Body. Mind. Spirit.

I have spent a long, long, long time trying to settle on what the meaning of our lives is. I have tried to make the messy and chaotic nature of life into some coherent sort of formula without success. And the reason for this is obvious, life is not organised, it is not the same for everyone and it does not follow a straight path. But as I try to figure out how I will get through this by being "okay" I have settled upon an age-old philosophy based upon the balance of three different components.

Body
We must look after our bodies and keep them in good form. This means eating the right foods, doing the right exercise and keeping in shape. We must look after our health. We must dress ourselves in clothes that make us feel good. As humans, we are essentially made up of a physical component, an emotional component and a spiritual component, and although we may see our "body" as being the most superficial of the three, we still must not underestimate the importance of looking after it. As we learn to do this, we will be more energised towards life and have greater confidence in ourselves.

Mind
Our attitude is of most grave importance. It is imperative that we perceive things rationally, not through a warped lense. We must be kind to ourselves, love ourselves and feel confident with ourselves. We must remember that attitude is everything - we are not slaves to our circumstances, but can actively overcome them in the way we respond to them. Finally, we must believe in ourselves - whether you think you can or you can't, you are right.

Spirit
I believe this is the most extensive component of the three. To me, this component encapsulates the essence of life and what it means to display human spirit. Above anything, it involves doing things that make you feel free and make you feel alive. We must engage ourselves in living and doing things that give us "flow", the mental state in which a person is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of an activity. Let us find the things that make us feel free, alive and happy: netball, surfing, writing, swimming, reading, running, yoga, relaxation, helping other people, being compassionate, spending time with friends... Find what it is that makes you feel alive and enjoy it for the rest of your life. Share experiences with people. Help others to do the same. Let go. Breathe. Be free.

I often see the latter component as the greatest of the three, as I believe it is the one that is directly attached to our meaning and our happiness. However, these three components are intertwined and are all equally important. Without one, the others cannot exist in harmony, so it is important not to throw out balance. Love your body, nurture your mind, release your spirit.

Live.

Visualisation.

Many psychology studies have shown the effectiveness of visualisation as a means of learning and creating change. I was once told by my physiotherapist that imagining a muscle in my knee as a lemon being squeezed with each squat could actually lead to faster recovery. I have also been told that imagining myself taking a spectacular intercept or executing a creative feed would translate such things to a netball game. Seeing things clearly in our minds seems to make them more real in reality and the consequences seem more significant. Here is my own image.

If a person is unfortunate enough to suffer from a crush injury, blood flow from the affected area or limb is restricted and is unable to flow towards the heart. In first aid, one is taught to remove the object as soon as possible. However, if such an act is not possible, there may be little hope for the injured person, because the longer the object remains unmoved, the more the toxins build up and threaten this person's life.

The toxins accumulate to a point where, once the object is removed, they gush out of the area and are free to destroy the rest of the body; like a tourniquet when it snaps, the blood rushes from the site.

So now imagine these toxins not as physical pain or infection, but mental pain. Perhaps if when we are crushed and the object oppressing us is not removed for an extended period of time, our negative thoughts and emotions too begin to accumulate. The toxins build up, so that, even when that hindrance is removed and we think that we are ready to be free and happy, we are more at danger than ever. Just as I was ready to fly, I too have been shot down by the gush of these toxic thoughts. Overcome again by a tidal wave of negativity, I wonder, will I survive?

Choices.

Despite my most recent views on life being solely based on the scientific and sterile nature of our existence, at this moment in time I have taken the opportunity to stray from my deterministic viewpoint and step into the somewhat unfamiliar territory of a perspective based on free will. A logical person, I have always believed that much of what we get is set out for us; our biological make-up determines a considerable amount of our intellect, our personality and, dare-I-say, our attitude.

Eternally jealous I have always been of those who can reject the lemons that life throws at them and demand oranges instead; those whom I believed were “born with” a positive and resilient attitude. And while I trudged along a gloomy path of sadness and despair, I regretted that I was not born with that same strength.

But why should I? Part of me still believes that an element of attitude is pre-determined in our genetic make-up, but why should I be a slave to such bitter dispositions? We should not be passive in the way we think, we should feel empowered. If there is one thing I have finally learnt after 18 years, it is that attitude is everything. And although I spent many a day wishing and waiting for mine to change, I have now decided that enough is enough, and refuse to wait any longer. I was recently told that “we make our own luck” and I think after years of waiting I finally understand what this means.

Life may just be a void of time that we, carbon robots, fill with things to make it seem worthwhile, or maybe it is an opportunity to learn, to love and to live. We have so many options as to how we wish to view the world, and we are given a choice: to reject what lies before us and be miserable, or to take this opportunity, embrace it and be happy. It may not be easy or natural, but in the end, having a positive attitude is the only choice – at times it will be difficult, and at times in may not seem like enough, but ultimately, it must be.

“You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk

To those who care,

I have gotten almost everything I wished for in this past month. I can hardly even dare to complain when everything has just landed on my doorstep. But inside, where no one can see, lay and still lies my one eternal wish that I want more than any of this. I could have lived without a high ATAR or getting into physio.. but without happiness, I don't want to live. I cannot and will not be a good captain if I can't even be positive towards myself. I don't know if my heart is in it anymore, because over the past few years I have felt less and less enjoyment from the sport I once loved with all my heart. What does one do when their biggest passion fails them? There no longer is any passion for anything, nor a desire to live like this. It hurts and has hurt for so very, very long - and although you can hear me, no one can take the pain away..

