Mekong Red

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It often feels like, at least to me, there's a slight melancholic mien to my writing as of recent, and while my life of recent hasn't been the greatest, its probably because I only write when I have time late at night. As you may know nights can get very lonely and introspective, even when I know I have family in the other rooms. Alone at night, the darkness has weight to it, and it pushes my body and hands down to the keyboard and forces words onto the screen.

I feel isolated, though through no fault but my own. It's funny, because I think at this point in my life, I have the most friends I've every had and some of the friendships I've made I value quite a bit, and yet I try my best to hide myself. I've masked myself so much that important aspects of my life seem almost non-existant. No one knows I like writing, not even my family. There's nothing to be ashamed of, a passion thats shared by many millions of other people, and yet, its importance to me makes it feel wrong to reveal that much information about myself. All my life, I've created a mythos around myself, a concept of who I should be that now I can't be authentic with anyone but myself and with whoever reads this.

You don't know me, but that's why you probably know me the most.

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As I feel the sight I once had on the future slipping away from me, it would be remiss of me not to look at the past. The great past, one where all was innocent, life was so simple, problems weren't problems like they are today. Like a siren it calls out to me and my body, wading in dark waters starts swimming, entranced by the sound, only to be sharply tugged by the tether that kept me in place, steadfast in the present .In panic, I wipe my eyes in hurried fear and the once beautiful siren's face is revealed to be inhumanely contorted and the hypnotic song grotesquely perverted into a shrilling shriek.

The past, for all its glory and its nostalgia can be a great poison. I can never be a child again and things will never be how they used to be, for better and for worse. To labour under false pretences is only a torture that I have no desire to inflict upon myself. Who I am in the present exists as the sum of all my lived experiences, mistakes and all and I think, if given the chance, I would change nothing.

As I swim back to where I was before, nothing has changed. I still see nothing and the fog yet remains. I take a cursory glance back at the siren, it sings once more. I fling my head forward and swim ahead. Its all I can do.

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As a child, dreaming was as natural as breathing, dreams felt real because the future felt unreal. I used to dream I was an astronaut or an explorer, playing out adventures in space or voyages across the world.

Now, my dreams have changed in unrecognisable ways. I dream that I have direction, that I have purpose. As I've grown older my dreams have only grown more vague and conceptual in nature, and yet my understanding of my dreams then, is the same as my understanding of my dreams now. I could not, as a child, fathom what it means to be an astronaut beyond spaceships and aliens, or that people aren't really explorers anymore. As an young adult I can not fathom what it means to have purpose and how, anybody knows what they're doing in life, I for one am more lost than I have ever been. At least as a child my parents could do all the thinking for me, now of course I want to think for myself, but what is there to think? Where is there to go?

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I've been working on my website quite a lot these past few days. This website has become a lot more important to me than I realise. At first I made a website on a whim, inspired by Hypnospace Outlaw (fantastic game btw), not really expecting much out of it, maybe an update here and there, but not really something to care about all too much. I wanted to use it to maybe put writing on there, but for the longest time I couldn't write and even if I did, no way would I put it out on the internet...

And so, this website stayed stagnant for a while, I made a writing page which stayed permanently empty and under construction, everyone seemed to have an about me section or page so I made one, yet for the longest time, even today, I cannot figure out a way to describe myself without wanting to delete it instantly. Through looking at other websites, I figured, why not write book reviews? Other people do it, so why not? Some time after I learnt that, yeah, book reviews are hard. I've done some, but... there's a lot to get through even if I haven't read all that much and recently I haven't had any time to read books so it's kinda just stayed how it is. I'm sure I'll get to it at some point, just not now.

This brings us onto the journal. Perhaps the scariest thing on this website. I refuse to read any past entries because I know if I do, I will delete them. Much like the book reviews, after seeing cool journals on other websites, I took the leap and made one myself. I decided to write about what I feel, events that happened. I gave myself the liberty to write however I wanted, not restrict myself with the looming feeling of an audience and write for myself. The problem is, I have too much shame in my body. There's nothing to be ashamed of, but the mind can be a very tricky place. We all mumble sometimes, but for some reason there is nothing more shameful than having to repeat myself, at that point you might as well cut your losses and move on, thanks. Shame is a malignant disease that festers on the mind like a tumour. One day I hope I can be set free.

