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This is going to sound very egotistical, but I feel that my whole life is a hard one, with many hard parts. I have come to realize that I have an aversion to doing things the easy way. I find myself thirsting for challenge all the time. On multiple levels of consciousness, I create the Hell I so mention in this blog's title, and proclaim it to be some sort of epic battle against the odds. But I don't believe in chances. My faith lies in the individual paving his own path to walk on, and any challenges that arrive in the near future are those reared from his very own actions in the recent past. Not long ago, a friend of mine told me that she notices from this blog that I always try to give everything in my life a logical cause - a reason for their happening or existence. She hit the nail right on the head with that comment. I need to rationalize. And the idea of fate or destiny just never seems very rational to me. I want to attribute everything that happens to me... to me.
And so whenever I'm faced with a problem nowadays, I like to think about what I can do about it. I draw from experiences in the past, I analyze their relevance to the present dilemma, and I make plans for the imminent future. I don't believe that the hands of fate exist and can help me. I have to take matters into my own hands. I know my livelihood isn't that hard, as long as I try not to think too much. While I tend to inflate the severity of my stress, I also tend to exaggerate my own ability to deal with such stress. I often forget who I really am and what I'm capable of. And I forget what matters to me because I'm thinking too hard and there's just too much going through my mind.
Who I am is very simple. As it has always said on every online profile I have, I am an 18-year-old, Filipino-Chinese student living in the UK, and originally from Hong Kong. I'm also a TV fanatic, an avid reader, a food zealot, an aspiring forensic anthropologist, an inborn outdoorsman, a learned bartender, an ambitious globetrekker, an internet addict, and a passionate Pokémon master. There's one thing not on the list, but I'll get to that soon. Despite all of that, though... I'm afraid there's one of those terms that just bears greater weight on who I really am and should be than all the rest.
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And so here I must finally tell you what this 'bad news' is, how this is 'the beginning of the end', and how everything I've talked about so far comes together. Now, it really does bum me out to now tell you that for maybe as long as a year now, I disliked blogging a lot. I didn't want to. And the logical reason as to why I continued to blog in spite of that was to feel like I was trying to conquer some challenge, like I talked about earlier, and avoid the easy way out, which was to simply stop blogging. I mentally overstated my own capabilities and I ended up posting over a hundred posts, on four/five different blogs, that I was not proud of or happy with. It was a big mistake, my own mistake, reared by my actions in the recent past. While I went through this Hell I put myself in, I got lost, and I forgot who I really am.
But who I am is and has always been very simple. I'm just a university student - that is what I have been taught, been molded, and been working to be for my entire life. Along the way, I found 'additions' to my life, but the basic foundation is my student status. I don't consider myself a writer. I may write well, but that doesn't mean I feel... like being a writer. I have always known in my heart that truth, and nothing anybody says to me can change my mind about that. I'm just a guy who wants to talk about my life and meet some interesting people in the blogosphere along the way. I don't want publicity, I don't want money, I don't actually think of this as practicing writing, and I absolutely hate how crowded these sidebars have become.
I just want to be me. Being anything else... is the hard way, the hard part...
So, while I was sitting here considering what I should do before I started writing this post, I looked back at my experiences in the past, and observed that I tend to enjoy my life most when I'm given a fresh start. Having a clean slate invigorates me, gives me motivation that will sharply contrast the indifference I've had for so many months. I'm going to announce the end of this blog and Do you hate it too? sometime in mid-April. Then, sometime between April and July, I will start a brand new blog, with a brand new look, and a brand new focus on just me. No gimmicks, no funny business, just my honest thought and emotion painted on a clean canvas. I'll probably post once or twice before I announce that end in mid-April just to tease about the new blog and inform you of how you can be notified about it ASAP when I launch it.
But for now, I think we'll just leave the news-sharing at that. I'm sorry it took me a while to say something. And I'm sorry that this one and Do you hate it too? have to come to an end. I never envisioned it, but hey, maybe that little thing called 'fate' that I don't believe in will bring me to blog on them again. After reading this, I hope that you realize that for me, there really was no easy way to say this, and that I'm not just saying that without thinking about what those words mean. It truly, genuinely, seriously breaks my heart. It's sad to have to think about saying goodbye to something that was a part of you for a long time. But I guess it's just another white hair on the top of my head. Or another immobile, dormant white dwarf in the universe. Or maybe it's the first signs of white light at the end of a tunnel.
I went out drinking again.
I don't know what to say, because I don't know what happened. I just want to sleep my troubles away, like many people do, but I know I will have to face the consequences of my actions tonight.
However, I love the dancing, and some selected drinks.
I miss my best friend. I wish he was here right now.
He would know what to do.
I love him too much for my own good.
I've lost so much in the past few weeks. I want to look toward my parents and my class for some sort of light, some sort of guidance, because they are the people I'm obliged to be with.
On the other hand, they disappoint me, they hurt me, they piss me off.
Am I expecting too much? Am I too susceptible to insult? Am I too emotional?
Yes, yes and yes.
It doesn't matter.
It all doesn't matter because next year I won't even be here anymore.
I don't just mean in a physical sense.
My personality - I'm radically changing it when I go to university.
Even if you come back to me, even if you regret it, you won't find me there.
I'm gone.
