18/03/2025 | Before My Time

In my boredom, what better pastime is there than to think of death? Death occupies a nebulous space in my mind. A faint admiration mixed with a little bit of fear.

I find myself thinking of the different deaths I might face. Maybe a beautiful death, dying for something I believe in, martyred for a worthy cause. Or a peaceful death, as the aging body can no longer cope with the weight of life, I drift off in bed, surrounded by those I love, to a sleepless dream. I even romanticise the solitary death, the death off the beaten path, choosing the eternal slumber before it chooses me, the noble journey to the underworld, like an old dog going to the woods before it goes for good.

These dream deaths are valiant, dignified, and "honourable". They sate the soul with an air of nobility and resolution. However, these aren't all the deaths that I dream of, a death I have yet to mention, but the death I dream of the most.

In this death, there is no how, in fact, the process of dying is irrelevant. There is no dignity, only the cold ugliness, and out of all the deaths I've mentioned, it is the one most likely to happen. It isn't just one death, it is all deaths as one, the death before my time.

For this life to be a fruitful one, I feel I must leave something of worth behind. Maybe this is all ego, but I think there is something that I can offer this world. That I have the potential to make my mark on this Earth is what keeps me going. That I'm more than just a cog in a machine, for if I truly were just a cog, I must be an incredibly faulty one.

Were death to find me before my time, I wonder how many people outside of my family would come to my funeral. Of the friends who I haven't talked to for half a decade because I couldn't be bothered to make a connection with outside of a regularly mandated schedule, who would turn up? How long will my friends now remember me for? When will they forget my voice? My face? My name?

Today I have no regrets in my life because I innately understand that every action I've taken and every consequent outcome that has occurred has led me on this path that I am on now. (Truth be told though, I have no idea what this path is exactly).

In reality, I only have no regrets because I operate under the assumption that within my lifetime I will have resolved all that I need to in life and by the end it will all have sorted itself out.

Today? Right now? Who's heart have I touched? What good have I done? What wrongs have I righted and what work will I leave behind?

I don't want to die.

Not yet.

19/12/2024 | This Time, I'll Try

I am not a genuine person. Not to others, but even more so, not to myself.

When my biggest worries were only homework and I still had P.E. class, every year we would have races, and one race in particular seems to still be there in my mind. I wasn't particularly athletic, but that didn't mean I wanted to lose, yet I had already decided in my brain I was going to lose anyway. Before the race, I loosened my shoelaces and slightly took off one of my shoes on one foot, so when I ran, it would come off, and everyone would laugh and I would play it up. I would lose, but the people laughed and I lost a shoe, so my loss wasn't as bad.

I was never a class clown, in fact, it was the opposite. I never spoke unless spoken to, I never brought attention to myself, whenever the teacher told a joke, I would bite on the inside of my lip as to not laugh. When the teacher asked why I don't laugh. I told her I would laugh if her jokes were funny. The jokes were funny, and she was nice, she didn't deserve that. But, the class laughed, and the smug child grew a faint grin. I bit even harder, to stifle any visible emotion. In a classroom of 30, I hid myself, yet at the same time I wanted to stand out.

To this day, I do not know why. It is the same me, but a different person. Whatever compelled me to do that is no longer encoded in my neural programming. Something, somewhere or someone, no matter, it is gone. Lost from my brain, eroded from my hippocampus. I can remember what I did, what it felt like doing so, but not why I did it.

But yet, its vestigial elements laid dormant in my brain, silently affecting my every action. At least I'd like to think so, because if not, why have I lived my life like this? As if I owed it to a self that no longer existed to continue living my life in the same way I lived it before, to conform myself to fit the perceptions that I perceive others to have on me.

Outwardly I am the same person I was all those years back, only gradually changed by the ebb and flow of time as we all are. Inwardly I am the product of a series of epiphanies, consecutively occurring, shaping and remoulding my brain each time one hits. I realised the beauty of this world, but I continued to stay inside, because I stayed inside before, and, wouldn't it be weird if I suddenly started going out?

I never tried as hard as I could because losing was horrible, and this way losing weren't so bad. If I ~really~ tried, I could do good. Of course, I never ~really~ tried.

But I'm trying now.

This time, I'll give it a good run, after all, there's no such thing as trying too hard if all my life I haven't tried hard at all.

07/10/2024 | Wishing for Extra Time

When I was younger, I would wish profusely upon any deity I could think of for a prolonged life.

First, I'd wish for myself, maybe to live to 200 or 300. I think even back then I knew a long life would get boring. After myself came my family, my mother, my father, and my brothers too.

But, what about my cousins? My half-siblings? What about my grandparents? What about my friends?

Fine... God, more life for everyone I like!

...

Nothing ever happened, but for a long time I subconsciously held the belief it had came true. I never said it, and nobody ever knew, but death seemed like an impossibility to me.

At some point I stopped believing. Maybe it was when I sprained my ankle and couldn't walk for a week? Or when I nearly got hit by that bus one early morning walking to school? Maybe it was when my aunt got cancer, and I had to slowly watch the life fade from the woman who used to cut fruits for me when I came to her house.

We weren't all that close, as a child she seemed strict, but as a teen she was always nice. When I first saw her since that diagnosis, it was sad, of course, but more than that, fear towered right over me. Like the glass dome that shielded my world shattered all at once, and now, laid bare and unprotected, death has entered my world. How frail she seemed, how in pain she was.

When she passed and there was an open casket, I didn't look upon her body. But from the corner of my eye, she looked so at peace.

How lucky I am that it took me that long, how unlucky I will be when it all comes to pass later.

Even this though, despite it all, was not when I stopped believing.

My mother had been nursing this headache for a few days now. As the days passed it progressively got worse. The day before, she went downstairs to the living room to sleep. On the couch, next to no one, with no light around her. When I can't sleep I go down there too. The ambient flowing of water from the fish tank next to the bare darkness soothes you.

At around 11 AM I woke up. I had somehow, managed to miss all the panic. When I awoke I was met with my brother telling me she was at the hospital.

"Oh."

I went upstairs to brush my teeth. I checked all the messages on my phone, even then I could not process it. Surely my mother couldn't die. I wished! Didn't I?

Next hours felt like a blur. Getting on with my day as normal, periodically checking my phones for updates. When it came around to night-time I felt, relieved, she's going to be fine. I'll see her tomorrow, and it'll be all good.

I had never seen my mother like that. Were her arms always that skinny? Look at all those bruises. The constant whirring of machines, the dry taste in my mouth. What is going on? What is happening?

All through this I didn't cry. Even though, I've cried for much less. How could I, when someone was watching me?

Death didn't just enter, he was here, right next to me. Watching, pensively.

I knew my mother wouldn't die, I don't know how, but I just knew, just as I know, that wish is now gone.

25/07/2024 | Alone Amongst Friends

It often feels like, at least to me, there's a slight melancholic mien to my writing as of recent, and while recently life hasn't been the greatest, the only time I do get around to writing is at night. As you may know nights can get very lonely, 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.

07/07/2024 | How It Is to Dream

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?

16/06/2024 | This Website of Mine

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.

03/05/2024 | The Night Sky and The People Beneath It

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.

21/03/2024 | On The Path to Purpose

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.