are, and you can no longer judge as harshly.

Ultimately, though, you just stop trying. Because of that one particularly annoying person.

You.

That mirror, that's in your room? There's something wrong with it. It's like a funhouse mirror that never worked to your favor. Sometimes you see a funny face. Sometimes you see a normal face, just like how you see people on the street. Sometimes you see the ugliest creature to ever walk this earth. Sometimes there's a faint glimmer that you try to brush off as bad lighting because you refuse to acknowledge that you can be happy at times.

Are my eyes just fooling me? No. It's the mirrors that are wrong.

We all have our own distorted, twisted perception of ourselves that we could never be certain the accuracy of. Hell, people have their own distorted perceptions of us, and they're usually wrong. No, this is not your typical "only God can judge me" psychobabble, because I know we physically cannot stop our brain from automatically forming first impressions of people (although we can at least refrain from talking without thinking first). It's the act of looking in the mirror and seeing different things.

I've always had the mindset that people's personalities are like those you customize on The Sims games. You choose an 'Evil' trait, then they're going to be mischievous and misbehaving all the time. You choose 'Good-mannered', then it's the other way around. Yeah, blame my asocial adolescence for spending more time with video games rather than actual people. Surprise, surpsrise, this is not applicable in the real world.

It's too easy to see others as monolithic, unchanging. We're more akin to special relativity here, since we are moving, our thoughts are moving, our lives are moving, and so are others'. The times dilating, the lengths contracting, but never constant. That's why the mirrors look slightly distorted along the journey, be it for us or them. Hell, you would look distorted to them, vice versa.

Growing up, I was never a fan of mirror, be it metaphorically or factually. I didn't like looking at myself. I was never aware of myself, so to speak. I would stand in front of the mirror and let people tell me what they see in it, taking their surface-level assessment as the truth. If I were someone else witnessing this situation, I'd immediately think in exasperation, 'just lift up your sight for a few inch, it's not that hard!'.

Yet I'm trying to be sympathetic. I think back, and try to figure out why I was the way I was. Why past me wouldn't even spare herself a glance. Why she lower her gaze to the ground around her feet instead. She was uncertain, she didn't know what to do. I know. 

She was scared. 

But why was she scared? Is it because she found out at such a young age that all mirrors are distorted and she would never find the truth through it? Is it because she already know she wouldn't like what she sees that she's in denial? Did she refuse to acknowledge that she needs a mirror after all?

No. That's because a few times as a kid I tried staring at my eyes' reflection for so long that I tripped out. Forgot my name, questioned my existence, was unsure if I were dreaming or not. Then I discovered the infamous superstition of mirrors being a gateway to other dimension. Then mirrors became a creepy thing to me.

Like I said, sometimes you just stop trying, because the reason is stupid anyway.

But I understand, because she was a kid, and emotions are more difficult to invalidate than the underlying logical argument behind it. Just because you could explain your fear doesn't mean you would stop fearing it altogether.

It's disorienting to actually have a perception about yourself on developing period that you rigidly plant in your brain for many years, and you begin to see yourself as unchanging. You aren't sure to move forward, in expense of changing yourself and completely destroy that perception. Yet, you couldn't stay still forever, because that's just technically improbable. You're already boarded this spaceship.

Almost like when you already climbed the social mountain of fanbase and blindly planting a flag declaring 'X is the best band ever and nothing can change my mind!!' only for them in the span of a few years releasing an album that's an utter bullshit even to your obsessive taste. oops totally not personal story, guys. On one hand, you couldn't even bear to listen to it, but you were also unable to admit because you're a stubborn twat who hates to be proven wrong. So you ditched the fanbase altogether and start a new account. like I said, not personal.

So I guess the moral of the story here is that I have grown enough to acknowledge this fact, and that I can finally look in the mirror with my own two eyes, no matter how wacky or weird the reflection will be. I can confront the fact that people might not see the same things as I do, and that's fine, we'll just agree to disagree. After all, just one is plenty enough mirror on my spaceship.

Another 3 AM Ramble

Well... sleep is overrated anyway, isn't it?

It's February without I could even realize it. I could have sworn I already had my blog post draft of wishing you all a happy new year, and that I spent it looking at fireworks blah blah, and look where we are now. The second month. With the USA almost at war with Iran, the novel-coronavirus epidemy, and the helicopter accident. Wow.

For the first time in almost ever, I was kept awake after midnight. It's probably because of my flu that I practically spent the whole day sleeping yesterday. It might be the medicine. It's possibly because right now I have someone hoarding my space in bed. And I'm glad. Truly, I am.