---> ! <---

I can't help but think that if my mother hadn't married my father, things might have been so different. In the unity of both my parents' genes, I have thought for a while that something went horrible wrong in my creation. That, despite being intelligent and compassionate people, by mixing their genes, they not only had a prodigy child but also an emotional and psychological disaster. Maybe two. People think I got it all; of late, I have considered myself very lucky that my intellect is such that i was able to achieve great things, even compared to many who worked much harder than myself. But now I am starting to believe quite the contrary. That perhaps things could have been so very different if those two gene pools hadn't met - that perhaps if I wasn't that 99.60 child that I may have, in fact, been worlds happier. Right now it hurts so very, very much. I do not know where the stress is coming from. I have resigned to the fact that LIFE IS WHAT IT IS and there is literally no way to defy the fact that our existene has no meaning whatsoever, and the only way to cope is to distract ourselves from the fact that it is just and empty void of time. All we can do is try to fill that void with things that make life seem okay, but, in reality, we will never succeed because in a void, things just fall through.

I wanted to escape
Because I didn't want to be the person I had made myself.
I wanted to disappear
Because I didn't want them to see that facade anymore.
I wanted to explore
Because I couldn't stand not knowing who I was.
I wanted to fly
Because I didn't want to go another day without feeling alive.

I wanted to travel
Because I thought it would be the same as vanishing for good.
Only, I realised, it would all happen the wrong way around.

If you walk out of someone's life,
They may cry from your loss,
Yet your pain grows with your existence.

So why is there no option
To let the pain subside
In the absence of tears?

Misery: n. a feeling of intense unhappiness.

I am alone and feel so very, very ill. I have not felt anything in a week. Rather than a new year and the successful completion of a diploma being a motivation to start afresh, a feel more stagnant than ever. I was once told that we are guaranteed of one thing in life: change. But in the past 5 years of my life, it has become increasingly apparent that we are not even guaranteed of this. Exactly what life is does not change. In a physical sense, it is merely time that we pass with any range of occupations. There is no spirtual meaning, for how could there be? We are products of science - mere mortals made up of tiny, little atoms. Life starts when we are born, and then proceeds as a ticking timer thats rings with our death as we are burnt to ashes and returned to the earth. I find myself, once again, toying with the thought of letting my timer ring early and putting myself out of this undue misery; unfortunately though, I am not even in control of this.

The passing of the beloved mother of my friend suddenly thrust the reality of death in my face. To lose someone so suddenly, so unexpectedly and so tragically made me realise I could never, ever inflict that sort of pain upon anyone that I love. I have expended so many tears in the past few days, for the pain of her death, for the numbness of my life, and above anything, the utter hopelessness of the fact that I have no choice but to stay here.

What life is doesn't change. An unmoved attitude after 5 years offers little prosperity. I am trapped right where I am. Will I honestly be miserable forever?

The higher you fly, the harder you fall.

There isn't any meaning and there never will be. It is that goddamn simple. Life is just time filled with things: things we enjoy and things we hate; emotions that make us, and emotions that ruin us; people who give us the delusion that we are not alone living a meaningless existence, and people who remind us that we don't have any reason to be here. There is nothing here. There is no reason that we are here nor is there a reason to stay here. We are an accumulation of particles occupying time and space - nothing more. Emotion and feeling are caused by chemicals in one's brain and our differences are not in our thoughts or behaviours, but our mere biology. We are so very complex, but in the end, we are, at the core of our existence, a product of science. Biology, physics and chemistry combine to make us: manufactured carbon robots. We see things and feel things, but nothing will change the fact that the period between our birth and death is insignificant, meaningless and will have no impact on the world. I will never truly be happy, nor will I make anyone truly happy. Perhaps some of us can justify our existence with a feeling of contentment, yet I am certain that I am eternally devoid of this delusional virtue.

Motivation: n. that which gives purpose and direction to behavior

I wonder if anyone has ever been surprised by me. It is no doubt that I regard myself as one of the most boring people on the planet -- I cannot stand me, so I highly doubt that anyone else could. No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you were awesome at _______!" No one has ever said, "Wow! I didn't know you had really good taste in _______!" No one has ever been surprised by my ability to do anything. I have friends who paint and sing and write and play instruments and photograph and listen to great music and are loved by any animal they meet. I don't think I have anything like that. I am good at school, and "well done, me!", I get lots of academic awards every year. But 1) Why couldn't I keep that up in the only year that counts?, 2) What sort of worthwhile skill is "being good at school"? And 3) It is neither exciting nor surprising. I set myself a precedent, and the only way I could surprise people was by failing the great expectation that they and I had placed upon myself.

I am so tired of living the life of a cliche. I am a cliche of myself. Even if I haven't, I feel like during high school I became a stereotype of myself, hence, to be "M." seemed to hold some mythical sort of meaning. And whether I am the only person that sees that, or feels like that, it doesn't really matter, because this image has influenced my life beyond belief.

