I was watching the trailer for The Theory of Everything, a new biographical film on Stephen Hawking’s life and at the end of the trailer Stephen says “There is no limit to human endeavour. Where there is life there is hope”.
This quote felt really particularly resonant to me as one of those really powerful quotes about this whole idealistic notion of the human spirit and it’s resilience despite the many limitations and obstacles life throws at us. Afterwards I was reading more into Stephen’s life and there is such a big theme of optimism and this notion of living your life to the best of your ability, “to make the most of whatever gifts are given to us” and following an idealistic course in life. Whenever I read and come across ideas like this, I feel so compelled by the beauty of the vision humanity lives by. That despite “it’s sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.” Then I went and proceeded to go foraging back to some of my old blogs I kept in high school and I found this excerpt from one of my old blogs: “I want to extinguish myself. To no longer be. No, please you mustn’t. Little light, brave the storm.” I have no idea where I found this quote...or perhaps I wrote it oh so long ago but I’ve always been drawn to this imagery of “braving the storm”. I think it’s interesting to keep a record, a blueprint if you will, of a mind as the years go by. To note the subtle changes that move slowly underneath the surface until one day, you look back and you realise you are a completely different person and the girl that wrote these words seems almost like a stranger. I recollect my high school years as being quite shelled up in my introversion. And very cautious. I held up a lot of repressed feelings inside me and as what Albert says to Victoria in one of my all-time favourite films The Young Victoria - “I know what it like to live alone, inside your head, while never giving a clue as to your real feelings” always struck a strong chord within me. Whenever I read my old writing, I always get this very keen impression of the perpetual depression that seems to overlay my high school years. But now I notice that I wasn’t so much depressed as much as I was always too hyper-aware of the fundamental existential crisis of the human condition. I know that sounds like a kind of pretentiously vebose way to put it but I think that it is a distinction that must be made. I also noticed I have been drawn to this idea of life being about “making at least a few poor life decisions” not just recently but for a while. I found this excerpt from more than four years ago now where I wrote that I wanted “to live life with reckless abandon. No regrets”. As I have written in previous posts, I think I have always been compelled to these notions of extremity.
Anyway, casting this totally nostalgic tangent aside, in terms of a life update - so much has happened since I wrote my last post, it's kind of crazy. But I've already decided I'm not going to bore you with the details dear Reader, for even I myself don't have the patience for it. But to surmise the gist of it, I feel like so much and so little has been going on at the same time, recently. I know that sounds entirely self-contradictory but you surely must be used to me by now forever contradicting myself in these perpetual musings. It is like I am living in two worlds where on one side I have been quite busy being a typical uni student and trying my best to balance the fine triangle of good grades, sleep and a social life and on the other side I feel as equally messed up as everyone is in this world and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with my life sometimes. I caught up with Luke and Josh the other day and I was describing my decision to study IT as something I have become completely accustomed to psychologically (via this interesting theory of humans being psychologically inclined to see decisions they make in hindsight as the best one they could have made and become accustomed/adapt to it) and Josh made the interesting comment that isn't that really demoralising that I perceive it this way as it reflects more on my lack of vision for doing this, per se haha. But I refuted this by saying that I also do firmly believe that I am heading in the right direction with my studies to my life objectives which is to A) Work in a field that I find compelling and B) Do my part and contribute something of essence to this world.
Also another noteworthy thing I should mention is that I have changed my mind quite comprehensively on my previous post and for future reference, I must do my best not to confuse the fine line between desire for companionship and actual sentimental affection. Anyway, I probably should get back to studying! Need to catch up on quite a few things this week.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
June 16th: Distance makes the heart grow fonder
Time is such an intangible thing. Remembering, reminiscing through the blurry lens of time casts such a nostalgic filter over everything.
