i have felt anger, rage, so many things in recent times. wells of emotions that i thought have left me, all have sprung up to reveal their ugly faces to my aghast. jealousy, insecurity, cattiness - all these are the familiar unbecoming feelings that have been a part of me for the longest time ever, and i've more or less figured out how to deal with these when they vie for my attention so that they can be given tangible form in this all-too-tangible world. i take a deep breath, convince myself of the sheer lack of comforting logic of the annoying emotion, and turn my back on it before it comes out in frightening form. but the anger that has lashed out at my loved ones lately is something quite alien to me - which isn't to say that such wrath is beyond me, but simply has been placed under control prior to this. then there's such a thing called disgust, outrage, and a strange kind of disbelief at a type of weirdness that is just beyond me.
displacement seems to be the new feeling of the day. displacement in all its forms. and when you think about it, displacement is just the kind of feeling that one never quite gets used to, because it is the very stuff of constant change and discomfort.
my life which seems so fulfilled and filled with meaning on its shiny glossy surface is increasingly seeming to me to be empty, aimless, and sadly lacking in any form of meaning whatsoever. i don't know why i'm doing what i'm doing anymore, increasingly. when my results for the semester came out a couple of days ago, i was initially beset by all these feelings of being upset, disappointed, and then the determination to do better washed over me. to get my second upper, to push myself to do the best i can. then, when all these feelings left me, i was left wondering why i'm working so hard to get a certain set of results, a certain goal i have placed on a pedestal in my own head - a suddenly conflated sense of false importance has washed over everything i once held so dear and high in regard. even the shopping i wanted to do with my newly earned money, i don't see the point in it anymore. i don't see the point in dressing up prettily when i go out, putting on my makeup to look presentable, learning more to make myself a more valuable piece of real estate when the time comes for me to find a job for good - all these have suddenly diminished in their glitzy glamour and have dulled into the reccesses of my mind. i no longer know what i want with my life, i no longer know that i want to have a high-flying career, i no longer know anything save i want to live comfortably for the rest of my days just seeped with love.
perhaps it's from realising how insignificant it all is in the grander scale of things that's making me so disillusioned and disinterested in everything. all my hopes, my dreams, my fears - they're nothing more than a speck in the universe, which makes me nothing more than a full-stop or a comma in the sentences that make up life. when everything's going smoothly and i'm achieving all i want, it all seems to make perfect sense. everything seems to be steeped in grand meaning, seems to bear the promise of dreams to be fulfilled. but then, when something in that little pathetic insignificant ambition fails to click into place, falls slightly out of step with the tune that everything else marches to, nothing makes sense anymore. ambition seems pathetic, almost romanticised. the promise of the future seems to unravel into its sparse threads and evaporate into thin air, leaving nothing behind but a mere whisper of how tiny and transient it all is.
songs seem empty, happy tunes grate on my nerves. the only things i want to surround myself with is fresh air, and melancholy. the books i read are all about the past, about fantastical universes i want to be a part of but know for sure that they are but whimsical figments of someone's imagination. i want it all to mean something, i want my life to mean something. and somehow, it feels as though the harder i try to make it mean something, the closer i feel i'm drawing to the fearful abyss of nothing. seeing it all played out on screen would make me feel so much better, that it is actually some kind of grand, some kind of significant. but i know that i'm just one of the millions in the world, closer to some sort of faceless and voiceless than anything else. perhaps it is that which grates on me so much, knowing how pathetic my sense of self-importance is, carrying on that delusion that i finally mean something to someone - when truth is, i could disappear from the face of the earth in a heartbeat and noone would realise, no clouds will weep for me, no eclipse of the sun will mark that moment in time. nothing. everything that i have toiled for would just cease to exist. the room that i've lived in my whole life would just stay as it is, all my things collecting dust and the wood crumbling - and eventually, all my things would be packed away into boxes. and i'd laugh at the irony at it all, at how my life has been sorted into maybe seven different boxes and kept away, just like that. and all the unimportant things, they'd just be thrown away - just as i'd be thrown away when i'm dead because my body is no longer important in this cruel existence that stops for nothing, no man, no death.
sometimes i feel as if one life isn't enough for me to live. it's too short, i'm too limited and bounded by time and space. there're all these other existences i'd like to live in, and yet i can't because i'm only alive but once. and the moment i stop to breathe, it's over, my journey as a life ceases. i'd like to have lived in a king's court in 16th century Europe - something i read about now and ooh and aah over, but in truth, really existed 500 years ago. i'd like to have lived as a peasant girl, having to worry only about my marriage options and maybe my chickens and whether my cows have been milked. i'd like to live in the modern day West, that which i can only look at through a simulacrum, nothing more - because i'm Asian, and i belong in Asia because of my skin colour, my facial structure, my hair colour, eye colour, height etcetra. so many lives i'd have liked to lived, but i'll only ever know my life on earth as it is now. of course, there're all these questions that follow such a fatalistic outlook of things, but what else can i do but accept it all as it is?
i want grand romance, i want epic adventure, i want mystery. what i have, i don't seem to want very much. but i daresay when i lose all that i have, i will realise that i want these too, but i will only want them when they are no longer mine to call my own.
it started out as a feeling,
which then grew into a hope.
which then turned into a quiet thought,
which then turned into a quiet word.
& then that word grew louder and louder,
'til it was a battle cry.
i'll come back when you call me,
no need to say goodbye.
just because everything's changing,
doesn't mean it's never been this way before.
all you can do is try to know who your friends are,
as you head off to the war.
pick a star on the dark horizon,
& follow the light.
you'll come back when it's over,
no need to say goodbye.
now we're back to the beginning,
it's just a feeling and now one knows yet.
but just because they can't feel it too
- doesn't mean that you have to forget.
let your memories grow stronger and stronger,
'til they're before your eyes.
you'll come back when it's over -
no need to say goodbye.
The Call
Regina Spektor
from the Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian OST
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