I am not feeling very good right now, I feel like writing about something dark, and sad, something like breast cancer, the Holocaust, child soldiers, infanticide, widowhood or bad crime on the streets of New York, but I have a feeling that would not be well-received... I posted something on death earlier on, and I did not get a lot of comments for it, and that was just a piece of creative writing, not really my thoughts on dying. But anyway, the reason I feel like writing about something extremely disturbing, and grim, is hard for me to put my finger on. You see, I am unhappy. I have heard people refer to this as 'Michael being depressed', but I do not believe I suffer from depression, that is just hyperbole. I am sad, though, but I do not need a doctor to start writing me a prescription for pills any time soon.
I have spent five minutes thinking about what to say here... ten minutes... twenty-five minutes... twenty-six minutes—I give up. I cannot bring myself to say anything because I want to be a positive person, I want to be able to write at the same time as I'm sad, but I can't, I just don't have anything I can share. I'm sorry. I'm going to stop posting photos and short posts until I can finally write something substantial. I need the time off, but um... you'll find me on your Dashboard when I can muster up a good idea.
I've been nominated by The Jules on his blog, The Gravel Farm, to do a meme. This idea was (of course) endorsed by our everybody's favorite meme sponsor, Argentum Vulgaris, on his blog, Nether Region of the Earth II. The Jules' meme is here, and AV's meme is here.
This time, it's one that will certainly test my ability to control my thoughts and limit my words as all of my answers must only comprise one word. I will be honest.1. Where is your cell phone? Bed.
2. Where is your significant other? Non-existent.
3. Your hair color? Black.
4. Your mother? Happy.
5. Your father? Hell.
6. Your favorite thing? Friend.
7. Your dream last night? Stabbed.
8. Your dream/goal? Fatherhood.
9. The room you’re in? Bedroom.
11. Your fear? Isolation.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Unimaginable.
13. Where were you last night? Nod.
14. What you’re not? Loved.
15. One of your wish-list items? Trenchcoat.
16. Where you grew up? Here.
17. The last thing you did? Reminisce.
18. What are you wearing? Jeans.
19. Your TV? Off.
20. Your pet? Non-existent.
21. Your computer? Two-month-old.
22. Your mood? Lonely.
23. Missing someone? Unceasingly.
24. Your car? Motorcycle!
25. Something you’re not wearing? Smile.
26. Favorite store? Aeropostale.
27. Your summer? Toronto.
28. Love someone? Hopelessly.
29. Your favorite color? Navy.
30. When is the last time you laughed? Hmm...
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday...
As this is quite difficult to do with just one word, I shall pick five of the more linguistic-themed blogs that I follow:
Carrie Amie at My thoughts, poems and short stories.
Brian at The New Author.
Tonya at Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
Madame DeFarge at bateau de banane.
E. Michelle at Navigation Through Education.
And one more just for good fun and measure:
J.J. at The World According To J.J. in L.A.Wonderful. My job here is done!
This is not my view on death! I wrote this as I was starting a novel (which I didn't continue writing due to writer's block) and it was part of a character's thoughts. I wrote it spontaneously in one of my creative moods. I thought it was worth sharing and that's all. 'Tis not my personal perspective.
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In the end, your eyes might tear from the very idea of leaving your life and this world. You might stay there absorbing the last minutes of your personal environment, whether it be inhaling the smells or listening attentively to the surrounding sound, or perhaps observing things in your proximity, like taking a mental picture of everything around you, or focusing on using your sense of touch as you take in your last breaths, for you might lose that particular sensation altogether once you enter another world.
In the end, you may be lying in your bed, or perhaps a hospital bed, but wherever you are: you will be weak. From the gray hairs on your balding head to the stiff callus on the soles of your feet, the state of every joint, every muscle and every organ in between will all be indications of your body's degradation.
In the end, your lungs will be loose, your kidneys will have shriveled and the cells of your liver will be wrinkled. The surfaces of your eyes and the inner walls of your nasal cavity will be drier than they ever have been in your lifetime. Your eyes will shut from the tiredness and you will remain immobile from now onwards, apart from maybe a slight twitch of the finger or a shrivel of the nose. As you lay there recalling the memories from your past, the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the good and the bad, a few tears may seep through your closed eyelids and trickle down your cheeks from all that reminiscing. As the fabric underneath you dampens, you may suddenly feel it, that moment where your life flashes before your eyes, where you feel every emotion in the book all at the same time while remaining apathetic too, where you feel a final jolt of energy coming from the last pump of your heart and there, you will have experienced your very last experience.
In the end, your heart will stop beating. The combined effect of your lungs and your brain running out of oxygen will render all other organs useless. Your front will go pale. Your back will go dark. Your blood will have trickled downwards to the lower regions of your anatomy. At this point, your thought and your feeling are long gone, which is why you will not feel tense as your muscles stiffen due to the absence of minerals being transported around. Your white cells will have died and your body will lose its capacity to fight off bacteria. For that reason, your body will begin to decompose. Your muscles can relax again, but not in a good way.
In the end, you will die.
In the end, you are dead.
In the end, the people you knew, the people you met and the people you love will come to know that you are dead. Your grandchildren will lose their memory of you sooner than your children, while your children will carry that saddening sense of loss with them everyday. Your friends and your siblings will have died already or they will soon. It is only a matter of time before they no longer think of you on a daily basis and very slowly, you will be forgotten, unless you have done something extraordinary in your lifetime to influence the world. To attain a personal identity like such is rare and the chances are: you do not matter.
In the end, you may be sitting in a heap at the bottom of a vase, or laying in a coffin six feet underground, or scattered in the ocean underneath a cliff. Burned, buried or blown away: wherever you are in the end, that's it.
In the end, that's death.
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