It is difficult these days to even know what I want to do, because I cannot tell whether my motive is my own desire, or my desire to destroy this image. Why do I get drunk - because I want to have fun or because people expected better from me? Why do I want to travel next year - because I want to see the world or because people expect that I would go to uni? Why do I want to get a tattoo - because I want to remember something or because it would shock people? I don't even know my own motives anymore, because I am expending so much energy trying to break down something that I created, held onto, and now, desperately want to destroy.

OK.

I have only just come to realise the significance of two letters in the alphabet, which, when put together, side by side, form one of the most commonly used responses in the English language. OK. Although at first I saw this simply as a throw away line when mum would ask how school was or someone was explaining a concept that was not remotely interesting, as I have stopped to think about what it actually means and how many times it has appeared in my thoughts during my deepest and most desperate moments, it would seem that these two letters may have more serious connotations. For what does it mean to be OK? Okay means that we are coping; it means that even if things aren't at their most ideal, we are handling it and accepting it. Okay, to me, suggests a sense of deeper contemplation, and provides a satisfying answer often accompanied by a breath of relief. Okay suggests the worst is over.

For a perfectionist, however, okay is also a fine and delicate point that lies between order and catastrophe. After all, if something is not okay, then that is exactly what it is -- not okay. One cannot escape, one cannot breathe, one cannot be content with the current state of affairs. Hence, the incessant statements that appear in my mind -- I am okay, I am not okay, life is okay, life is not okay, things are okay, things are not okay -- have greater implications than the flippancy in which we use such an adjective would suggest. With this word balanced on such a fine line and being so closely related to one's ability to cope with a given situation, it feels on occasions, that simply being okay is the line that separates life and death. Am I being too dramatic? I have found myself saying lately that, even when bad things happen, all you can really do about it is find it within yourself to "be okay"; to find a way to deal with it. And that is it, because in the end, being "okay" is the only way we will ever get through all this. It is the only way we will stay alive through all this because we have to find a way to convince ourselves that it is all worth it, that we have a reason to keep going and that we can keep going.

For now, all I can do is take each day as it comes. As for today, today I am okay.

Flying.

I always find myself asking the question: Don't you wish the world would just stop? Well travel wil do that to a fair extent, won't it? I won't be on anyone else's terms or preoccupied with any real troubles. It will be an opportunity to enjoy myself, find myself and learn something that no uni degree will teach me. I hope more than anything that I will finally, FINALLY be free.

Finished: An afterthought.

I don't know how to write this. I don't know why I would bother writing this again, as I have written these words and made these complaints over a hundred times before. Only this time, one thing is different. This time, I have reached the other side and nothing has changed. I could complain all I liked before I finished school about the stress and how none of it was worth it, and all anyone could tell me was that things would be different when school was over. A week and two days after my final exam nothing has changed. I am still feeling this.

I cannot help feeling alone. In the company of close friends, in the company of more distant friends, I feel no sense of connection. I have spent a week being surrounded by people, yet much of the time all I wished was to be alone because at least then it would be normal for me to feel so lonely. I am so disconnected and isolated and I don't feel close to anyone. Yes, we all feel like this sometimes, but not now. This is not how I want to feel now, because it is exactly as I have felt for the past however many years of my life, and now all that is certain is that even on the other side of this long and arduous challenge, the grass is no greener. I have been holding out for a long time to feel good about myself, to feel good about life, to feel fucking good. Full stop.

I feel myself making plans to change my life and be a different person. But I know I will struggle to put these into action. I have no energy and I am so drained and after what has only been a week of freedom, I still feel like complete and utter shit. I don't know what I want to do next year, what I want to do in the future. I don't know anything. I have written lists of all the books I want to read and all the things I want to do: learn to surf, go horseriding, go skydiving, skinny dipping, camping, play soccer, cook, make clothes, do yoga, have a picnic, go iceskating, dancing, bowling, paintballing, go karting, shopping, go on a road trip, travel the world. But what if these are all empty aspirations? I am supposed to be in control, but I feel like I am not because I have lost hope for any prosperity or happiness in my life.

I don't know who I want to be, all I know is that I don't want to be me. I don't want to be who I am now. I can't be or I will just die. I want to start again, but I feel like it is too late. I am too rooted in these cognitions and in these bad habits that have overtaken and ruined my life. I just want to cry and die, I just want to feel something. I am so empty and just do not know what to do. I want to hurt myself and destroy myself, so I can break down everything that I have become - in my mind and in reality - and just rebuild. Restart, all over again.

I do not understand how some days I can have so much hope, and other days things just fall apart. Others may deny it, but, as I have said before, I believe the only way to be happy is to distract yourself from the fact that our lives our absolutely meaningless. Hence the list of extravagant things to do - there has to be something that I can do to make something out of my life, to use my life and to at least feel alive. But you know what? Even if I ever did achieve all these things - the big and small - I can see myself finally sitting down on the couch at the end of it all and feeling exactly as I do now.

Someone once told me that we are guaranteed of one thing in life - change. Well I hate to say it, but experience has proved quite the contrary. Indeed, I have learnt that some things never change. And if this is the case, then when do we say enough is enough?

An empty euphemism.