I miss Nik. I miss him so much. But I'm not sure if it's at all for the right reasons. After all, how do you know these things? It's probably not, I'm sure. Like it's not like I even knew him profoundly or anything. But yet, it seems at every moment, I am perpetually reminded of him and I find myself yearning for the familiarity that we had for a brief while in our own little infinity. I know, I'm a romanticist at heart. An idealist to the end. I can't even fathom the concept of meaningless or futility properly because I always optimistically...naively come back to the same presumption - everything that happens in this life is meant to happen. And if the world was a a spiral map of human lives and their fated paths all intertwined, mine was always meant to cross with his. And so our story began and ended. Or has it? I know I make it sound like this romantically epic tragedy but it's really not how it was at all. Because reality, for all it's deafening realness...is not like in movies or books; an amazing series of well-paced events that culminate into a climatic conclusion. No, there are no skip cuts or light cursory glimpses over through the redundant parts. Like Reinette says in The Girl in the Fireplace "There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path." I've always found this quote particularly resonant because there's something compellingly definite about this whole notion of life, in all it's reality, as the "slower path". The path we weary travellers all must take because there are no shortcuts, no TARDISes, no time turners or magic to somehow skip all the boring parts, the slower parts, the redundancy and just experience the most exciting moments that seem to entirely define the human existence in movies and in books. Therefore, life must be lived, in all it's entirety, through the redundancy and the exciting moments...but to what end? As Hamlet once asked so poetically "What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?". Perhaps I'm meant to make poor life decisions. Follow my heart. Find myself through all this meandering. The problem has always been my uncontainable curiosity.
Anyway, before I further trail off my point, no, what I had with Nik wasn't some kind of epic. Because it was better because it was real in all senses of the word. When I look back, those moments we had, we shared seem so utterly fleeting and ephemeral....like it wasn't even meant to last. And you know, it's strange because when I was with him, his arm around my waist and me leaning onto his chest, watching a movie or something...I have never wanted more badly for a moment to last forever. For us to exist, happy in that little infinity. But Time, the ever-surging river she is, never stops and once again, the moment's over and I'm alone and he's not here anymore.
I guess, suffice to say, I suffer from the most lame preoccupation: I'm really not over him. And so I miss him and more than periodically reminded of him all too often and it fills me with this deep kind of sadness that I feel like these feelings I had for him are so deeply entrenched that even I, in all my logical rationale - of how unsuited we were for each other - cannot climb out of. But yet all the same I know that these feelings are not particularly profound, I just mostly miss his familiarity the most, if anything.
I wish life were more simple. And I didn't contradict myself a thousand times a day....as I do.
Or even just decisions like "I'm going to move on" were met with instant resolution. But it's not because life is messy and it's complicated and feelings throw everything into disarray and I'm utterly confused again.
I miss him. I miss his soft brown hair. The familiar bridge of his nose. His eyes. His laugh.
And I can't help but wonder, what happened?
I miss Nik. I miss him so much. But I'm not sure if it's at all for the right reasons. After all, how do you know these things? It's probably not, I'm sure. Like it's not like I even knew him profoundly or anything. But yet, it seems at every moment, I am perpetually reminded of him and I find myself yearning for the familiarity that we had for a brief while in our own little infinity. I know, I'm a romanticist at heart. An idealist to the end. I can't even fathom the concept of meaningless or futility properly because I always optimistically...naively come back to the same presumption - everything that happens in this life is meant to happen. And if the world was a a spiral map of human lives and their fated paths all intertwined, mine was always meant to cross with his. And so our story began and ended. Or has it? I know I make it sound like this romantically epic tragedy but it's really not how it was at all. Because reality, for all it's deafening realness...is not like in movies or books; an amazing series of well-paced events that culminate into a climatic conclusion. No, there are no skip cuts or light cursory glimpses over through the redundant parts. Like Reinette says in The Girl in the Fireplace "There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path." I've always found this quote particularly resonant because there's something compellingly definite about this whole notion of life, in all it's reality, as the "slower path". The path we weary travellers all must take because there are no shortcuts, no TARDISes, no time turners or magic to somehow skip all the boring parts, the slower parts, the redundancy and just experience the most exciting moments that seem to entirely define the human existence in movies and in books. Therefore, life must be lived, in all it's entirety, through the redundancy and the exciting moments...but to what end? As Hamlet once asked so poetically "What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?". Perhaps I'm meant to make poor life decisions. Follow my heart. Find myself through all this meandering. The problem has always been my uncontainable curiosity.
