136 - The beginning of the end

Before an individual presents bad news to others, sometimes they will feel the need to mention that it breaks their heart to even say this, that even the very act of presenting upsetting information evokes in them a sense of helpless shame and sadness before they've even brought others into that same dark place. They may also phrase it in a slightly different way, the clichéd old line of there's-no-easy-way-to-say-this-so-I'm-just-gonna-say-it. Most of the time when people utter these words, they aren't really thinking hard about what their words imply. These two approaches to sharing thorny matters are effectively meaningless and false, because they miraculously provide the user with the exact 'easy way to say it' that he/she so desperately needs, but perhaps sacrificing the level of concern that should be raised - as if those disclaimers make it easier to bear. Saying it is easy any way you do it. It's deciding what you're going to do next that's the hard part.

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.

122 - Thank the gods for true friends

I can be one of the most tolerant, patient, generous, considerate, romantic, and carefree people you can ever meet in your life. The problem I have with most people, though - the only reason I am not being torn in different directions by multiple groups and cliques constantly craving my presence - is the fact that I don't know what I myself truly want. And in my confusion, I make big moves that affect myself and other people in an attempt to bond and belong, fueled and rationalized by my emotional partiality, that ultimately end up in other people and myself getting hurt.

My displays of affection are sometimes viewed as inappropriate, because I think overstepping boundaries shows the courage to be romantic. I am devious and gossipy because I think sharing secrets and meddling in other people's lives means caring about other people's secrets and other people's lives - even though it blatently is snaky and dishonest. The term 'arrogance' crops up occasionally with me, because in some sick, self-centered place in my mind, I think putting up an appearance of confidence attracts people who lack self-esteem and maybe want to get inspired. At times, I'm told that I am insensitive to other people's lives and feelings, and this can largely be attributed to my focus being geared towards romance, or confidence, or whatever I think is completely justified to do.

I've always known that if I kept to my own business throughout my entire life, people would always love me and appreciate me for who I am if I happen to be there sitting beside them in any number of circumstances, but the problem is I just cannot control my innate, human inclination towards social interaction. I have to talk to people. I have to find people to trust. I have to find people to share my life with. And this tendency makes me do crazy, mean things.

And then there are those few that see that I don't mean to mess up anything, that I am actually very accepting of differences, and embracing of common traits, that I am good company, with interesting opinions and a very generous heart. I am grateful to the gods that these people can see past my bullshit, and can forgive me if I wrong them, and can stick by me, even defend me sometimes, while I continue to screw up my relationship with the rest of the world.

Without them, I'd be gone by now, 'cause I really drive myself crazy.

94 - On my epiphany

I like this blog-everyday thing. I feel coerced, but I like it. I have had a few troubled thoughts today, and normally, I would take the time to reflect on it into the late hours of the night, but since I've told myself and you that I'm going to blog everyday, I am going to say something here and now. I feel like it's almost supposed to happen, and if not, I would be denying something. It feels right to blog about this, even though I usually wouldn't have. Here it goes:

There was a time in my life when I was having a fruity alcoholic beverage, while also eating spaghetti at a poolside bar. I had a book on biological anthropology next to me, but it could have easily been a crime novel, a factual book on Peruvian history, or something in the horror genre. The beach was about a minute's walk away, and the sun was beaming down on everything, from the bright red and white striped umbrellas, through the great expanse of water that formed the pool, to the couples kissing, the kids laughing, and the teenagers playing catch with a large, inflated beach ball, inside it. Thanks to said sunlit marvelousness, I was wearing sunglasses and Hawaiian-style shorts. It was pretty much paradise to me - and since that resort was aiming for that - I felt that the money I spent to go there was well worth it.

After I came back from that tropical island, I arrived back in my room in the apartment I lived in with my grandparents in Hong Kong, right in the middle of the city center, and I felt extremely heartbroken. The reason was because I was missing something, and only until today did I realize that that was taken from my heart was the warm sun, the gorgeous beach, and the relaxedness I experienced sitting by the pool with a drink in one hand, a book in the other, and delicious food laid out on a plate in front of me, with all the gorgeous sand, sea and sun nearby.

I have had an epiphany, and that is this: I want that for the rest of my life. That was my true happiness right there, and no amount of education, television, writing, clubbing, or any of the other things I've obsessed myself with in my whole life, will ever achieve that.

I want booze, books and beaches forever, and in thus realizing that, I need to do some serious thinking about what my next steps will be in achieving that, because obviously, that sort of life has to be earned.

I just find it's such a shame that the choices of made so far have led me down paths that I didn't want to go down. Getting rich and accomplished is good but it's materialistic. I want happiness from within, and that's it.

I will talk about this some more tomorrow. But for now, I think I feel better from releasing what was in my head. Until tomorrow, then, I suppose. Hooray for epiphanies. :)