No one passes away.
Do not describe such grief and sadness
Like it just passes us by without
The deepest sense of loss.
We have all felt it,
And no combination of words could soften the blow.
Death knocks on all our doors and
Wakes us from a slumber devoid of consciousness.
For what was I preoccupied with?
Where sums, equations, studies and concepts
Once filled my brain, I am now
Empty.
None of it seems to matter anymore.
Eight years a friend, yet one minute you were here,
And the next you were gone.
Such parting, so untimely - you are gone too soon.
If I could see you one more time;
To hear you say "Honey" just once more
And just to say goodbye.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

~William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Food for thought.

“If you are born into the subculture of poverty, what do you inherit? Well, you inherit an economic condition, and you inherit a social and psychological condition... [One] inheritance is his inability to control impulse: he is present-time orientated and seldom defers gratification, never plans for the future, and endures his here and now with resignation and frustration…

"Now, I don’t want to idealise or romanticise the culture of poverty… But there are some positive aspects which we cannot overlook completely. Present-oriented living, for example, may sharpen one’s attitude for spontaneity and for excitement, for the appreciation of the sensual, for the indulgence of impulse; and these aptitudes are often blunted or muted in people like us who are middle-class and future-oriented…

"They have, in fact, no future. They have only today.”

~ Dodds, The Freedom of the City (Brian Friel)

I realise that we live in a society where it is essential to plan ahead to some extent. It may be considered advantageous to know what you would like to do with your life (even though I don't), to have goals and aspirations and to choose courses of action that will positively impact your future. But I hope that I have finally come to realise that to live in the present is more important than all of this; to live and be in the present is life. We cannot change what has happened. We do not own the future. Much of the future we have little control over. Dodds speaks of a culture of poverty and the life of the pauper - "they only have today" - but really, these words apply to all of us. We only have today.

Do not distress over what has been. Do not feel disappointed over things that have not yet happened. Do not be excited for an end that has not arrived yet. When I was told to "Focus on my current job" I now see why - because focussing on what has been and what is coming is a waste of where I am now. Do not mourn what has happened. Do not celebrate what has not. Just be - right here and right now.

“As we stood on the Guildhall steps, two thoughts raced through my mind: how seriously they took us, and how unpardonably casual we were about them”

~ Skinner, The Freedom of the City (Brian Friel)

A person who has always been quite practical, logical and mature, I would have generally considered myself as a serious person. Despite a vital and jovial side to me, I often found myself supressing this whilst in company and putting on that familiar, safe mask of composure. A friend of mine quoted this statement from our English text as we began our Year 12 exams, and she could not have been any more correct. Although I think she was referring to how seriously the exams were and how unprepared many of us felt for them (herself not included!), I have come to consider this quotation to reflect how seriously everyone around me views the results of these exams, and how impartial I have become towards them.

I used to laugh when someone called them the "November tests"; it seemed a little casual for my once perceived importance of them. But as someone who gave these exams more importance, focus and meaning than most people in my entire school, I think I have now come to view them with greater flippancy than many others - parents, teachers and fellow classmates.

Perhaps it's easier to downplay the importance of something when you haven't been as successful as you would have hoped, but even if this is the case, in a way I think I should be incredibly thankful that these November tests didn't go nearly as perfectly as I'd planned. Once again, living in the future had me stumped, and although I may not quite be sitting in the present at the moment, I am definitely getting there.

Initially the worst experience of my life, these exams have proved one of the greatest learning curves and most insightful lessons I could have ever learned.

Something really slapped me in the face in these few weeks and said, "If you're going to base the whole value of your education, your level of intellect and your self-worth on 4 digits and a decimal point, your a fucking idiot."

To be nobody but yourself
in a world which is doing its best,
night and day,
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight,
and never stop fighting.
~ E.E. Cummings

Books to read.

The exams finish on November 18 and the wisdom teeth come out on December 16. No more needs to be said - apart from catching up on a year worth of socialising - there is a long list of movies to watch, TV shows to catch up on and books to read.

Shall I begin?

Candide (Voltaire)
The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
South (Ernest Shackleton)
The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedman)
The Graduate (Charles Webb)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Only Forward (Michael Marshall Smith)
The Catcher and the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
The War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells)
American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis)
The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R Tolkien)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Around the World in 80 Days (Jules Verne)
Through the Looking Glass & What Alic Found There (Lewis Carroll)
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinback)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

A hint of realism.

Over halfway, woohoo! English was shithouse - today and yesterday.. But I think I'm okay with that. In the end I think you kind of just have to laugh at the shit essay topics you get given, the stupid meanings you interpret from a poem and the fact that some people are so bold as to tell you how well they went when they know you did shit. In the end I think you just have to find a way to be okay with it.

It is frustrating that I know I have written some brilliant practice commentaries and essays in the past 2 weeks, and 2 years for that matter - some of my best - which feel like they have all gone to waste. But I guess that they themselves are something to be proud of - I guess I can just come away from that knowing that I can write - well - but today, that exam, just wasn't my day. They're all just variables that you can't control. And as I've been told - that's just the way the shitty education system is. In the end, it is what it is, and you just have to find a way to deal with it. Whether that is by trying to do what I am doing now and downplay the significance of it all or some other way, I don't think it matters. You've just got to learn to be okay with it, regardless.