Anyway, before I further trail off my point, no, what I had with Nik wasn't some kind of epic. Because it was better because it was real in all senses of the word. When I look back, those moments we had, we shared seem so utterly fleeting and ephemeral....like it wasn't even meant to last. And you know, it's strange because when I was with him, his arm around my waist and me leaning onto his chest, watching a movie or something...I have never wanted more badly for a moment to last forever. For us to exist, happy in that little infinity. But Time, the ever-surging river she is, never stops and once again, the moment's over and I'm alone and he's not here anymore.
I guess, suffice to say, I suffer from the most lame preoccupation: I'm really not over him. And so I miss him and more than periodically reminded of him all too often and it fills me with this deep kind of sadness that I feel like these feelings I had for him are so deeply entrenched that even I, in all my logical rationale - of how unsuited we were for each other - cannot climb out of. But yet all the same I know that these feelings are not particularly profound, I just mostly miss his familiarity the most, if anything.
I wish life were more simple. And I didn't contradict myself a thousand times a day....as I do.
Or even just decisions like "I'm going to move on" were met with instant resolution. But it's not because life is messy and it's complicated and feelings throw everything into disarray and I'm utterly confused again.
I miss him. I miss his soft brown hair. The familiar bridge of his nose. His eyes. His laugh.
And I can't help but wonder, what happened?
Saturday, January 11, 2014
January 13th: Discovering Myself
Sometimes I feel like I am all these completely contradictory things at the same time. Lately, I have been forgetting words. And it worries me, it does. Who wouldn't be worried if they were forgetting words? But then again, I was always obsessed with that. I realised recently, my stream of consciousness sometimes feels totally the contrary of linear. It is tangential and it jumps back and forth and I am reminded of things suddenly in the midst of other things pretty much all the time.
Last year (it still feels weird to say, finally saying goodbye forever to 2013), was a year quite unlike any other in my entire life. Firstly, I completed my first year of uni. That was....an immense different experience to the entirety of my education experience to date. It challenged me to change and grow in many more ways that I had initially anticipated, definitely. I didn't write and blog here much not for lack of things happening but rather it felt like too many things were happening consecutively, one after the other. At the beginning of the year I had aspired to step outside my comfort zone. To go where I have never been and to do what I have never done before. And I did do those things. And I experienced failures and successes and circumstances that challenged me and always reminded me of that quotation "Child, child, do you not see? Sometimes life calls you to be more than what you are". This whole idea of "being more than what you are" is so poignantly beautiful. Like reaching higher than the highest peak. To be more than ourselves, to be more than our natural capacities because that is humanity; always climbing higher than we can reach and going where no one has gone before.
The year came and went in a series of firsts. Little steps that I hoped would lead to this forever ambiguous notion of discovering myself. Sometimes I find it difficult, trying to reconcile with who I am - this girl who is obsessive over personality psychology theory, whose words hang and drip with euphemisms and discretion and never being quite to the point, in simple words tremendously cautious and dull....to just wanting to experience all the vivid colours of emotion that colour the human experience of life that I have heard so much about and lived vicariously through literature. To put it succinctly (as I am rarely), I was (and perhaps still am) simply curious about everything. About how it would to feel to make out with a guy at bar. How it would feel to live totally....vivaciously and brightly, like a shooting star, burning brightly and explosively descend like there is no tomorrow. For me, I confess there was never ever an in-between. I am a person of extremities. It's either soaring success or devastating failure. Is that so wrong to be? Unfortunately, this has not done wonders for my academic record last year because last year, I believe I had fallen so short of my standards and my expectations, than I have ever done before. I scraped it, simply. Have I always been so insufficiently committed? So I reached perhaps one of my lowest points in life last year, in these moments that seemed to recursively happen again and again and I felt this immense lack of purpose and disappointment in myself. Academic failure coupled with the inherent adversities of simply transition, new-found levels of independence and responsibility I had never been charged with before was....to put simply, overwhelming. Transition as in moving to Sydney, living on my own basically, having minimal funds and juggling uni work and many nights waitressing shifts definitely threw me off balance more than I had ever anticipated. I guess it was mostly fuelled by a very large sense of that feeling of....invincibility so common in people my age. But yes, overloading myself again is not a mistake I intend to repeat this year. And as always Aang's words to Korra always struck out to me "When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change". Which is definitely very true for me as I feel like I'm so different from the girl I was that graduated high school in a day that feels both like yesterday and worlds away. I only hope it has been for the better.