To get back on path, this website has become very important to me. It feels like I'm shouting to the world after a whole life of silence. If you're reading this and you don't have a website, I implore you, make one. The internet has become muddled, bots and AI lurking under a false visage behind every corner. Let the people know that you are human, be a webmaster.

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There comes a time where life becomes static. Dissonant noise blocking the senses, mind-numbing, like a baby rhythmically sucking on a pacifier. A time where it seems like the clock keeps ticking without you, as if time itself has forgotten you. Try as you might, that minute hand will strike 12 o'clock and that next day will come regardless.

Yet, there also comes a time where that noise gets louder, the static becomes irregular and starts pulsing like a beat, particles gradually collide with one another, faster and faster, the heat of a thousand suns, small supernovas bursting like fireworks, millions of electric flashes as each neuron fires. Reality has formed itself around you and it feels as if you could do anything.

...Then, its back to static.

I've long since felt I lack a certain motivation for many things throughout my life. Despite that, I feel a great desire to create and to do new things. I have changed a lot throughout my life, but perhaps the most consistent thing about me is my ability to pick up hobbies and crafts and drop them when it gets too tough, or get to a middling skill level and subsequently never seek to improve beyond it.

I don't believe there is an inherent wrong in being mediocre, after all, it is impossible to be good at all things and just having some sort of skill is better than none. The issue is, that I want to be better, I want to improve, yet ultimately, I lack the motivation to do so.

Motivation has always eluded me. It seems that no matter what I do, I cannot force motivation upon myself and am thus forced to rely of whims, random bouts of motivation, manifested from nothing. In some sense, I am a gambler, perched over the roulette table, hoping it lands on red.

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Maybe it's embarrassing, but I never knew what stars were what in the night sky. The stars don't like us in London you see, we've done too much, so much so that they hardly shows their face anymore at night. Three stars, maybe four, but other than that, a blank space and a lonely moon loom over the London nightlife.

On a dark night, a thousand miles from home, we left our university accommodation and walked deep into the night, putting a long day behind us. A peaceful little village, far out in the countryside with a nostalgic smell of manure that by all means should be disgusting, but only brought fond memories of childhood visits to the motherland. No sooner had the front door shut when, out of coincidence, I looked up. Then, we all looked up. It was the night sky.

An uncharacteristic silence filled the space. You live your life day after day, sometimes you forget that there exists a world outside your confined space. We all stood there for a couple of seconds, in awe. Slowly, we started walking again, but we never quite stopped looking at the sky.

With only distant crickets and swaying leaves to muffle our boisterous laughter and talking, we wandered, looking for a lake a friend told us was nearby. Manoeuvring about in the dark, with only our phones to light where we step, trying to avoid the muddy patches, wet grasses and misplaced rocks. From what I could only surmount to extreme luck, after a couple dead-ends and wrong turns, we stumbled upon a path that had been nothing but grass, which as we walked, seemed to turn to dirt, then to gravel, and finally to rock. By then we realised where we had reached the lake.

We sat ourselves down by the rocks at the waterline and laid our heads down. I noticed a peculiar arrangement amongst the stars. It had seemed as if there were three stars aligned perfectly in a row.

"What is that?" I said while pointing.

"That's Orion's belt." He replied.

"Oh. So that's what it looks like."

We talked for a while but naturally our voices began to fade to a halt. Complete silence as our heads rested against the bare rock, no wind, no crickets, nothing, not a decibel to be heard. I swear for a moment, the moon and the stars shone brighter than ever before and the night sky looked as clear as day.

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It was once known to me what I wanted to do. Now, nothing is known to me, except that I know nothing.

Days pass by, clouded in a misty haze, living each as they arrive. The realisation dawned upon me with a weight almost too heavy to bear. I am lost. Tomorrow, I usually know what I'm doing and within the next week I have a faint idea of my plans, but next month? The next 6 months? Next year? Ten years? Nothing.

As I grow older, the path that lays beneath me has slowly changed. Branching paths are blocked off and doors are slammed shut, meanders in this winding road become all the more straighter, the next step and the next, walking forward without comprehension, without passion, without purpose, in a straight, monotonous line.

I'm afraid of what's ahead of me, but I am too apathetic to move away. For better or for worse, I have resigned myself to continue walking down this path, only hoping, that the end is beautiful and that the journey will be worth it.