Perhaps doing shit (at least in my eyes) will be a blessing because I will finally learn to appreciate myself for who I am, not what I achieve, and not worry about what others think of me. I have a quote written up on my wall that says, "Your reputation is what you're perceived to be. Your character is who you really are" and maybe this - just like the previous disappointments this year - will finally engrain these ideals into my head.

Honestly, I can't even beat myself up that much with the "not doing enough study excuse" in the past few days, because really, much of what I have stuffed up were things out of my control - I didn't really understand the poem, I cracked under pressure in maths, and I didn't pay attention to the one tiny sentence in the Enviro textbook that said how the destruction of ozone layer was an example of positive feedback. I can't change anything, and I am in control of very little. And everything that has already happened - that, I have no control over.

Perhaps I am making excuses for myself, but I think at least this is bringing me closer to having a more objective and realistic view on what I can take out of these exams and what the results really say about me as a person. And realistically, that is very little, apart from the fact that at the end of all this, those results will say that I made it through these two years and came out on the other side.

Without trying to be too ambitious, maybe this lense of warped perception is fading faster than I had initially imagined.. :)

You can spend, minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months over-analyzing a situation - trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened - or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.

You'll never change what's been and gone...

Hold up... hold on... don't be scared
You'll never change what's been and gone
May your smile... Shine on... Don't be scared
Your destiny may keep you warm.

Cos all of the stars are fading away
Just try not to worry you'll see them some day
Take what you need and be on your way
And stop crying your heart out

Get up... Come on... why you scared
You'll never change what been and gone

~Oasis

Crash & Burn

Perhaps these are the words that we need to utter to ourselves every once in a while. As lame as it may sound, maybe when we feel completely alone we should start by cutting ourselves some slack and being our own friend first...

When you feel all alone
And the world has turned it's back on you
Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart
I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you
It's hard to find relieve and people can be so cold
When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore

Let me be the one you call
If you jump I'll break your fall
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night
If you need to fall apart
I can mend a broken heart
If you need to crash then crash and burn
You're not alone

When you feel all alone
And a loyal friend is hard to find
You're caught in a one way street
With the monsters in your head
When hopes and dreams are far away and
You feel like you can't face they day

Let me be the one you call
If you jump I'll break your fall
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night
If you need to fall apart
I can mend a broken heart
If you need to crash then crash and burn
You're not alone

Because there has always been heartache and pain
And when it's over you'll breathe again
You'll breath again

When you feel all alone
And the world has turned its back on you
Give me a moment please
To tame your wild wild heart

Let me be the one you call
If you jump I'll break your fall
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night
If you need to fall apart
I can mend a broken heart
If you need to crash then crash and burn
You're not alone

~Darren Hayes & Daniel Johns

A bit of inspiration?

You have a choice. To live or to die. Every second is a choice. Every breath is a choice. To be or not to be.
~Chuck Palahniuk

A minority of people succeed in life, because as people are faced with a hurdle, with a challenge, they back down and withdraw. These hurdles are defeatable. Do not be the person that didn't reach their potential because they shyed away from the challenge. Be the proud and successful person who struggled, embraced it and overcame it to reach the ultimate goal. Do not stop at the hurdles, but find the strength to jump over them.
~M.

Time and time again, you have reached the light at the end of the tunnel. You have faced adversity on countless occasions and pulled through. Just remember, no matter how hard things get, no matter how dim that light is and no matter how far away it seems, it is always there; it never ceases to exist. Shit happens, and shit passes. Just keep pushing through, remembering the gasp of air that awaits you at the end.
~M.

What are you worth? What am I worth?

Why is it that I must punish myself incessantly?

Why can I not just give myself a break?

I remember reading once a comment on the back of a toilet cubicle, abusing someone who had replied rather harshly and insensitively to a note that someone else had written saying they wanted to kill themself. This person had written, "...How could you say that? You are the lowest form of life, kicking someone while they are down..."

How true this is, and how much can I apply this to myself.

I am down and I am hurting. I never remember struggling so much in my life as I am now, yet in every possible way I seem to be abusing myself and only making things even harder to cope with. Why dwell on everything that I can't change? Why fucking look up what I was supposed to write in my commentary when I can't change it now? Why punch my fist against my palm pointlessly? Why, why, why...

I would never get away with treating anyone else like this.

If I treated anyone else as badly as I treat myself I wouldn't have a friend in the world. So why can I see the best in others and only see the worst in me? How do I get away with loving and respecting others yet reducing myself to nothing?

I am a terrible, terrible person,

But only to myself.

I guess I forgot to consider how much reality could differ from my hopes and expectations. Once viewed upon as a conquest to triumph, these exams have become the final hill of a marathon that I can spare no more energy towards. Once thinking that they would be a place for me to achieve, to give my all and take away something to be proud of, they have become a mere struggle for survival. There is no energy left to give. There is no more effort that can be exerted. There is certainly nothing to be proud of.

Right now I just want to make it through. Right now, that is enough.

In a month and a half, looking at that sheet, looking back...

Then, there will be nothing but regret.

Through every dark night...

"Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that. No matter how hard it gets, stick your chest out, keep ya head up... and handle it."
~Tupac

Fuck.