Yesterday, I saw the screen adaption of The Book Thief with Luke."If your eyes could speak, what would they say?" is a line I think is so, so powerfully resonant from it. I loved every bit of it. Even though they cut out a few parts, as they always invariably tend to do with these movie adaptions, the film was beautiful in all it's tragicness. And of course they captured the sadness particularly well. Or as Luke so succinctly put it as the end credits rolled in "Yup, that was about just as sad as I remember it" haha. Another quotation that struck out to me was what Death was saying near the end that I thought was particularly profound and beautiful about how he witnessed humanity at its most beautiful and at its most ugly and he wondered how they could be the same.
Anyway, I'm off for work soon! I will do my best to blog more this year because I think it is good for me to write out my incoherent thoughts out sometimes. While my writing is still in-cohesive it helps, somehow.
Last year (it still feels weird to say, finally saying goodbye forever to 2013), was a year quite unlike any other in my entire life. Firstly, I completed my first year of uni. That was....an immense different experience to the entirety of my education experience to date. It challenged me to change and grow in many more ways that I had initially anticipated, definitely. I didn't write and blog here much not for lack of things happening but rather it felt like too many things were happening consecutively, one after the other. At the beginning of the year I had aspired to step outside my comfort zone. To go where I have never been and to do what I have never done before. And I did do those things. And I experienced failures and successes and circumstances that challenged me and always reminded me of that quotation "Child, child, do you not see? Sometimes life calls you to be more than what you are". This whole idea of "being more than what you are" is so poignantly beautiful. Like reaching higher than the highest peak. To be more than ourselves, to be more than our natural capacities because that is humanity; always climbing higher than we can reach and going where no one has gone before.
The year came and went in a series of firsts. Little steps that I hoped would lead to this forever ambiguous notion of discovering myself. Sometimes I find it difficult, trying to reconcile with who I am - this girl who is obsessive over personality psychology theory, whose words hang and drip with euphemisms and discretion and never being quite to the point, in simple words tremendously cautious and dull....to just wanting to experience all the vivid colours of emotion that colour the human experience of life that I have heard so much about and lived vicariously through literature. To put it succinctly (as I am rarely), I was (and perhaps still am) simply curious about everything. About how it would to feel to make out with a guy at bar. How it would feel to live totally....vivaciously and brightly, like a shooting star, burning brightly and explosively descend like there is no tomorrow. For me, I confess there was never ever an in-between. I am a person of extremities. It's either soaring success or devastating failure. Is that so wrong to be? Unfortunately, this has not done wonders for my academic record last year because last year, I believe I had fallen so short of my standards and my expectations, than I have ever done before. I scraped it, simply. Have I always been so insufficiently committed? So I reached perhaps one of my lowest points in life last year, in these moments that seemed to recursively happen again and again and I felt this immense lack of purpose and disappointment in myself. Academic failure coupled with the inherent adversities of simply transition, new-found levels of independence and responsibility I had never been charged with before was....to put simply, overwhelming. Transition as in moving to Sydney, living on my own basically, having minimal funds and juggling uni work and many nights waitressing shifts definitely threw me off balance more than I had ever anticipated. I guess it was mostly fuelled by a very large sense of that feeling of....invincibility so common in people my age. But yes, overloading myself again is not a mistake I intend to repeat this year. And as always Aang's words to Korra always struck out to me "When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change". Which is definitely very true for me as I feel like I'm so different from the girl I was that graduated high school in a day that feels both like yesterday and worlds away. I only hope it has been for the better.
Yesterday, I saw the screen adaption of The Book Thief with Luke."If your eyes could speak, what would they say?" is a line I think is so, so powerfully resonant from it. I loved every bit of it. Even though they cut out a few parts, as they always invariably tend to do with these movie adaptions, the film was beautiful in all it's tragicness. And of course they captured the sadness particularly well. Or as Luke so succinctly put it as the end credits rolled in "Yup, that was about just as sad as I remember it" haha. Another quotation that struck out to me was what Death was saying near the end that I thought was particularly profound and beautiful about how he witnessed humanity at its most beautiful and at its most ugly and he wondered how they could be the same.
Anyway, I'm off for work soon! I will do my best to blog more this year because I think it is good for me to write out my incoherent thoughts out sometimes. While my writing is still in-cohesive it helps, somehow.
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