There are moments in life where I just miss this nocturnal idleness, the producing unproductiveness, the romance of late-night lo-fi vibe. The curtain's drawn, the windows closed, the lights are out, the soft background music is playing, and you're just... still there. Mind wandering faster than the speed of sound, with more clutter than Einstein's desk.

It's always like that, isn't it. When you realize that the clock is ticking, your heart is beating, and your nose is breathing, you left a piece of soul in the past and inhale a part to your future. Some things you just want to touch, just a tad out of reach. The silly ideas, the pipedreams. Ones I'm too young to understand yet too old to attend.

You could be anywhere right now, my mind whispers. You could be doing anything right now.

It could be wonderful if I'm chilling on a beach right now, listening to this. I could slow dance until someone find me and laugh at me and it could be the start of a wonderful friendship.

But you have to get up early tomorr- er, this morning. Start dozing off, pronto, or you will miss the morning class again!

But it's been so long since I have the muse to daydream like this- let me just-

Come on, you've promised yourself to be functional this time...

I did, I did, but I just slept everything away yesterday, I don't feel like sleeping tonight...

Talking with myself didn't exactly help the insomnia situation, because in the end I didn't sleep anyway. I started thinking more and more things.

The long-drawn line of regrets that stretched out. Who I was, who I never was, who I could be, and who I would never be. Worrying about where I stand among my friends, where I should sit in this classroom of productive demography. It's a homework that never gets done, and looks like one I'm going to postpone until I reach my deathbed, sweating bullets until I drain because deadliners never learn.

I was optimistic, then I got discouraged. Awake past three in the morning lying in the darkness with your eyes open, whirring yourself in your own emotional rollercoaster.

I wonder how turkey sandwich tastes like.

Sometimes it maddens me how I could produce ramblings like this in such a short amount of time, while in any other day it burdens me to even try and think of writing, when this is supposed to be my therapy. For any rambles and posts that I make, I spend in average two months of hating myself for not being able to make practically anything.

I began second-guessing myself, am I doing anything wrong? 
Am I just capable of ramble-writings and not any serious literature / script? 
Have I just been overestimating my writing skill? 
Am I legit? 
Or am I too hard on myself, that I couldn't appreciate the small things?

If only I was alone, I could just shout "Hey Google"

*bleep*

"How to appreciate yourself more"

Ah, yeah. I've been keeping Google gadget as my primary device now. Pretty slick. I should tell you about her sometime.

Time is An Arrow, I Am In A Bubble

I rode a rollercoaster once in my teenhood time. Okay, maybe twice or thrice, but I couldn't remember other than that one time we almost tried the more extreme one with the upside-down enclosed loop.

"We just ate lunch, guys," he reasoned, "I'm just worried we might throw up and bother our chaperon again."

Still, we took our seats in the front lines of the ride, strap in the required belts, and let the machinery navigated us to adrenaline-ridden joy. In a matter of seconds, a bunch of teenagers took off to uncanny speed among the railed wagon. Some were screaming, some enjoyed and some didn't. The air whooshed around us, wind friction smacked against bodies, flapping hair backwards and sending us the humanly response of sensation fluctuation.

Being alone in time felt almost like that. Except you're the ghost that got stuck in the rail for an imperceptible amount of time. And the track didn't go around, they just span on forward in almost an infinity. How do you even propose an 'almost' infinity, though?

Dead, for God knows how many years ago. Bodies, unfound. But you linger there, unmoving. A lost ghost sitting atop a phantom wagon, detached from space and reality. Just watching. All the fun, all the togetherness.

I wonder how many of them still remembered me.

-

It was the New Year's Eve. Breaking the ordinary routine of not leaving home and just waiting until the fireworks going bonkers outside to mark the start of a new calendar period, we decided to get dinner in a family restaurant, and went to the uphill cottage to catch the overview of the whole town. Roasted corn and ice cream were there, too, and for a moment I thought it would finally be a good year for me.

11 days in, I'm still stuck.

In a bubble, unfazed by the quick flow of ethereal matters around me. Time.

It moves like a current, a river so vast and makes little sense to our limited navigational function. Most things - and people - swim along its flow. Some are slow, some are faster, some attempted to hold their movement before reaching finish line, but nothing tried to move against it. Nothing could.

At first I swam in delight. Fast and steady, together in warm water, like everything is possible. Then the bubble came out of nowhere. Tiny little bubbles floating around us, me and my friends, we giggled at them and played along. We popped some of them as we drift along. I tried keeping one particular bubble as a token of that moment, but it popped as I swam a bit further.

He insisted to leave. I kept another bubble.

It was stronger than any other I've ever seen. It floated alongside me when I was alone. Then it grew bigger and bigger everytime I found an island to rest.

I don't rest on islands anymore. The bubble is where I live, where I rest, and where I spend the rest of my life.