FUCK THIS. FUCK THIS, FUCK THIS, FUCK THIS, FUCK THIS, FUCK THIS. No amount of cursing, no number of capital letters and no group of words even comes close to describing the anger and frustration I feel at everything right now. Talking to people does not make anything better. I hate myself for not being able to get over myself. It frustrates me that no one else can understand, but good for them, at least they don't have to go through it too. I hate that my emotions cannot follow any sort of consistency. I just want someone to hold me in their arms, I just want to break down and cry an ocean of tears into their shoulder. I want to cry until there is not a remnant of water left in my body, and then shrivel up and disappear. Fuck this, man, seriously. Fuck it all.

Facade: n. A showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant.

A definition could not be so true or better suited: "A showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant." How perfectly these eight words describe my entire schooling life. How perfectly they describe me.

"Showy"
Well I guess any attempt to conceal the truth has to be so exaggerated and flamboyant to be believable, and I think I did a pretty good job. If people had really thought about it, surely they would have realised that this sort of life wasn't really that of a person, but more a robot. Or maybe that is me just getting angry at myself for putting on such a good show that everyone did fall for it. Junior School Leader, lead role in the Year 7 musical, numerous academic awards, Social Justice representative, First Teams in every sport, Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholar, Captain and B&F for Netball - twice, debator, musician, State League netballer, and School fucking Captain. Is that not complete and utter insanity? And why do I not see these as achievements to be proud of? Because they all form part of this act that I have come to hate myself for. And could this act have been much more "showy" as the definition states? Well actually, it could. But now, without triple honours and with a rapidly decreasing ENTER score, perhaps I will not only learn the best lessons of my life, but also break out of this superficial performance.

"Misrepresentation"
So if all of this was a misrepresentation, then who am I really? I don't even know, and I guess that's half the problem. All I know is that I fooled people pretty damn well. At one stage, it was killing me how many times I would hear, "I wish I were you," only to think to myself, "You have no fucking idea." Yet as the facade began to break down, I would panic and quickly gather up the pieces and try and repair it. Why? Maybe because it was what I had come to know and feel comfort with. It was safe and it was secure. It sheilded what I was scared of people finding out, even though I didn't quite know what that was. It was nice to be praised, loved and admired, yet at the same time I paid a heavy price appearing to be this image and suppressing all my emotions and self-destruction underneath. I hated people for not knowing how hard things were and not helping or being there, but instead, "wishing they were me" when they had no clue what that even meant. All of it was a lie, my show was a lovable, perfect and enviable young woman, yet everything that brewed below the surface was the polar opposite.

"Conceal"
So what exactly was it that I trying to conceal? That I had no personality? That I was suffering, in pain, hurt? That I hated myself? Or that I couldn't cope with my pathetic excuse of a life and simply wanted to die? Beneath a confident exterior I was still a shy and self-conscious little girl, yearning for some level of self-acceptance. I was scared of exposing weakness, scared of letting people down, scared of being vulnerable. And honestly, I still am. I have been lost and confused for so long, and somewhere along the way, I seemed to have missed the "coping skills" or "resilience" lesson in my life. Nothing went wrong in my life. Nothing. I just went wrong. Feeling like my life was worth nothing, being nobody and not being okay with that - that is what I was trying to conceal. And what better way than to distract everyone with an almost flawless overachiever - while in the meantime, whoever and whatever I really was just wiltered away.

"Something unpleasant"
Yes it was, is and has been. Right now, where I am, I feel like these have been some of the worst years of my life. This year, certainly, has been the worst year of my life. And in a way, this offers one of the best rewards - what I will have learnt and what I will have achieved. Because in a year, 5 years, 10 years - whenever - I know I will look back at this and say, "I can't believe I got through all that". And right now, these exams, this pressure, this stress and this emotion is one of the worst, most upsetting and most dragged out things I have ever done in my life. It is merely beyond words, so I won't even try. But as they say, if you're going through hell, keep going.

The facade will fall away soon enough - I know it already is, and although part of me wants to hold onto it, in the end I know it will be for the best. At the moment, I am not free, but I will be so soon. It is almost over, and I cannot thank my friends - above all, Nom Nom and Katie Lou - for getting me through this - you don't know how much you have done for me, and I honestly thank you so much and so sincerely for always being there at the end of the phone or the receiving end of a much-needed hug. And Kim, counsellor and friend, well, even though you'll never see this, thank you for everything. For the few tragic lives that may have been lost in your time, I can promise you that you have saved a lot more.

As for me, well, when it's all over I will finally have the freedom to find myself, discover what it is I'm looking for and I will have so much to be proud of - none of this academic crap, but the simple fact that I made it through.

Now, go out there, M. Put on a brave face and finish off what you started.

Glass half empty.

Why is it so much easier to see the worst in myself than the best? Why must I be blind to any merits or good doings that I am acknowledged for?

The problem with being a perfectionist is that the picture is not even that of being a glass half full or a glass half empty. It is a matter of a glass being full, or a glass being not full. There is no middle ground - if the glass if 95% full, this is still insufficient.

Just like 95.00 seems like such a god damn disappointment. You know, someone pointed out to me that, as terrifying as such a score might be, that would still put you in the top 5% of the state - so since when was that not good enough? Well, since always.

I do not remember when I was suddenly struck with such a distorted perception of the world, or when I became so self-critical, but somewhere along the way, some cognitions lined up in such a way that it has been years since I have been able to see the world clearly. So long, in fact, that I do not even remember not feeling like this.

When will this distorted lense of warped perception disappear? When will I ever see things objectively, and when will I ever appreciate myself? So many questions, and so few answers.

Our deepest fear...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

~Nelson Mandela

Right now.

Right now, I really just need someone to tell me that I'm okay. Years and years of my own abuse and my own self-hatred - promising myself that things will be different in the future. That things will change once I reach the other side? But where is the other side? When is it?

Right now, I need someone to tell that I am beautiful. That they can look at me and smile. I need someone to reassure me that one day, somewhere, someone will fall in love with this monster. Someone needs to tell me that it's okay to want to lose 10 kilos, but even if I didn't, they would still look at me with just as much love and respect.

Right now, I need someone to tell me that I am interesting. That I am "cool" in one way or another or that there is something about me that makes me special or unique. I wish that someone could look me in the eye and honestly tell me that my words are worth listening to or that they value me as a person. And why. Some sort of reassurance that I am not that socially retarded or that I am not pedantic and wound up by the stupidest little things. Although to that, perhaps I would just say, "You don't really know me."

Right now, I need someone who will tell me that I am a good person. That they know I have good intentions and that I am worthy of love from others. That perhaps I could make a difference.

Right now, I need someone to tell me that things are going to turn out okay. That I will get through this. That one day, one day soon, I will be happy and life will stop being such a chore. That I won't feeling like crying all the time and that things won't be such a struggle for no good reason.

Right now I need all of this from someone else, because quite simply, I cannot give it to me. Right now, I need to believe it.
Right now, though, I don't think anyone is listening...

Maturity: n. The state or quality of being mature.

Someone very recently told me: "Maturity is being able to force yourself to do something you don't want to do to the best of your ability when it is required of you". For now, we just have to suck it up. It is the blood that a doctor has to look past, the vomit in the bed that the parent has to clean up, and right now, for me, it is the mountain of work that I must conquer in the next few weeks.

Time to be practical. This, my friends, is my job for the next few weeks.

It isn't forever. The end is so near that it is almost teasing me. I can see it. I can feel it. Hang in there... just a little longer...

Adios amigos.

I am the worst at making the best of bad times. I am probably the best at making the worst of good times too. But every time we are faced with a challenge, we must ask ourselves, what can I gain from this?

From netball: I will make new friends, I am given a fantastic opportunity to be a leader, I will have a new coach, I will have an amazing season and the ability to dominate.

From school: I will have overcome one of the greatest challenges of my entire life, I will be proud that I made it through, I will settle my nerves before exams and I might even enjoy learning.

When you land yourself in a shit place, look around you, recognise and acknowledge where you are, and back away. You will end up there - this is inevitable - but you have the power to pull yourseld out of it. See the positives.

Just do it.

M for magician.

I know you're worried about me, I just wish I could tell you that none of it is your fault. It is not your fault that I hate myself. It is not your fault I am scared. It is not your fault that I cannot see any prosperity in my future. If I could be granted one wish right now it would be to fade away quietly without a fuss. To be able to end this all without any commotion. To cease existing without all the pain of loss. To just succeed in a disappearing act and for life to go on as if I had never walked on the earth. I wish the reality was not that ending this would inflict irreparable damage upon my friends and family. Perhaps I should regard myself as compassionate to simply bear this pain instead of watching others feel it for me. But how long will it be before I start to do things for my own reasons, not for those of others? I wish, I wish, I wish...

As for happiness, for that, I have given up on wishing...

Have you ever passed 18 years of your life and wondered, "What the fuck just happened?"?

It feels like yet another failure.
I wonder when I will be able to open my eyes and see the world
Clearly again.
How many blows must I take before I become stronger?
When will this stop feeling like it's just getting longer?
Tears again.
The familiarity of stinging eyes again makes me at home.
Alone.
Hope is lost all over again, and I just become weaker.
The future is bleak.
This has reached its peak.

Yet again, like my dreams of change and aspirations of happiness,

It fades into nothingness.

Don't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

~Unknown

Ctrl + N

Do you ever just want to start your life all over again? To forget the past, to forget everything that you have been, everything you have done, and just start afresh?

I do.

Right now, I want more than anything to escape the grind. Not just because I am entering what is possibly one of the most stressful experiences of my life, but because I simply hate being who I am and want to start over. I have been upset for so long, hurt for so long, struggling for so long I feel that the only way any of this will ever change is if I simply forget everything that has ever happened to me and everything I have ever been.

No more perceptions of me being perfect. No more negative thoughts. No more netball. No more attention-seeking antics. No more over-eating. No more emptiness. No more conformity. No more excuses. No more me.

I have not been myself for a long time - I don't know who I am because I have stopped trying to be this person that I hate. Yet in the meantime, I do not like this person that I have become any more than that. I just want to leave. All I want to do is leave everything and everyone and simply be alone somewhere for a while where I can figure out who I am and what the hell I am doing here. To read about the world and life. To discover nature. To find myself.

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.
~Alice in Wonderland

Undeviginti

The one question that I often find undermines my very existence is that of the meaning of our lives: what are we doing here? Whether at the age of 15, the age of 30 or even when we hit the big 5-0, every one of us, at some stage in our lives, will be faced with this question. It is a window that, once opened, allows for no going back; once you have asked this question, the search begins. As I have personally experienced, this can be a real challenge - trying to find one's meaning in the middle of high school is a difficult task, but at the same time, it leads to empowerment. The problem is when this question becomes central to our lives, and instead of it acting as a journey through which we explore different pathways, passions and possibilities, it becomes a struggle that undermines our existence. After persevering through the perils of this question for what has literally been years, I think I have finally come to a conclusion. And this conclusion is that we must simply have faith.

There are many things we cannot control in life - when we fall in love, when we meet our dream job - and finding our meaning is also one of these. I think I set my hopes on expecting someone to relay my own purpose to me, only to realise that everyone's purpose is different. Therefore it is only through self-discovery that one will ever find this.

However, if it is not in our power to determine when we discover the answers to these questions, then what are we expected to do in the meantime? As much as I may struggle to find meaning in it, I believe it is to simply have fun. To enjoy yourself. To try out a whole range of different pathways until one really clicks. And how much fun this could be! To be dragged down by the thought that our lives have no meaning is ridiculous - why does this thought merit any more worth than the simple pleasures of life? Because for now, while we are still searching, that has to be enough, and in the end, it is likely that we will derive an element of our own meaning from these simplicities.

What's more, we cannot let our expectations exceed beyond us when we try to find our meaning in life. We cannot build our lives around this seemingly pivotal discovery, or we are simply reducing the complexity of life to something that does not encapsulate everything that humans are. Humans love, humans laugh, humans cry, humans care for each other. There are more turning points in life than simply finding your reason for being here. Yes, this plays a large role - one of the biggest in our entire lives - yet human life is not this one dimensional. What about the development of relationships? What about the significance of falling in love? Finding you passions? Having children? Watching friends get married and have children? Travelling? Helping others? Broadening our perception of the world?

What about the pleasure and satisfaction we gain from these things?

And viewing bright city lights on a dark night; breathing in night air; winning a netball final; sitting in the sun; singing to music; baking chocolate cakes before training; laughing with friends. The little things.

We are young. We are always young, and there is always time. Things will work out in their own time, and the key is for us to have faith in this fact. Until then, let us take meaning from the simple pleasures - cherish relationships and enjoy all the wrong pathways that we will travel down as part of our journey of self-discovery.

Enjoy being 18.

Again...

The only way to be happy is to simply mask the truth that life sucks and that our lives have no meaning. No matter how many good times or how many bad times, our lives are hollow. Maybe it's easier to convince yourself to bother sticking around if the good ones outweigh the bad, but it doesn't change the fact that we have no purpose and we are simply another organism that is made up of atoms just floating in space.

I do not know how I will ever stop caring about what other people think of me; it is not like I haven't said to myself before "Just ignore it" or "Who cares what other people think?" - for goodness sakes, one of my life ideals for years has been Dr. Seuss' "Be who you are and say what you feel because those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind". Off by heart, I know the philosophy. Yet knowing isn't doing? Knowledge is not power until you are successful in acting on it. Caring an obscene amount about what other people think will ruin my life. I know that, because it affects me in so many different ways already. I always thought it was one of those things that diminished with maturity, but now it just seems like an embedded part of my personality.

La crême de la crême: It will ALWAYS be such a goddamn effort to be happy, why should I keep on trying? Perhaps you don't agree with my deterministic viewpoint - kudos to you for having a glass half full attitude on the matter. But not only have I read it, but it is evidenced by life itself: the way we are is a result of nature via nurture. Things happen to us throughout life, but we have some sort of genetic predisposition that determines what these experiences mean to us and how we innately react to them. The funny thing is, I don't think I am like either of my parents. I think there is some similarity between me and my sister, but what happened in all of this? Did we just get some fucked up set of genes. Because I honestly feel like that; I got given so, so, so much - everything that everyone is so jealous of me for - yet there are so many others whom I would trade places with in an instant just because I would so much rather be inside their head. People who are okay with themselves, people who either know what their purpose is, or conversely, don't care. People who are funny, who love life. People who are happy. You rave about how interesting I am all the time, yet one of the primary reasons I fucking hate myself so much is because I am so goddamn boring. You always speak of how intelligent I am, but I struggle to find proof for this in anything. You say that I'm beautiful, yet these days I can' stand to look at myself in the mirror. I am not unique and I am not special.

It all seems so logical, and hey it is probably that twisted type of logic that I have made such a bad habit of, but can you see what I'm getting at? With any of it? The best way to be happy comes with not thinking and being distracted because life does not have a meaning… How will I ever stop caring about what other people think of me, because it is not something you can just will away… and why should I keep trying to make things better when it feels like I am innately predisposed to not be happy - like a magnet is continually pulling me back to what is "natural"?

But you see, you have me trapped again. Because as the quote says, "You have a choice. Live or die". Ultimately, there is only one choice; to live. I wish it could be over and I wish I didn't have to go through this anymore because I am just so tired of feeling like I am never making any progress, even if I am. I am sick and tired of the way that I view the world, of my so goddamn pessimistic attitude, for being so fucking self-centred and everything about me that makes life such a fucking arduous task. I hate my temperament, I hate that I can't sustain any one emotion for more than 5 minutes. I hate my stubborn thought that it will never change, yet I see a world of truth in it.